4/5 stars
We know from the description that Olivia falls and is brain dead and pregnant and her mom wants to know what happened the night she fell and if she was pushed. I stayed up way past my bedtime to find out what happened that night!
This book is fast-paced, with hooks at the end of chapters to make you want to read the next chapter. I don’t like thrillers where you feel that these things could never happen in real life, this book was not like that. Everything in this book seemed plausible, like it really could happen. I also really liked that there were so many different possibilities and what happened was not revealed until the end.
This was Christina McDonald’s first novel, but it really does not read like a first novel. It reads as though the writer has a lot of experience knowing what works and what doesn’t and how to hook readers.
As the mom of two teen daughters, the thing I did not like about this novel was that the mom didn’t really know her daughter as well as she thought she did. That made me look hard at my girls and my relationship with them and whether or not I know them well. They have both just started college and that is a big adjustment with the possibility of new friends and new situations and I just hope they make good choices.
I would like to thank Netgalley and Gallery Books for my copy of this arc in exchange for my honest review.
From the Publisher:
Description
A search for the truth. A lifetime of lies.
In the small hours of the morning, Abi Knight is startled awake by the phone call no mother ever wants to get: her teenage daughter Olivia has fallen off a bridge. Not only is Olivia brain dead, she’s pregnant and must remain on life support to keep her baby alive. And then Abi sees the angry bruises circling Olivia’s wrists.
When the police unexpectedly rule Olivia’s fall an accident, Abi decides to find out what really happened that night. Heartbroken and grieving, she unravels the threads of her daughter’s life. Was Olivia’s fall an accident? Or something far more sinister?
Christina McDonald weaves a suspenseful and heartwrenching tale of hidden relationships, devastating lies, and the power of a mother’s love. With flashbacks of Olivia’s own resolve to uncover family secrets, this taut and emotional novel asks: how well do you know your children? And how well do they know you?