5 shinning stars!!!!!
A gripping and emotional story told from two alternating perspectives: Abi’s narrative is told in a present day, after the accident (or not an accident??) in which her daughter Olivia falls from a bridge and becomes brain dead. Abi not only has to face the horrible news of her daughter’s accident but she also finds out that Olivia is pregnant!! Now, Abi faces two questions that she desperately wants answers to: who is the father of the unborn child and what really happened to Olivia? Olivia’s narrative is told in the few months leading up to her fall from a bridge. We learn about Olivia’s troubles in love, in her relationships with her friends, and in a relationship with her mom. We learn how Olivia finds herself in a very difficult situation and how she decides to deal with everything she learns during her search for her real father.
This book was very emotional for me! As a single mom raising a young daughter I felt Abi’s frustration, anger, sadness, and agony of dealing with her daughter’s horrifying situation. I wanted the same answers that Abi wanted. I understood her will to find out what really happened, and not giving up even though there were so many things playing against her.
I loved everything about this book, starting with a beautiful cover!!! I was emotionally invested in the story from the start. I mean, the beginning of the book got me already crying ugly, and I am not going to even mentioned my state at the end of the book (**sigh and sniff**)! I loved both Abi and Olivia with all their little quirks and imperfections. The author did a great job in pulling me into the story with the beautiful writing and the shifting suspense. There were times where I was suspecting almost everyone in Oliva’s life of having something to do with her fall, and up to the end I was changing my mind about who could be the culprit of Olivia’s tragedy.
I would love to read other books from this author, and I hope to see a new book from her very soon!
Thank you NetGalley, Christina McDonald, and Gallery Books for an opportunity to read an advance copy of this book. This was a real treat!

I belong to a few FB groups for book lovers and after seeing so many great things said about this book, I had to read it and see what the buzz was all about. And for those that recommended it, a BIG thank you!

This doesn't happen often with me but this book was SO good that I read it in one day!

Abi Knight gets the phone call that every mother fears. There has been an accident and her daughter Olivia is at the hospital. How could this be? Abi, who is a single parent has taken every precaution to safeguard her daughter's well being, some would even say including Olivia, to the point of being overprotective.

When Abi gets to the hospital, her nightmare begins. Not only is Olivia brain dead but she is also pregnant. Can't be!! Olivia is a good student, has many friends, and never drank or did drugs. And in Washington, life support can't be turned off when a woman is pregnant.

The police aren't investigating because they have ruled Olivia falling to her death at the ZigZag Bridge to be a tragic accident. But Abi notices that Olivia has bruises on her wrist that resemble finger marks. She doesn't accept this as an accident but foul play and she needs to find out the truth.

The story alternates from 6 months prior to the accident and to the present day.

Not only was this a suspenseful read from beginning to end, it was also very emotional. The author's writing style will have you feeling every emotion that Abi is dealing with. I thought I had it all figured out when I was 1/3 into the book, but not even close! I could not put this book down!

Love, lies, betrayals, secrets, pain, guilt and a mother's need to know to be able to say goodbye.

A captivating read!!

Posted to GR 01/28/19: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2683134379
Will post to blog 01/30/19: http://cmashlovestoread.com/?p=19836

The Night Olivia Fell opens with a mother’s worst nightmare - waking to the news their teenager has been in a terrible accident! The investigation is going nowhere and Olivia’s time is running out. Have the secrets of the past caught up with them? Was Olivia pushed off the bridge? Christina McDonald weaves a gripping story with twists and turns that keep you reading. I do not want to share any spoilers but will say I thought I knew what happened but was wrong, and then turns out I was wrong again! I would highly recommend this book! I received an ARC of this book, all opinions are my own.

What do you do when a parent's worst nightmare happens to you?


Abi Knight is awoken just before 5 a.m. with a startling phone call. Her daughter, Olivia, is at the hospital and she needs to come immediately. When she arrives she finds out her daughter had fallen off of a bridge and is brain dead; however, she's on life support because she's pregnant. Abi didn't know of her daughter's pregnancy and she thought they had always told each other everything.

When Abi was younger, her mother committed suicide and she was always left wondering why her mother did it. She doesn't want her grandchild to wonder the same things. Why did Olivia fall off that bridge? More importantly, who pushed Olivia off the bridge? Abi knows her daughter wouldn't have committed suicide and it wasn't an accident.

As Abi unwinds the secrets of her daughter's life and her own, she'll be left with more questions than answers. The Night Olivia Fell is a quick thriller that is perfect for a cozy day sitting inside during a snowstorm or sitting on a beach in the summer.

3.5 stars
Abi has given everything over to raising her daughter. She's changed her career, shied away from dating and keeps in close touch with Olivia throughout the day. Despite their close relationship and Abi's protective measures it quickly becomes apparent that Olivia had her secrets.

Christina McDonald's debut novel <b>The Night Olivia Fell</b> hits the ground running from the very first page. Abi is woken in the middle of the night with the most horrific news. Her daughter Olivia has fallen from a bridge and is in serious condition. To her shock, she learns that Olivia is pregnant and will remain on life support until the birth of her child. As the weeks go by she is alarmed by increasing evidence that Olivia's fall was no accident. The police do not seem to be investigating the case. Abi sets out to get answers drawing on whatever resources she can. One of the most endearing parts of this novel is that it is in this time of sorrow and devastation that Abi finds her strength. She seeks resolution for her past and perseveres to overcome her insecurities.

This was a quick yet somewhat predictable read. I guess I was expecting more twists and turns out of this suspense novel. But I have to say that <b>The Night Olivia Fell</b> makes up for that with the family drama. The mother-daughter relationships in this novel really pull at the heart strings. Would I read another Christina McDonald book? Most definitely.

<i>Special thanks to NetGalley, Gallery, Threshold Pocketbooks and Christina McDonald for an advanced copy of this book.</i>

I loved The Night Olivia Fell! What happened to her was quite a mystery; did she actually fall, was she pushed, did she jump on purpose? And why did it happen? These are questions her mother definitely wants answered! And when the find out that Olivia had secrets of her own, the puzzle deepens. So many suspects, from her high school boyfriend, to her best friend, to someone else Olivia might have been intimate with. Very well developed characters, and intriguing questions, made this book a must read for me! I highly recommend it, and thank NeyGallery for the chance to read it.

A heartbreaking story of losing someone to soon. Abi Knight, mother to Olivia, is woken in the night about her daughter. This is every mothers biggest fear as she soon finds out that her daughter has had an accident and is brain dead. To make matters worse the doctors are telling Abi that Olivia is pregnant so she is unable to be taken off of life support. As she is sitting by her daughter in the hospital she brings to the attention of the doctors and nurses that there are unnatural bruises on her wrists.

As time continues by it seems to Abi that no one on the police department is really taking the case seriously. She also realizes that they have dropped the ball on the investigation by not searching for her phone, computer or digging into any of the days leading up to the suspected murder. Abi takes it into her own hands with the help of Anthony an investigator from Seattle to uncover what really happened to Olivia.

Abi Knight soon joined a club that she didn’t sign up for. She was living the worst nightmare that no parent ever wants to face! She received a call in the early morning advising her that her daughter was in an accident. An accident? What kind of accident? Abi thought Olivia was in her bedroom fast asleep. After all, Abi drank a couple glasses of wine the night before and crashed, so why was this doctor calling her about Olivia. Abi is hysterical and confused. She jumps up and heads straight for Olivia’s room and sure enough she isn’t there. This had to be some sort of mistake, right? Abi calls her sister Sarah and they head to the hospital.

When the doctor meets them, Abi learns that the daughter she knew and loved isn’t quite the same. She fell from a bridge and was found brain dead. No, not a coma, but absolutely no brain activity whatsoever. Meaning, she’s never going to wake up ever again. She’s dead. And to make matters more difficult, Olivia is pregnant. The doctors were not permitted to turn off life support, due to the laws in their state. So, in order to bring Abi’s grandchild to term, Olivia had to be kept alive. Once the baby was born, unfortunately, Olivia would expire—although she was already that.

On one hand Abi didn’t care about the baby. She just wanted her baby to get up and be her regular teen self—getting ready to be a senior and soon head off to college. This is not how she envisioned her child. Now she learns her child is with child. What the hell? All she knows is there’s been an accident. How did Olivia fall from the bridge? Why was she there? Was she alone? Did someone push her? Was this really an accident?

As the reader embarks down this dark road with Abi Knight, your heart will break right along with hers. You will find your pulse quickening as Abi demands answers as to why her baby is on life support and pregnant. What will soon be revealed is that there are several liars in this story. There were so many lies being told that you’ll be hard pressed to figure out just what is the truth. McDonald did an exceptional job in throwing so many red herrings in the story. I had about six scenarios going, and I’m proud that my first scenario was the correct one, along with a few surprises that I didn’t see coming.

This novel was so exciting, I read it in a day and a half. Hot damn this was such a good read! I loved it! I urge you to download this book as soon as it is ready for sale. You will NOT be disappointed. What an amazing group of characters and what a tangled web they all weaved! Simply incredible story. Wowww!

Loved this book. Will add Christina McDonald to my list of favorite authors . Great psychological suspense novel told by mother and daughter. Kept me guessing and I was surprised at the ending. I liked the way the epilogue brought closure to the story.

This is a great read for young adults looking for a book they can't put down. A lot of suspense and very relatable!

The Night Olivia Fell is a novel of a mother and daughters emotional ups and downs. The mother lied to protect her daughter. Her daughter lied to protect her mother and her friends.

Abi received a phone call no one would ever want in the middle of the night. Her is in the hospital in a coma brain dead and pregnant. All they can say it was an accident. Olivia fell from a bridge. Why would she have been there? Who have been with her? Who is the father of this unborn child? Who has Olivia become? Christina McDonald has weaved a beautiful spider web of a story with suspense, mystery and emotional turmoil. I truly love how she captured the process of learning to grieve, love, and letting go, so the living process can begin.#thenightoliviafell #netgalley

Single mother, Abi, gets a call in the middle of the night saying her daughter has been in an accident. After rushing to the hospital she finds that her daughter, Oliva, is brain dead but they cannot turn off life support because she is pregnant. The police claim the injury was a result of an accident but Abi insists there was foul play and has decided to search for answers, even if she has to do it on her own.

I really enjoyed this book. The author does a great job of telling the story from two different perspectives. I loved how the perspective of 17 year old Olivia sounded like a teen girl speaking and the contrast of her mom, a woman in her 30's, had a totally different voice. This is a great mystery novel with some romance thrown in and a little bit of YA during Olivia's perspective. I suspected almost every character by the end of the book and really enjoyed reading this one. I liked how the book was exciting and intense without the graphic and shocking descriptions that have become so popular in thrillers lately. I highly recommend picking up this book on February 5, 2019 if you love mysteries.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the opportunity to read this advanced reader's copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to the publisher for this copy to read and review! This book was very good! Hard for me to believe it was a debut. The writing was so good, very descriptive. Made you feel like you were right in the story. It had mystery to it as well. The whole time I was reading, I could not figure out who had hurt Olivia. I was suspicious of so many characters. And then the end!!! That was heartbreaking. I usually don't she'd tears when reading, but I definitely did with this one. I would definitely recommend this book!!

Imagine getting the horrible news that your daughter has taken an awful fall from a bridge, is in the hospital and is declared brain dead? Now imagine that you also find out that this same daughter, who you have raised as a single parent is pregnant? This is the premise of the story The Night Olivia Fell.

As a parent, this is your worst nightmare. How did this happen? How could a beloved daughter be brain dead and who is the father of the child she is carrying? Abi Knight is living that nightmare. She has received the phone call every parent dreads. Her daughter, the person she has loved and cared for, has now to rely on machines to keep her alive. The machines cannot be turned off as Olivia being pregnant, must be kept on life support in an effort to keep the child she carries alive.

Abi, is distraught. Her overwhelming desire is to ferret out exactly what happened to Olivia. How and why did she fall? Who is the father of her unborn grandchild, and as Abi digs further into this heart breaking dilemma, many characters play a role in Abi's search for truth. Abi's old boyfriend, a very successful politician running for office, has mysteriously reappeared as well as her sister, Sarah, who constantly lends support to a grieving mother. The police are involved, but there seems to be some kind of reluctance to investigate this tragedy.

Told in alternating voices, we learn of Abi and discover her life, her fears and her ultimate love for her child. Olivia's story is one of deception, sadness, loneliness, and love. This is a story of parental love, it is the story of secrets that drive a life into despair and yet also hope, love, and eventual peace. We, as mothers, could be Abi. We all feel her pain, her loss, and her desperate need for closure.

Olivia's voice is one that we can well understand, one where her youth and naivete is on display, one where she is searching for that illusive someone, her father, and her place in the world. She wants to belong, to fit, to feel a part of something her mother can't quite deliver to her. She questions her parentage and while she stumbles onto truth, she places herself in the line of danger.

Christina MacDonald weaves a wonderful story of the length ones goes to in their attempt to protect their child. This novice author is able to tap into mother love and the power that lies, deception and dishonesty can play. Although the story for me did drag a bit in the middle, the beginning and the ending made this one of those "unputdownable" reads.

Thank you to Christina MacDonald, Gallery Books, and NetGalley for a copy of this emotional and loving story. This book is due to be published on February 5, 2019.

The Night Olivia Fell was so suspenseful! I enjoyed the way that the story was told and the web of secrets that underly what happened. Abi finds out one night that her teenage daughter Olivia fell off a bridge. Not only is Olivia brain dead now, but Abi learns that Olivia is also pregnant. Abi feels strongly that something malicious happened to Olivia on the bridge and she can’t let it go. She starts doing her own investigating into what happened that night. Along the way, Abi is forced to look at her past and deal with the things that she can’t forget and those things that she wanted to forget. The characters all have their own secrets that become revealed as the story unfolds. It felt like every character could have somehow been involved in what happened to Olivia. The story is told in parts alternating between what happened after the accident and parts from before the accident. The secrets made this a mesmerizing mystery. The end of the book was beautifully written!

Wow! This book is excellent. One of my new top favorite books of 2019! I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves the mystery, thriller, and suspense genre. Christina McDonald is going right to the top of my "authors to look out for".

The Night Olivia Fell is a domestic suspense novel in vein of Reconstructing Amelia (this is how it is described anyhow, and although I haven't personally read that yet, I will now!). It's a story about a mother who will stop at nothing to find out who pushed her daughter off of a bridge leaving her brain dead and on life support. Filled with twists and turns my head was riddled with confusion! I thought I knew what was happening only to be sorely disappointed that I couldn't quite figure it out! The author does a wonderful job at keeping readers in the dark when it comes to what exactly happened to Olivia and who was to blame. I very much enjoyed it all.

This book is even more special because it is told in dual POV's between Olivia and her mother. We get to learn about Olivia as her life leads up to the events the ended her precious life while also watching her mother unravel the clues as to what happened to her. I felt very connected to both characters and while her mother certainly had her own flaws, I felt her to be relatable.

This book my friends is one of those novels you don't want to miss out on in 2019. I think it will easily become a bestseller and will be one of those books everyone is talking about. If you have a chance and are in the mood for a domestic thriller, suspense, and mystery novel, make sure to grab this one. You won't be disappointed!

Bravo, Christina McDonald! The Night Olivia Fell is a fantastic debut! My attention was instantly grabbed at the very first chapter. We all know that a phone call in the middle of the night never brings good news. Abi answers that call and is told that her daughter, Olivia has fallen from a bridge and is in the hospital. It’s a mother’s worst nightmare. The reader follows Abi on her journey as she puts the pieces together and discovers the truth about what happened to her daughter on that horrific night.
McDonald does a superb job crafting her characters. I really enjoyed the alternating perspectives of the mother/daughter duo with each new chapter. Throughout the novel, I thought a lot about my old high school self and my relationship with my own mother. How much did I tell her? Too much? Too little? What can I do now with my own daughter to keep her trust and always make her feel comfortable telling me things in the future? This novel gave me a lot to reflect on.
Are you looking for a compelling story involving a mother/daughter relationship with a dash of mystery and suspense? Then The Night Olivia Fell is the perfect book for you. Put this domestic suspense novel on your TBR now! It releases on February 5th! Thank you, NetGalley for the advance reader’s copy in exchange for my honest review.

I knew from the blurb alone that The Night Olivia Fell was going to be emotional and suspenseful, and McDonald definitely delivered. Abi learns that her daughter has been in an accident and is now braindead. Not only is her daughter hooked up to a bunch of machines, and Abi has to learn to say goodbye, but we learn that Olivia is pregnant. Abi will have to watch her daughter in this condition for months as she waits for her grandchild to grow enough to be delivered.

What unfolds is Abi and Olivia's story, told in alternating chapters. We watch Olivia in her final months alive as she traverses finding her father, learning to cope with school and her mother's demands, dating, and severe bullying. We watch Abi desperately try to piece together her daughter's last days, to figure out who the father of Olivia's baby is, and we watch Abi try to figure out who did this to poor Olivia, because the police aren't helping and Abi's maternal instinct knows there is more than she's being told.

I loved Olivia's persistence in knowing that someone was keeping the truth from her. My heart hurt for her that Sarah didn't seem as on board with figuring out what happened to Olivia. I can understand not wanting your sister to get caught up in it all, but Abi could have used the support. Her fears could have been easily brushed off as a mother's instinct, but that "click" she had when she realized that she wasn't taking seriously really set the pace to find out what happened and who did it.

There were some really great characters in the book. Anthony was a great friend to Olivia and he helped her immensely in her path to figure out what happened. While Sarah was just a minor character, her unwavering support of Olivia was endearing. Olivia is the definition of a perfect main character because even in the face of losing her daughter, she's strong. She knows something is off and she follows her gut. I found myself cheering her on with each step and each new discovery.

McDonald did a great job with having the reader question everyone, every time they came into the scene. I was questioning everyone, it was great and really well done. This was such a fun read because it was emotional, but stressful, which you come to expect from thrillers. Really well done.

This is a hard hitting mystery, that tugged at my heart.

What I was expecting: A who dun it.

What I got: A touching story about a mother's love for her daughter and her daughter's story about finding her true love, while finding out her mother's past. All of this happening while we try to figure out what happened the night Olivia fell.

The characters are written so well. I was emotionally attached to the mother daughter duo from the start. This normally never happens to me while reading this genre. I loved the writing. The story is told in a dual narrative format with Olivia's told in the past and leads up to the night she fell.


I wasn't a fan of the mother's love interest. I felt that it was unnecessary and took away from the mother/daughter bond of the story. I do understand that it was to give the mother someone to attach to during this hard time but it could have been a friend instead.

This is going down as one of my all time favorites.

The Night Olivia Fell by Christina McDonald is the story of over-protective Abi Knight’s worst nightmare come to life: a too-early call from the hospital telling her her daughter has been in an accident. She rushes to the hospital and learns Olivia fell from a nearby bridge. There’s nothing they can do for her; she’s brain-dead. But that’s not all; she’s pregnant, and they’ll keep her on life support until the baby can be delivered. Abi’s world is suddenly turned upside down, but when she sees the bruises on her daughter’s wrists, she knows it wasn’t an accident.

Although there isn’t anything really original about this story, I kept on turning the pages, wanting to know the whole picture almost as much as Abi—which is told both from her and her daughter’s points of view. The characters have real layers and the web of tension between them feel real and alive. I was sometimes annoyed at some unnecessary details—weather, clothes, pieces of furniture that felt like they were there to the sole purpose of filling pages—but in the end the author managed to get tears in my eyes anyway! :)

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.