Christina McDonald's The Night Olivia Fell tells the intertwining stories of Abi and Olivia Knight, mother and daughter, after Olivia is injured in an accident, leaving her brain dead. Abi must piece together just what happened to her daughter that fateful night. In the meantime, flashbacks take us from earlier in Olivia's life to just what got her to that point. From the beginning it's clear that the police aren't going to be of any help and Abi finds that if she wants to know what happened to her daughter, she has to find the answers herself, along with the help of a - cute! - victim's advocate from the Seattle Police Department.

A quick, vaguely funny aside before we dive into the review. When I'm reading a book for review, I make a point of holding off reading any and all promotional materials until after I've completed reading the book. My goal is to keep my thoughts my own and focus on the story itself rather than how others want me to think. About 10% into the book I was scratching my head trying to figure out what book this reminded me of so much. To the point where I ended up scrolling through my past books on GoodReads - which, lets be real, is a lot of books to scroll through - and there it was Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight. This being the very same book that the promotional material invokes.

The structure of this story truly is very evocative of Reconstructing Amelia, in which a seemingly perfect daughter dies and a mother, who believed they were very close, must find out what happened. Both stories are interspersed with the events of the daughter's life before and the mother's life afterwards.

The Night Olivia Fell is heartbreaking from the start, with Olivia's accident leaving her brain dead. This is compounded by her mother finding out Olivia was pregnant, and due to Washington State Law, the hospital must due everything it can to save the life of the baby, including keeping Olivia on life support for 3+ months. McDonald is able to take us through Abi's stages of grief in a realistic way that the confusion and anger and doubts Abi feels make a logical sort of sense, especially as she starts to figure out what's going on.

Now, for my continued use of italics on accident, because lets be real, from the very first moment (literally, prologue here), it's very clear this is no accident. Just as clear as it is to Abi that it couldn't be. How would someone get a band of bruises around their wrist from an accident? The fun in McDonald's writing comes from this continual whodunit feeling, as well as the numerous possible perpetrators she tucks throughout. Is it the self-centered cruel best friend, is it the baby's unknown father, is it the newly found sister? So many options! Still, though, there's always this feeling of something more to come.

The thing I find difficult about the whole book, is that the entire story relies on the premise of Abi lying completely to her daughter regarding her father, an old summer fling, and Olivia not once directly asking her mother the obvious question once she's started figuring things out. Olivia goes to every person but the one person who could tell her the truth. I know in real life people make strange decisions, but it left things feeling just a bit flimsy.

Overall, the writing is good, I looked forward to each new step taken and clue found by Abi. However, I was a bit turned off by the Olivia segments, partly for the above, but also, they didn't quite have the heart of the Abi moments. It felt like we were pushing through Olivia's last months to get clues that Abi wouldn't know, without quite the pay off of this style story structure. I think I would've been more interested to hear everything from Abi's point of view after Olivia fell than Olivia's before. And yes, they do say "the night Olivia fell" throughout the book, as if "fell" is the best description for what happened - which I guess it is.

I loved this book! It was a really well-written, fast-paced read. I loved the alternating perspectives between mother (Abi) and daughter (Olivia), and I was dying to figure out who was responsible for Olivia’s fall because there were SO many people with possible motives throughout the book as each layer of the story was slowly unpeeled. Can’t wait to read more from this author!

The Night Olivia Fell is the debut work from author Christina McDonald and I have to say, this being a debut makes me excited to see what’s in store for us in the future from Ms. McDonald because this story was fantastic.

I have to start out by saying this genre is quickly becoming one of my go-to’s when I’m looking for something outside of romance. This story had me glued to every page, dying to solve the mystery of what happened to Olivia. The author did a fabulous job leading us down the path to unraveling the mystery behind Olivia’s accident.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the dual POV’s and the story being told from both Abi and Olivia’s eyes. The other layer of this book was the emotion weaved through it. At the end of the day, it’s a single mother’s quest to find out what happened to her only child and how they got to be where they were. That added so much to this story and made it so much more than a “whodunnit” book.

Thank you, Ms. McDonald, for a thrilling read I won’t soon forget!

This arc was provided to me for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars

Abi Knight gets the phone call that no parent ever wants to get, her daughter Olivia has been in an accident and is brain dead and pregnant. When Abi discovers bruises on her daughter she realizes this was no accident. When the cops won’t investigate, Abi takes matters into her own hands.

This story was incredibly emotional, the power of a mothers love is so strong. And the author really captures it. One of the best aspects of this book was the alternating POV’s. We get both past and present (Olivia and Abi) into what happened and what lead to that moment on the bridge. It really pulled the entire storyline together and made it much more captivating.

There is something about thrillers that makes me sit down and devour them. They always capture my interest right away. The Night Oliva Fell was no different, I was hooked from the very first page. But some of the storylines, I didn’t like as much. Often enough some plots gave me soap opera vibes which can be a bit annoying. It made some of the story more predictable. But overall it wasn’t a bad book.

Christina McDonald knows how to keep you pull you into a story. Those first chapters were amazing and honestly, I look forward to reading more from her. This book may have not been my cup of tea but I did enjoy most of it. If you love a good emotional thriller than I definitely recommend you gives this one a go.

I found myself really struggling to get into this book. The second half of the book seemed to pick up to me and become more intense as the lies tangled up and became webs that the characters couldn't get out of, but I almost gave up during the beginning before I got there.

Abigail Knight got the middle of the night phone call no parent wants to receive - "This is Portage Point Hospital. It's about your daughter, Olivia. I'm afraid there's been an accident."

Abi rushes to the hospital to be faced with terrible news. Olivia was found at the bottom of an embankment near ZigZag bridge. She sustained severe head trauma and permanent and irreversible brain damage. Her little girl was gone. Could there be anything worse?

Abi is shocked to learn that there is more. Olivia had secrets that she can not fathom. Her teenage daughter in all essence lay dead in a hospital bed, surrounded by bags and pumps breathing for her. Not because there was any chance of waking her up, it was solely to give the baby she was carrying a chance at survival. Faced with insurmountable grief, shock and emotion Abi reaches for her daughter's hand and notices something wrong. The silver charm bracelet Olivia always wore was gone. In it's place were finger mark like bruises.

Abi tries to make sense of the situation when things simply don't add up. In her heart she knows someone hurt Olivia. Yet the local police seem more than willing to brush it off and rule it an accident. Needing to know what really happened the night Olivia fell, she begins to unravel the secrets of her daughter's life trying to piece together what happened that night herself.

The story unfolds via two alternating point of views - that of Abi in the present and flashbacks of Olivia's past. I couldn't help but get pulled in by Abi's pain and grief and her desire to protect her child, even in death. The more Abi searches the more secrets she is faced with, including those from her own past which she has tried desperately to hide.

The mother-daughter relationship was very well developed. We get to see it from both Abi and Olivia's point of view and it definitely tugged at my heartstrings. I felt for Olivia whose life was cut short when there was so much ahead of her. Although I figured out what happened to Olivia it didn't take anything away from how I felt about the story. For me, it was a plausible and well developed scenario - not something that came out of left field. The ending left me feeling both sad and content and definitely looking forward to more from Christina McDonald.

Thank you Gallery Books and NetGalley for the ARC.

Loved this book!!!

I really enjoyed this book. The suspense of what happened to Olivia plus the heartbreak hr mother faces as she searches for the the truth about her daughter. It hooked me from the beginning and I finished in one day. I definitely will be looking forward to for more from this author!

Abi Knight is awakened in the middle of the night by a phone call informing her that her only daughter has fallen off a bridge. When Abi arrives at the hospital, she is informed that Olivia is brain dead and pregnant. Abi finds clues which leads her to believe her daughter did not just fall from the bridge. She moves heaven and earth to discover exactly what happened the night Olivia fell.

There is so much I want to say about Abi. First off, her emotions radiate off the pages. I was trapped by her feelings. Her hurt and her anger are such powerful forces. She is the perfect, imperfect character. When she is mean to her sister…I wanted to pinch her…HARD. But, she is such a splendid fit for this story.

This story follows two time lines, before the fall and after. It also has two narrators, Abi and Olivia. Think it is going to be confusing? No way! It is so superbly written with so many twists and turns. I must have guessed the perpetrator 10 times.

What a read! This book captured me from the get go! It is masterfully done with some of the best complex characters I have read about in a long time. Do not miss this one! Grab it today!

I received this novel from Gallery Books via Netgalley for a honest review.

As a mother searches for the truth about what happened to her daughter, the reader is instantly dragged in. The lies are never ending and it is fun to try to figure out the truth. Fans of psychological thrillers will not be disappointed

The Night Olivia Fell is a twisty, fast-paced thriller that asks how well we really know those closest to us. The blurb compares it to Kimberly McCreight's Reconstructing Amelia, a book I read and loved back in 2013. For the most part, I agree with the comparison, but The Night Olivia Fell contains a few flaws not present in the other book.

Abby and Olivia are as close as any mother and daughter can hope to be. Abby's a single mom who has done everything in her power to give seventeen-year-old Olivia a stable and happy life, and she's pretty sure she's succeeded. Olivia is intelligent, well-mannered, and ambitious, the kind of girl who doesn't break the rules and rarely gives her mother reason to worry. But then, Abby is awakened one night by a call from the local police, a call that alerts her to the fact that Olivia has been keeping some devastating secrets, secrets that have apparently caused her to throw herself off a bridge. Now, Olivia is brain-dead and pregnant, and Abby is left with all manner of questions.

At first, Abby can't get past her grief. For seventeen years, it's been just the two of them against the world, and she can't begin to imagine what her life will be like without Olivia in it. Fortunately, Abby is a pretty practical person and it's not long before she begins searching for the truth behind what happened to Olivia. Who is the father of Olivia's unborn child, and is he somehow linked to Olivia's death?

Abby expects the police to be actively looking for answers, but the detectives in charge of the investigation are convinced Olivia committed suicide. Abby admits this is possible, but something about it doesn't feel right to her, and she begs the detectives to dig a little deeper. When they still seem reluctant, Abby decides to take matters into her own hands, and she begins doing everything she can to reconstruct the last several months of her beloved daughter's life.

The story alternates between Abby's perspective in the present and Olivia's in the past. I was pleased Ms. McDonald chose to tell the story in this way as it allowed me to get to know Olivia as the person she actually was rather than the one her mother wanted her to be. I would have found it difficult to connect with Olivia's character if I had only seen her through Abby's eyes, and I'm not sure the story would have been nearly as compelling had it been told another way.

I found both Abby and Olivia to be authentic and relatable. They're both keeping some pretty big secrets from one another, and there were times I wished they'd call a halt to all the drama and just have an honest conversation. Of course, that's not how things go in these types of books since honest discussions aren't nearly as interesting as deceptions and lies!

I loved almost everything about this book, and in fact, I would have given it a higher grade if not for rather large problem having to do with the villain. I don't like it when authors create two-dimensional characters, and this is especially true for antagonists. I want them to have interesting, dynamic reasons for the bad things they do, but Ms. McDonald doesn't manage to pull that off. The villain in this story comes across as kind of cartoonish, and I struggled to take him seriously. Unfortunately, this affected my ability to fully buy into the novel's conclusion. I was super invested in the story up until about the eighty percent mark, but when the villain's true motives were revealed, things fell a little flat.

Having said that, there is still a lot to like about The Night Olivia Fell, especially if you aren't as picky about your villains as I am. Ms. McDonald definitely knows how to spin an engrossing tale, and I'd certainly be willing to give another one of her books a try in the future.

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Fast-paced, easy to read, NEEDED to find out what happened next. Great for a quick but emotional read!

I liked The Night Olivia Fell. It is a little different from other mystery stories I have read recently. There is the combination did Olivia fall or was she pushed. Then there is the "why is there a girl that looks identical to me" story-line. Does lying ever turn out for the best? This story explores that question. If you are looking for a quick enjoyable read give this one a try.

I really enjoyed this book! I've been trying to decide how I want to describe it for the last couple of days and I think this is what I'll say: The Night Olivia Fell is not quite an intense thriller, but it's definitely not a simple mystery or "who done it?". From the very beginning you know that Olivia fell, but you don't know how or why. Many of the twists were predictable because of foreshadowing, but it felt satisfying to see it coming and be correct with my guesses. I loved the writing and felt like I really got to know Olivia and her Mom.

I'm excited to read more books by Christina McDonald in the future.

I really enjoyed this and would recommend to my friends. Well written and being a suspense, hard to pinpoint who the "bad guy" was until the very end.

One of the best books I have read. The Night Olivia Fell is an outstanding and compelling book that is rich on many levels. I loved Christina McDonald's writing.

Abi got the call that most mothers would dread. It had come from the hospital, informing her that her daughter Olivia, had been in an accident. Rushed into surgery, Abi discovers that her daughter will never wake up from the surgery. This accident has caused permanent brain damage. Olivia’s body will be dependent forever upon tubes and machines to keep it alive.

Abi wants to know who did this to her daughter. Someone had to push her daughter and cause her to fall, but who? Abi recalls that Olivia had not been acting like herself lately but Abi hadn’t stopped to ask her daughter any questions. Abi mentions allowing Olivia to be organ donor but that is denied when the doctor explains that he discovered that Olivia is pregnant.

So, who did it and why? The answer isn’t easy. As Abi begins to investigate, she discovers that Olivia was doing some investigating of her own before this incident. Olivia had discovered a secret that Abi had been keeping from her and Olivia had been making great strides in her investigation. Forced now to confront her past, Abi’s journey to find the truth behind what happened to her daughter just got complicated.

I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley and Gallery Books in exchange for an honest review.

The Night Olivia Fell by Christina McDonald is one of those books that you know is going to be great right from the moment you pick it up. When I first started reading the story, I came to realize that this book is so much more than just “great.” It is undeniably extraordinary. McDonald is such a talented and gifted writer and it shows page after page. Her writing flows so effortlessly and so beautifully, capturing every heartbreaking moment and I soon found myself in tears. This book is so much more than just a mother/daughter relationship. It encompasses forgiveness, grief, understanding, determination and learning to say goodbye to the past and to the present. This is without a doubt one of my top reads of 2019.

I am not a parent, but I do have two younger sisters and there is a 20 year gap between us. I can’t ever imagine getting a call in the middle of the night with such devastating news such as the one Abi Knight receives about her daughter. Upon arriving at the hospital, Abi soon learns that her daughter, Olivia, is brain dead and also pregnant. What happened to her daughter and how did she fall off of the bridge and why are there bruises on her wrists? When the police stop looking for answers, Abi will do everything in her power to find out what happened to Olivia.

Alternating between dual perspectives between Abi in the present and Olivia in the past really gives you insight into both characters. I can see how Abi has devoted her life to her daughter, almost to the detriment of herself. With that being said, I can also see how Abi’s past influenced how she raised Olivia and why she is so protective of her. Abi is such a complex character and and McDonald really peels back the layers as we get a deeper look into Abi’s character and slowly we can see, that in the time of a tragedy there can also be growth.

Olivia is a normal teenager, despite her mother’s over protectiveness. She has good friends, a boyfriend, and gets straight A’s in school. But, something is missing in her life. There is a secret her mother is keeping from her and Olivia is determined to find out the truth. I found Olivia to be pretty easy to fall in love with. Once again, McDonald has written a well fleshed out character, one we can love and also feel pain for. Her story is so heart wrenching.

There is something important that I have taken away from this story and also it lends a bit of foreshadowing to the mystery surrounding Olivia’s fall. What is more important - happiness or the truth? The statement is so subtle, yet it really drives home the premise of the story. These two simple terms are weaved so expertly throughout the story and it leads you to wonder what is more important. Does the truth really set you free?

The mystery surrounding Olivia’s fall is intense and gripping and yet so subtle and not in your face like most thrillers. I easily found myself immersed in this domestic thriller as I tried to piece together what happened to Olivia. There are multiple characters I kept going back and forth on and I can honestly say, McDonald did such a fantastic job at keeping me guessing all the way through.

The Night Olivia Fell is an emotionally heartbreaking and yet, in a way, also an uplifting story about love, loss and finding yourself in times of tragedy. Christina McDonald is a power player in the genre and her writing proves just how brilliantly something so subtly written can have such a huge impact. I see nothing but great things ahead of McDonald and she has truly turned me into a huge fan. I cannot recommend this book Highly enough.

Thank you for letting me read this book early! I really enjoyed this book, the depth of the characters and I really could not figure out who did that to Olivia.

Abi gets the news that every parent fears to receive, an accident has left her daughter brain dead. She also finds out that her daughter is pregnant. In the hospital they cannot terminate the pregnancy so her daughter Olivia will remain on life support until she can give birth.

This gives Abi enough time to try and find out what happened to her daughter. With many suspects including the girl who look uncannily like her, the threatening pictures found on her phone, the father of the baby, and her boyfriend or is it ex-boyfriend. Lots of mystery and intrigue in this story that keeps it moving at a fast pace.

Hey guys! So, full disclosure, I'm writing this review almost ten plus days after finishing this novel because I was an emotional wreck afterwards. I cried for almost a full twenty minutes, it was such a heartwarming, sad, and emotional ending to a really incredible journey.

The Night Olivia Fell is written very differently than any other thriller I think I've ever read. I've come to notice that thrillers or mysteries are heavily carried upon narration and description, but this one was propelled almost entirely by dialogue. It was fast paced and a much quicker read than other thrillers I've read in the past, and I really enjoyed that about it. It wasn't hard to follow at all, I never got lost or confused, and I found myself flipping pages quickly and long into the night.

It flips back and forth between present day, Abi's point of view, and past, Olivia's point of view. I enjoyed both POV's equally and loved watching the story unfold through both mother and daughter. It was heartbreaking as hell though because the whole time you're racing to find out answers and find out what happens you know Olivia isn't going to make it to the end of the book. You're reading all her parts of the story and you're getting to know her and like her but the whole time you're so sad about it because you know what happens to her, it's part of what makes this book so absolutely heartbreaking.

This reminded me so much of those old school Lifetime movies I would watch with my mom on the weekends where a woman's child would be in danger and she would do whatever she had to do to save them. Although this book wrecked me emotionally I did really enjoy reading it; I thought it was incredibly well written, well plotted, had realistic characters, and had all the twists and turns and shock factors I was looking for in a thriller.

This novel was an absolute fantastic debut and I can't wait to see what else the author comes up with! This will release on Tuesday, so if you're into thrillers, or even new to the genre, I highly suggest you check it out!