This book was too much of a downer for me. The characters were unlikeable which made it are to feel invested in the overall story. Thank you, NetGalley.

I Dreamed of Falling is a slow, dark story. The characters are slow to develop and the premise feels like a dimly lit room that is difficult to see clearly. I struggled with finishing the book despite wanting to know how life evolves for the sad cast.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read this ARC.

I love a good mystery with believable characters you grow to care about. I've found that a lot of mystery thrillers these days rely heavily on ridiculous twists, but that was not the case with this book. This novel is both a mystery and a deep and emotional exploration of love, loss, and the messy complexities of human relationships. If you're in the mood for a gripping mystery that will also tug at your heartstrings, this is the book for you.

Set in a small Hudson Valley town, the story focuses primarily on Roman Grady and his mother, Tara, as they navigate the aftermath of Roman's girlfriend/partner Ashley's tragic death. The two have been together since high school. They love each other deeply but have always had an open relationship because that worked for them. The two even share a four-year-old son together, a son that Tara has treated as her own since the day he was born.

When Roman comes home to find that Ashley has been missing since the night before, he soon learns that her body was discovered at the base of a cliff. Was she pushed? Was she high and fell? At first, all signs point to the latter, but the more Roman and the police dig, the more they realize someone may have killed her, and the deeper Roman digs, the more he learns not only about Ashley and her friends but several others in his small town as well. As Roman and his mother delve deeper into Ashley's life, they uncover painful truths that also force them to confront their own missteps in life.

I was completely engrossed in this book from the very first page and was captivated until the very end. One of the most compelling aspects of this book was the relatable characters that Dahl crafted. They are richly drawn and flawed in all the best ways, making them feel like real people you might meet in your everyday life. Roman, in particular, is a haunted and compelling protagonist whose quest for the truth is as much about unraveling his own past as it is about finding justice for Ashley. I was so deeply invested in this family that I often had to remind myself that it was just a book.

While the book is primarily a murder mystery, it's also a complex family drama with a sense of hope and redemption that runs throughout the novel. The scenes with Roman and Ashley's son dealing with the fact that his mother will never come home had me all kinds of teary. I also loved watching Tara and Roman confront their pasts and work out their long-held animosity while searching for the truth behind Ashley's death. And let me tell you, that ending? I did not see it coming at all!

Overall, I found this book to be a wonderful blend of crime fiction and family drama that drew me in from the very first page. If you love a good murder mystery with complex family dynamics, I would highly recommend this one. This is a must-read for anyone who loves a good mystery with profound emotional depth that keeps you engaged until the very end.

I think the cover of this book depicted the suspense and psychologically thrilling elements of the plot. I found the short chapters to be refreshing and I enjoyed the dialogue between characters feeling very natural.

DNF. Everyone in this book is already so messy, Roman asks too many questions, he's too demanding, I don't care about any of the characters so far, the death of Ashley was predictable, the character relationships are confusing, too much talk of alcohol and drugs for my liking

First off, thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for my ARC!

This is my first book by this author, and while I didn’t love it, I will definitely check out others written by her,

This book started off strong (it does list a lot of names at first and after a couple chapters I had to go back a re-read the prologue to figure out who was who). Roman stumbles upon his girlfriend/mother of his child dead and is set to figure out what happened. I love a good murder mystery but this one felt so political to me for some reason. Possibly the mention of covid approximately a hundred times throughout the book. Reading is my mental getaway and reading about covid is the last thing I’m looking for in a book.
Also it may sound petty but everyone kept calling the kid & each other “mister” in basically every conversation and it was super overdone. I ended up skimming about 50%-75% range because I was kinda over it and wanted to know how it ended.

Overall I give 3 ⭐️

Roman is a journalist in a small town and writes about newsworthy events, like the opening of stores. When his long term partner, Ashley, is found dead, he has questions about her recent life and answers he wants from the town.

This story was the epitome of a small town mystery. You get a small cast of main characters, several secondary characters, and a town that all knows each other and each others business. I really wanted to know what happened to Ashley. This is one of those mysteries where the event happens in the very beginning, so you don’t get to know the victim will. The reader gets to know everyone whose life she had affected. I did not see the ending and conclusion coming at all.

“He’d literally watched this story on Investigation Discovery. More than once. It was so f*cking seedy. And now it was his life.”

I Dreamed of Falling comes out 9/17.

I love Julia Dahl. I requested this book directly from the publisher in a long winded email about how much I love Julia and her previous novel. I had such high hopes for this novel...and it did not disappoint. I DEVOURED it. I didn't want to go into work because I wanted to finish reading. I couldn't stop thinking about it. And though it's been a few months since I finished, I still find myself thinking about it.

I couldn't recommend this novel more.

Thank you St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of I Dreamed of Falling in exchange for my honest review and opinion.

I Dreamed of Falling had an amazing premise. The MC was sympathetic, and his sons mother was unpredictable and unreliable. There were more than enough questionable characters to keep you guessing. This story had a lot of moving parts and while the pacing was a little slow, I do feel all of it came together in the end.

This was just okay for me. I struggled to connect with the characters much.

About 20% in, I was annoyed at the frequency of the references to Covid. At the time, they didn't add anything meaningful to the story. As the story developed, Covid definitely played a small part in the plot to show some of the fallout from dealing with a pandemic in physical, mental and financial ways. But this really only contributed marginally to the overall plot and the incredibly frequent mentions throughout the rest of the story by comparison to its relevance only continued to annoy me.

The writing is a bit flat in my opinion, possibly an attempt at being gritty. While the plot drew me in, the plot moved pretty slowly for the majority of the book, picking up in the final 25% of the book. Because of the writing style, the characters came across as two-dimensional and I struggled to connect with the them. Combined with the slow-moving plot, there wasn't much holding my interest throughout the majority of the book, and I actually put it down and read a couple others while I took a break from this one.

I also found it weird that we kept getting a dead woman's perspective. It made sense in the prologue, but it was a bit strange to me to keep getting her perspective throughout the story. The author used the dead woman's POV to progress the plot and illustrate the scene for the reader, which it did. However, I think it would have been better handled if her POV was given and found to be discovered as a diary by Roman or Tara later in the story that they then used to help piece together missing bits of what happened.

I almost feel like this book was trying to accomplish too many things and succeeded at few of them. There's social and political commentary about corruption and people using their power and influence to manipulate people into pursuing their own agendas. It also takes a shot at biased reporting and a lack of free press, the repercussions of a global pandemic, and the difficulty of family relationships. It tried to do all of this while also attempting to be a didn't-see-that-coming mystery, which while plausible felt like a cop-out.

I will say it was interesting seeing the author explore the open-relationship concept, how it worked for the characters and how it could work as a motive for murder. Also, when the story picked up finally, it was pretty good, it just was too little too late.

Ultimately, I found the premise interesting but the execution let me down.

Mild spoilers ahead!

I felt like I was in a dream while reading this book. The way this book handled time was not my favorite because I never knew whether we were in the past or present. I also had a hard time getting into this book because most of the characters were unlikable to a degree except for Mason.

The mystery was well thought out! I really wasn’t expecting who the killer was. But I felt bad for Roman and Mason. They were robbed, in my opinion.

What a ride! This book hits you with intense emotion from the start and never lets up. Julia Dahl masterfully immerses you in the characters' emotions, making you both love and hate them at different points. The story is a roller coaster of secrets and potential motives, and I can honestly say the identity of the killer took me completely by surprise.

🤔 T R O U B L I N G T U E S D A Y review 🤔 featuring “I Dreamed of Falling” by Julia Dahl!

BOOK REVIEW: 🖤🖤🖤/5

Roman Grady is the solo news reporter in a small town in Hudson Valley where he scrambles to find stories worth reporting on. That is of course until the news hits too close to home for him: Roman’s girlfriend and mother of his child Ashley is found dead in a ravine!

Ashley’s death leads to an emotional unravelling of secrets and Roman soon discovers that there was a lot about Ashley that he didn’t know. Roman decides to take matters into his own hands and starts his own investigation into Ashley’s death and the secrets belonging to his family, friends and community members.

Although this book is a slow burn, the spiralling sequence of secrets and never ending motives had me guessing whodunit throughout!

Thank you kindly to @msjuliadahl @minotaur_books @stmartinspress @netgalley for my advanced #gifted digital copy in exchange for my honest review! This book releases on September 17, 2024!

I had a sneak peek of I Dreamed of Falling and was HOOKED after a couple chapters, so I was super excited to get access to the full novel a couple weeks later!

Roman and Ashley had been together since high school - even through long distances and seeing a few other people. Roman spent the night in the city and was surprised and confused to find out Ashley never came home the night before. As Roman and his mom, Tara, try to make sense of life without Ashley, they begin to dig deeper into what Ashley had been up to, leading to that fateful night. With each step closer to understanding, they found more and more confusing information about Ashley’s life - leading them to question everything.

Thank you to @netgalley for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.

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An unconventional family, self-absorbed characters, a death, bribery, secrets, behind the scenes manipulation and corruption. As you can tell there is a lot going on in this book. So much so I was not sure I would like with its slow pace and unlikeable characters, especially the over protective grandmother, but eventually the plot picked up and the surprise ending wrapped up the plot nicely. Thank you Netgalley and St. Martins Publishing/ Minotaur Books for an early copy. This review is my honest opinion.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
Expected publication date: Sept. 17, 2024
Roman Grady and his partner, Ashley, are trying their best to raise their young son in the small Hudson Valley town where Roman is the sole newspaper reporter. When Ashley’s body is found, lying broken on a cliff face, on the property of her former friend, Bella, the police have a lot of questions that Roman doesn’t have answers to. What was Ashley doing at Bella’s the night she was killed, considering the two have been out of touch for years? Why did she have drugs in her pocket? As the investigation continues, and the secrets continue to pile up, Roman begins to wonder if he knew his partner at all.
“I Dreamed of Falling” by journalist and author Julia Dahl is a suspenseful murder-mystery set in a small town where everyone has secrets. There are a lot of twists and turns in this novel, and a lot of possible suspects among the large suspect pool, so “Falling” is one of those novels where you need to pay attention to every detail. The number of characters alone can be overwhelming at first, but the mystery surrounding Ashley’s death is so intriguing, you can’t help but turn the pages at a rapid-fire pace.
The first chapter starts with Ashley’s body being found, so we only know Ashley’s side of the story from snippets in the novel where she is telling her tale (possibly a journal entry? Or post-humously? Not really sure, but it’s definitely an important component that couldn’t be ignored). Both Ashley and Roman are young parents with faults, as they both admit throughout the novel, but they have a strong desire to do right by their son, and their honest portrayal of parenting is refreshing. The complicated in-law relationship Ashley had with Roman’s mother, Tara, was emotional and tense and I was back and forth as to whether I liked Tara or not (which was intentional on Dahl’s part). Is she simply being a caring grandmother? Or a controlling, manipulating in-law from Hell?
It wasn’t until the final few pages of the novel where the actual suspect became clear, and although I had a tiny inkling throughout, “Falling” is written in such a way that any of the characters could easily have been at the centre of the murder, and it would’ve been believable. “Falling” is my first novel by Dahl, (although her Rebekah Roberts novel, “The Invisible City”, was award-winning, I have not had the chance to enjoy it- yet) and I was both intrigued and entertained. I am always on the lookout for new authors to enjoy, and Dahl has made this ever-growing list!

Big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me early access to this thriller. I love me and thriller and this book did not disappoint. It kept me on my toes the whole time.

This book didn't grab my attention in the beginning and I just gave up on it. DNF. Unfortunately the characters felt rather dull and predictable. I found the setting depressing and overdone.

Roman and Ashley have been together forever. They have a son named Mason and live with Roman's mother and her fiance. But then one night Ashley does not come home. Her body is found at the home of her ex-best friend. Was it an accident or did one of her many secrets get her killer?
I really enjoyed how the investigation unfolded. It was slow moving at first, but once I got further into the story I loved where the direction of the book took. The readers learn some secrets and some motive that really push the story forward.
However, I found the main characters really unlikable, so I really struggled with reading this book. I found them obnoxious and hard to relate to and understand.
A good bit of the book was trying to show the readers who these people are and what their family is like. I wish this was a smaller part - a much smaller part. It wasn't until the end the real crime investigation takes off and the book gets so much more entertaining and intense.

This book was a very interesting read for me.. I definitely wanted to keep reading to figure it all out.. The ending was shocking but played out very well.

Thank you to NetGalley for my advance reeder copy in exchange for my honest opinion.