5 Stars!

It reminded be that the first hour of every new days stars with darkness - and then the sunshine comes


Abi Knight wakes up during the night to a phone call that something has happened to her daughter. Olivia is at the hospital. Abi rushes there and finds out her daughter is brain dead and also pregnant. Abi notices some fowl play and it determined to find out what happened. The police seem to think her fall was just an accident and try to silence the case. However, Abi needs to find out what happened to her daughter.

Olivia is a normal teenage girl. She has her girl friends and her BFF Madison. She also has her football playing boyfriend but Olivia never feels like it's all quite right. Olivia has never had her Dad in her life because her mom made up a lie about him to push away the conversation. One day Olivia is on a school trip visiting a college and she sees a girl who looks identical to her. They get to talking and it sparks Olivia's interest. Could this be my sister, twin, or is this just a coincidence? From there, Olivia starts to do research and finds out much more than she was hoping for...

This book was so good! I went into it thinking that I had heard similar stories before and it's true, there were similar stories. I also had an idea of what happened to Olivia. The part that really got my was the last few chapters. This book is written in the exact voice real life Moms and Daughters. You go through the typical mother/daughter relationship and I could even point out times when it triggered memories of when I was in high school.

The chapters switch off between Olivia and Abi. Olivia's starts prior to her fall and Abi's chapters start when she finds out about her accident. At the end, the timelines meet up. I personally enjoyed the chapters this way because it kept me guessing at each of Olivia's chapters but Abi's chapters gave me a little bit more information each time.

I just adored this book. It's more of a suspense then a thriller but has thriller elements. It's also heartfelt and inspirational at times. All the emotions and I love when a book makes me feel all types of ways! I will definitely be reading more Christina McDonald in the future!

Thank you to Gallery Books for my copy of this book!

Christina McDonald has done a wonderful job writing a book that keeps your write at the edge of your seat. This is the story of a teenager, Olivia, is found with sever brain damage and is suspected to have fallen off a bridge. Olivia's character is developed through out the story as readers learn all about the events that lead to the fall. This is also the story of Olivia's mother, Abi, and her journey to uncover what really happened to her daughter. This story is filled with twist and turns and had me always wanting to read one more page.

The Night Olivia Fell is the debut novel from Christina McDonald. This multi-layered story has it all: intrigue, a strong but complex mother-daughter relationship, teenage romance (and friendship drama), and a roller coaster of emotion that as a parent, left me sort of dazed.

There's a LOT to unpack in this book. And as we go through the story, there is suspicion everywhere... it turns out Olivia's life was not all as it seemed on the surface, and several things were going on that may have given people a reason to be angry with her... and therefore, maybe a motive to harm her.

As we meet the characters and learn more about the relationships each of them had with Olivia, I found myself considering the motives of each. I had strong hunches at several different points throughout the book... almost all of which turned out wrong! (Oops.)

One of the things that I think added to this novel was the dual point-of view, alternating between Olivia (starting about six months before her death and bringing us up to that fateful night) and Abi (both in the present and the past). I don't always love multiple POV in books; sometimes it just adds unnecessary confusion. But here it really works, because it reveals additional layers of the story and lets events unfold at a good pace.

At the close of the book, as all is revealed, it was heartbreaking to learn what transpired on the night that Olivia fell. There was no shocking plot twist (as in, say, Gone Girl), but enough pieces kept being added that I was still guessing until shortly before the end. And the scene in which Abi finally says goodbye to her daughter is so emotional and heartfelt.

This was a well written book and I look forward to reading more from this author!

This is a mystery about what happened and who is to blame for teenager Olivia's life threatening fall. It is told from the points of view of Olivia and her mother, Abi and takes the reader back and forth in time until the mystery is solved. After her fall, Olivia is kept on life support because she is pregnant and they are trying to keep her alive until the baby can be born.

This was a quick read and the mother and Olivia's boyfriend, Derek, were likable, but I could have done without the exclamation points; they seemed unnecessary. I also felt like some of the characters were one-dimensional. I wish I could have liked this more than I did. It needed more meat.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

Gonna be honest - I didn’t make it very far before giving up on this book. And by not very far, I mean chapter two. So here’s my beef: EVERYTHING doesn’t need to be vividly described! Seemed like every other word was an adjective which really slowed down the actual story. Do we really need to know the hospital meeting room smelled like floral potpourri? Are you really noticing the gold flecks in someone’s eyes while you’re waiting to hear if your child is alive?
Although I found it obvious and distracting, I was planning on powering through, if for no other reason, to give a fair review. Then I read the first few words of the beginning of chapter two - “The yellow school bus...”. Do they come in other colors? Does it matter?!
I was done.

Thank you to Gallery Book and NetGalley for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was very sad to me; while not a whole lot of plot twists - you can pretty much see what is coming - what happens to Olivia and the decisions that her mother has to make, are devastating.

Good read, but sad.

When it was all said and done, I liked this book, and so I will score it 3.5 stars out of five. That being said, there were a few times in the first third of the book where I felt frustrated- with the writing, with the characters. It was too, I don't know, simpering for me at times. But over time the story and suspense picked up and either it got better or I overlooked it more. Either way, I was definitely fully in and wanting to see how the book would conclude and I was satisfied with the ending.

A mother willing to go to the ends of the world for her daughter, even though her daughter is brain dead, pregnant, and going to die. I think many mothers (and fathers) would feel the same way. The need to know why she ended up the way she is becomes so strong that it takes on its own life.

Abi finds help in Anthony and starts asking questions, following leads, and making waves with people who’d rather be left out of the entire thing. There were times that I wondered if Abi had bitten off more than she could handle but she was so strong, so determined, and so unwilling to be pushed off the trail. I loved that she didn’t give up, she didn’t let it go, and she didn’t take everyone for their word. She questioned, she pushed, and she pulled at each small hint of what happen and was soon unraveling the entire story. I wondered if I could be so strong when facing the loss of my daughter and hoped that I would never have to find out.

Christina McDonald did an amazing job of keeping the teenagers as teenagers. They hid things from their parents, gossiped about each other to their friends, snuck out and misbehaved just as real teenagers did. Yes, some of the teenagers were mean people but that is the high school life and I loved that she didn’t make them all pretty and perfect. The adults in the story were also real. They were wanting to protect their kids, themselves, and distance themselves from the horror of having a brain dead, pregnant daughter.

This is a great book. I picked it up, kept going back to it, and even now after finishing it I can’t let it go. I continue to think about the story, wonder how many parents have found themselves in similar positions and thankful that my teenagers are healthy, happy, and alive.

Christina MacDonald’s The Night Olivia Fell is a riveting story about a single mother and her daughter and how secrets and lies can have devastating results. Everyone becomes suspect. Whom can you trust? How do you keep a loved one safe? These questions and more are explored.

This book was a classic thriller, and I loved it for that. I didn’t see the end twist coming directly, and some of the journey was pretty heart breaking (like the revelations in the later chapters that you knew Olivia never got to tell her mom, and that her mom never got to tell her). I can see why this book is getting so much hype!

Let me just say, this books totally lived up to its hype! Christina McDonald's The Night Olivia Fell is a past-paced, thriller that keeps you wondering who you can trust and who is lying to your face. I was unable to put this down until I knew exactly what happened to Olivia!

This story is about a single mother, Abi Knight, and her daughter, Olivia and how one day their lives coming crashing apart. One night the phone rings and a Abi's worst nightmare begins.

“Hello, is this Abagail Knight?” The voice —a man’s—was low and tight, coiled like a viper about to strike. “Yes.” “This is Portage Point Hospital. It’s about your daughter, Olivia. I’m afraid there’s been an accident.” 

When Abi arrives at the hospital, the doctor tells her that Olivia has brain damage and will never be able to wake up. But they have to keep her alive because she is pregnant! This devastates Abi, but it gives her time that she needs to figure out what truly happened to her daughter. 

What I truly appreciated about McDonald's book is the story being told from both perspectives, both from Olivia and Abi. From flashbacks of Olivia and chapters from Abi on her goal to discover the truth. 

Throughout reading this book, I was cautious of every character, dissecting their language and wondering if we could trust them.  This is brilliantly done by McDonald, with her ability to blanket the tension and suspense throughout her writing. 

I don't want to spoil this ending so I won't give this away, but you really will not see this ending coming. It was both moving and a stunning finale to many of its characters. I didn't think I would enjoy a book about a loving mom searching for answers, toxic relationships or even the investigation for her daughter, but it was so unbelievably captivating. 

I couldn't put this book down and I know this story will stay with me for a long time, in both a good way, but even a terrifying way too! I’m excited to read more from Christina McDonald! 

Thank you NetGalley, Christina McDonald, and Gallery Books for my copy of The Night Olivia Fell in exchange for an honest review.

Abigail (Abi) Knight has just been awakened by a call from the hospital saying her 17-year-old daughter, Olivia, has been in an accident. Abi learns that she had suffered a blow to her head and fell into some water. She is now brain dead but on life support because she’s pregnant. They hope the baby will continue to grow. Seeing Olivia so still in the hospital bed, she notices her bracelet that she always wore is missing and purple bruises line her wrist in its place.

Olivia had recently gone to the nearby University of Washington on a school bus with her friend, Madison, and her boyfriend, Tyler, along with other classmates interested in attending the college in another year. There, she sees a girl from another school who looks exactly like her. They chat and Olivia learns the girl’s name is Kendall Montgomery.

Abi is a single mother who never married Olivia’s father. Abi claims that he died just before she learned she was pregnant. Abi’s own mother committed suicide when she was small leaving Abi’s sister, Sarah, to raise her. Abi has a good job as an accountant and has always been very close with Olivia. Even though she doesn’t seem to get much help from the police, she is determined to find out what happened that night.

We learn more about Olivia’s friends and how it all builds to a stunning climax. This is a really good thriller and an even better heartbreaking story of a mother’s love for her daughter. Don’t miss it. This one is a keeper.

Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The writing for this thriller was quite simplistic (I’m not saying this is a bad thing, quite contrary), and suits the mystery, as you don’t want the plot to get sidetracked by flowery prose. Instead, the writing was taunt and there was a never-ending mix of twists and turns at every corner. I can forgive the fact that the daughter was pregnant (as it seems like it needed to be a plot device to keep the daughter on life support throughout the whole investigation due to the baby), but it always seems like whenever a daughter is keeping secrets from an overprotective parent it means that they’re either doing drugs or pregnant so it can get a bit cliché.

There were a lot of characters in the book, and since many of them were unreliable or keeping secrets, that means that every person was a suspect until proven innocent. Although I had guessed who had pushed Olivia over the bridge long before it was revealed, I still found the book very enjoyable. Since this was more of a domestic thriller, there wasn’t the sort of urgency you’d see in another type of thriller (as in there was no serial killer on the loose and no one was trying to actively STOP Abi from investigating in any real threatening way).

But I appreciated how the book explored a mother-daughter dynamic that was both asphyxiating as it was tender and loving. We find out in the book exactly why Abi was such an overprotective parent, but how that behaviour is what led to a series of events to occur in Olivia’s life that ultimately led to her falling from the bridge.

I was satisfied with the end, although the epilogue veered towards a Lifetime movie ending of sorts, it had a lot of heart and soul that sucker punched even the most cynical of readers into wishing that Olivia could’ve survived her fatal fall.

The Night Olivia Fell is filled with emotion, mostly of the heartbreaking kind, and it is an interesting read, but there are some lags in the story. There is a mystery, but I would consider this one more domestic drama than suspense as Abi deals with the shock of losing her daughter while also learning that she's going to be a grandmother. On top of that, she's rather closed off to most people and afraid of letting anyone in, so there's that to overcome too. On the mystery side of this one, the author does give us more than enough plausible suspects to keep us guessing, but most are a little too out there. In fact, it began to feel like almost everyone in Olivia's life had some reason to kill her - not all of them were logical reasons, but reasons just the same.The answer to who and even why was pretty clear early in the book, so the big reveal wasn't a big surprise for me. While this story is a little too predictable for my taste, the writing is good and the author shows talent. I'll be interested to see where she goes from here.

Thank you Gallery Books and Netgalley for a copy of the eARC in exchange for a fair review.


Abi is woken up by a phone call to tell her that her daughter has been in an accident. Abi is stunned when she arrives at the hospital to find that Olivia is brain dead and on life support. Olivia had fallen off a bridge, but Abi is really thrown when they tell her that they can't take her off life support because she is pregnant.


Now Abi, is determined to figure out what happened to Olivia. But she can't seem to get help from the police, and all of Olivia's friends seem to be hiding things. Will she ever figure it out? Who is the father of her baby? Why was she out that night? What else was Olivia hiding?


The blurb says for fans Reconstructing Amelia. I have to admit they are similar. Some differences, but told in a similar manner. We get alternating viewpoints, one is Olivia and the other Abi. One is clearly the present and the other is telling from Olivia's POV all the events that led up that night.

I couldn't stop reading it, and I will fully admit that I was crying at the end. It was one that I really hated that there couldn't be a better ending, but in it's own way it was still a beautiful ending.


I have to say that while I did guess what happened, I only guessed shortly before the reveal. I guessed wrong at least twice before. I loved Abi, and I totally really loved the fact that I could feel the love between mother and daughter. It is part of what made me cry at the end. As a parent I completely connected with Abi, and how she felt, and everything she went through. So if you are a parent and read this be prepared for all the feels.

This book was just okay, like my 2 star rating indicates. With the cover looking like a Ruth Ware novel, I thought I'd like this one based on that visual alone, but the teenage angst, clunky dialogue and Hallmark movie channel story line just wasn't my thing.
On a positive note, I thought the writing was excellent when setting a scene, and read like a movie script.
I have a feeling I will be in the minority on this one.

Thank you so much to Gallery Books and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I have nothing but great things to say about this book. This was an excellent book from a debut author and I enjoyed every minute of it. I sincerely hope she has more works planned for the future because this was excellent!

Abi is startled awake by the phone ringing in the middle of the night and she immediately knows something is wrong. They tell her her daughter Olivia has been in an accident and is in the hospital. Abi rushes to get there and finds out that her daughter is in a coma and essentially brain dead, she had fallen off of a bridge and the injuries were extreme. The doctors tell her the only reason they're keeping her on life support is because Olivia is pregnant, which Abi had no idea about. As Abi starts to look into this "accident" more she wonders not only what happened to Olivia on that bridge, who was she there with and who is the father of her unborn grandchild?

This was such an emotional story and I loved reading it. It had plenty of suspense and a great twist that I didn't even see coming. I loved how the story shifted between Abi in the present day and Olivia in the past before the accident happened so you got a picture of everything that happened prior to Olivia falling off the bridge. I loved how through the whole book you're introduced to new characters and you're wondering along with Abi whether they had something to do with Olivia's accident or not.

Excellent, excellent book and Christina McDonald did a great job for her first book!

The Night Olivia fell is an awesome book! I read this book in one sitting. I thoroughly enjoyed this suspense novel – knowing the Olivia was brain dead at the beginning helped ease some of the pain of finding out what happened to her (I am a big crier).

Abi wakes to a phone call telling her that her daughter, Olivia, has been in an accident. However, when Abi arrives at the hospital and sees her daughter, she finds that the information she receives doesn't seem to add up with how her daughter looks. As only a parent can do, she starts on a mission to find out the truth, although thwarted many times, she refuses to give up, even when it means confronting the pain from her past.

The “flashbacks” from Olivia’s perspective gave the book a well rounded out feel and completed the story, as well as Abi’s memories from the past. The cast of supporting characters were well thought out and each really enhanced the story. I had several theories that keep changing as I read further and further in the book, and none of them turned out to be correct – which is awesome and a little disappointing at the same time! I love it when a book keeps me guessing until the very end!

Congratulations on a wonderful novel Christina!

I really enjoyed this book, but I think I would have liked it more if it had been marketed as a young adult mystery/suspense novel rather than adult. I think part of the reason I felt this way was because half the book was narrated by Olivia, a teenager, and the mystery surrounding her fall was full of typical teenage angst and drama. Some of this drama lead to subtle red herrings that fooled me into thinking I could guess who the killer was more than once.

This was a heavily character-driven mystery; most of the teenage characters were well-developed and complex. Madison's snarkiness and impulsive anger reminded me of a girl I knew in high school, and Kendall's instability reminded me of a different girl I knew in high school. However, I thought the adult characters could have all used some more development. Abi was immature and impulsive, Gavin was one-dimensional and an amalgam of politician stereotypes, and it felt like Sarah's only purpose was to throw in the story of Abi's terrible childhood, which also could have used some work.

Overall, the writing was solid, especially in the Olivia-narrated chapters, the story was suspenseful, and the pace perfect. I wasn't able to guess the ending, which made me like the book a lot more. I felt that some of the red herrings were introduced and dismissed far too quickly, but that's something that I can see the author improving on in her next book. The characters and some of the backstories could have also used some more work, but I think Christina McDonald has great potential and I'm looking forward to her next book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Gallery Books for a free advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for the chance to read this ARC.

I don't think I've ever had a book move me to tears, but the ending of this did just that.

I chose this book because I love suspenseful books. This book was more than that. Told from two viewpoints, Abi and Olivia. Sixteen year old Olivia has fallen and now she's on life support with no brain activity. Olivia is also pregnant.

We follow Abi, Olivia's mother, as she pieces together how Olivia could have fallen. Police say she committed suicide, but Abi's motherly instincts are telling her that's not what happened. Could it be Olivia's boyfriend Tyler? Her best friend Madison who she was in a fight with? Or could it be Olivia's father? The man who Abi desperately and fiercely kept away from Olivia for their own protection. Or could Olivia have been desperate to leave this world behind?

We also follow Olivia in the months leading up to the night she fell. She's met a girl who looks exactly like her at a University visit. Could this girl be her stepsister? Could her dad still be alive? Why would her mom lie to her? Why is her mom so strict? This one chance encounter begins a series of lies and omissions that take on a life of their own. Then she finds out that she's pregnant and she begins to understand why her mom is the way she is. Olivia's torn between to guys, a friend who is making her life miserable at school, and a mother who has lied to her her entire life about her dad. But is this all enough to maker her step off that bridge to end her own life?

Overall this book wasn't as suspenseful as I suspected. I wasn't on the edge of my seat to find out what happened. But it was a great book nonetheless, if not better. It has left me deeply thinking about what it means to be a mother and friend. Bringing new life into the world is an amazing feat, but I couldn't imagine not being able to be there to do it. I also could never imagine having to watch my own daughter be on life support so that the baby inside of her could grow. I'm not sure to what lengths I would go to find out the truth about her either.

Well done Christina McDonald.