5 BIG Beautiful Stars 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

wOWZA! This book took me on quite the emotional journey! As a mother I couldn’t help but completely empathize with Abi(The mother in this story)... I cried with her... I raged with her... I hoped with her... my mama bear was out throughout this book, I needed answers and I needed them now! Imagining my own daughter in the hospital bed brain-dead and pregnant, quite honestly made me a little sick and stressed... this is a credit to the beautiful and engrossing writing in this book, I was completely immersed and committed.... The fact that this is Christina McDonald’s debut is simply.... impressive!

Abi gets that phone call in the middle of the night that all parents fear... her daughter is in the hospital, she has fallen off a bridge...Abi’s mothers intuition tells her this was not an accident and this is reinforced by the bruises around her daughter’s wrist.... The police don’t appear to be doing much of anything to find out who pushed Olivia off that bridge.... but Abi is determined and will stop at nothing to find out who hurt her little girl...

Told from both Abi and Olivia‘s perspectives... we get the events leading up to this tragedy from Olivia‘s eyes... as well as watching Abi’s heart wrenching journey... not only to accept that she has lost her daughter, but also to figure out how this could have happened.... this was such an impactful way to tell the story because the more I got to know Olivia the more my heart broke right along with Abi’s.... also Christina McDonnell did a fabulous job with getting into the mind of both a 17-year-old and her mother.... I saw a lot of myself in both of these characters...

This was an emotional domestic suspense... as the book progressed I was suspicious of almost everyone at some point... I also found myself questioning both Olivia and Abbi’s actions... I kept thinking if only.... then... but isn’t that what life is all about? every choice we make has an impact on our lives.... had Abby told Olivia who her father was, then maybe? Had Olivia told her mother who she had fallen in love with, then perhaps? So many questions and no good answers and as we all know hindsight is always 20/20...

This is a book that left me with tears in my eyes and hope in my heart! I absolutely recommend for anyone who enjoys A beautiful story about the love between mothers and daughters with a huge dose of suspense thrown in....

*** many thanks to Christina McDonald and Gallery for my copy of this book the book releases in February 2019 ***

*** I was asked by the author to post early for some early buzz as well as posting closer to publication date, will be on my blog today as well as publication day in February!

I can wholeheartedly (even though half my heart is gone after reading this)... say that The Night Olivia Fell deserves 5 shining stars. This has a spot on my shining bookshelf for life! <3 <3.

OH my goodness... where do I even start with this? Firstly, I don't think I have EVER read a debut like this. The amount of talent that Christina McDonald has is mind-blowing. I truly was blown out of the water with how beautiful, poetic, and dark this novel is. This... can sometimes be a very hard thing for authors to do.... keep your readers on edge with a thriller and managing to get some tears out?! THAT is talent my friends no, ands, ifs, or buts about that statement ;).

It's funny because as we all know I am a huge mystery and thriller fan... and I know everyone keeps seeing my 3 star reviews... and I have to tell you it takes A LOT for me to give my entire 5 stars. THIS IS IT. It's everything... just stop right now and get your hands on this. (PSTTT Netgalley... click away)

If you're expecting me to go into the plot with my review... I won't because going into this book blind will make the experience so much more worthwhile. Trust me on this <3.

I had the honor of reading this alongside my book besties and wow what an experience to have these amazing ladies join me :).

I will leave you with this...

"Whenever, whatever. I'm here forever."

I cannot thank Christina McDonald, Netgalley, and Gallery, Threshold, Pocket Books enough for the opportunity to read this in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Expected publication date: 2/5/19
Published to GR: 8/29/18.

Emotional, suspenseful, and hard to put down!

I am so thrilled to have found this author, Christina McDonald. I found her writing to have such an addictive quality. She has created some memorable characters that brought depth and raw emotion to the story. It was both heart-breaking and tender.

Abi is a single mom who puts her teenage daughter Olivia first, above all other priorities. She has spent her life protecting Olivia, but she wasn’t there the night Olivia fell from a bridge (and she is a helicopter mom). Olivia is now on life-support, she is pregnant, and she has bruises. Abi has a mother’s intuition and isn’t buying the police report that the fall was ” an accident“. Why aren’t the police investigating? She is committed to do whatever it takes to learn the truth.

The story flows nicely with cleverly placed hints to how the mystery ultimately unfolds. I was totally invested and wanted to know how it would end. I changed my mind several times about “what really happened” and ohhhh that ending! I can’t say anything else!

A loving mom searching for answers, a toxic relationship, and a search for truth make this one an emotional page-turner!

The Night Olivia Fell kept me engaged and reading. It was great to get both characters perspectives and learn their stories. I really enjoyed everything about this book - the title, the blurb, and the story. There were moments were I got teary-eyed. There were so many quotes that resonated with me as well. Some good takeaways while being entertained.

Memorable quotes: "You don't have to be right one hundred percent of the time to show you love someone. And she doesn't have to be perfect to be well-loved."
"Family, I realized, was like a box of puzzle pieces. They filled all the holes of your life with little pieces that all together made you whole."
"Trust, I'd learned, was the greatest gift you could give, the greatest gift to receive. The belief that a person wouldn't betray you required a strength and confidence I was only just finding."
"Look to the future and you won't stumble on the present."

For more, you will have to read the book! Thank you Netgalley. Highly Recommend!

I received this book as an ARC from the author and am so grateful to have read it. I found it both heartbreaking and heartwarming. The mother’s unconditional love and overwhelming urge to protect her child is evident in this book. It kept you guessing all along what really happened to Olivia. I would absolutely recommend this book to friends.

This is my first book to review from Netgalley, so I was excited to read it! Thank you Netgalley for the advanced copy! I found this book through an amazing book blogger, Jennifer Tarheel Reader.

The story begins with a mother’s worst nightmare, a call in the middle of the night to say Olivia(her daughter) has had an accident. Those first few chapters were a bit heart wrenching, but it quickly turned into a thrilling mystery that I could not put down.

The chapters alternated between Abi trying to find out the truth behind what happened to her daughter and Olivia leading up to the night she fell. I literally did not know what happened until the last few pages. I usually read in the mornings, but this book had me clocking some evening hours just to find out how it ends.

This book was an easy, fast read that kept me turning the pages. I would definitely read more from Christina McDonald. Thank you to Netgalley for this copy of The Night Olivia Fell which will be released February 5th, 2019.

One of the best books I’ve read this year!!!!!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️REVIEW
The Night Olivia Fell is a riveting story of the strength of a mother’s love to overcome her grief and fight to find out who was responsible for Olivia’s fateful fall. Abi is thrust into every parents’ nightmare when she receives a call from the hospital that an accident has left her teenage daughter Olivia brain dead. She knows immediately that it wasn’t an accident and finding out Olivia is pregnant and must remain on life support to save the baby only intensifies Abi’s need to search for answers. Secrets and lies, twists and turns, this book has all the makings of a best seller. Wrought with emotion and intrigue, Christina McDonald has written a story that will break your heart and put it back together again with each turn of the page. This book exceeded all my expectations. The mystery and emotional complexity of love in this book sneaks up on you and makes it impossible to put down. Thank you NetGalley for an ARC copy of this book!

In Christina McDonald’s The Night Olivia Fell, Abi gets the call every mother fears: her daughter has fallen from a bridge and is brain dead...but was it an accident or a crime? McDonald reveals the answer in steady, page-turning increments, a gradual unfolding of truths and long-held secrets that culminates in a heart-wrenching resolution. A suspenseful debut that packs an emotional punch.

This is my first ARC and I would first like to thank the author, Christina McDonald, for giving me the privilege and pleasure of reading her book, The Night Olivia Fell.

All I can say is wow. Christina McDonald brought to life such a beautiful story of relationships, love, loss, and strength. I found myself often surprised, curious, and even in tears. The character development was phenomenal and the caricature of them seemed true and down to earth. The descriptions were so detailed, but not so much that I couldn’t bare to read it. I saw every scene as if it were acted out in front of my eyes.

I don’t often cry at books. When I do, it takes a great deal of good writing to get me attached to the characters. The only other book I ever cried with was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I absolutely recommend this to all my Goodreads and other reading friends.

This book had me hooked in the first pages. What a twisted webbed the author wove to keep the reader engaged. Every time I thought I knew what was coming, I was surprised. The characters are all-developed and the storyline is very complex, gut-wrenching at time and loving at others. The mother-daughter bond is very apparent. I could definitely see myself and my Abi in this books. Thank you Christina Macdonald for providing the chance to read your book and thank you NetGalley for greeting us the awesome read! Readers who like suspense will find this one great.

The Night Olivia Fell by Christina McDonald has been on my TBR list for a few months, and I was eagerly anticipating its February 2019 release date. I was extra excited to receive an opportunity to review an ARC of this book, several months early! Thank you to NetGalley, Simon and Schuster, and Christina McDonald for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Night Olivia Fell piqued my interest, as it touches on a mother/teenage daughter relationship, and I am currently navigating those waters myself. The story is told from both the mother and daughter’s perspectives, Abi and Olivia respectively. We hear the story from both main characters, Olivia’s entirely in flashbacks, and Abi’s in both present day and flashbacks. Olivia somehow managed to fall into a river one night, and Abi is determined to find out what happened that night, because she does not believe it was an accident. As a mother of a teenage daughter, I was absolutely gutted at what Abi goes through in this novel.
This was an extremely well written novel, one I didn’t want to put down! I will definitely read more of Christina McDonald’s novels in the future.

The Night Olivia Fell is an awesome read! I could not put it down once I started reading, I finished it in 3 days! I found myself questioning every character throughout the book and wondering who did it the entire time! The twists and turns kept me wanting more! Loved it!

It's difficult to believe that this was Christina McDonald's debut adult novel. This book was so well written that it got my attention on page 1 and kept me turning pages until the end. The characters were so well written that I felt like I knew them in real life. Warning -- have tissue close to you because you're going to need it.

Abi is a single mother and she and her daughter Olivia have always been very close. Olivia was a popular and very smart student who was planning to go to college. Imagine getting that phone call in the middle of the night from the hospital telling you that your daughter had been badly injured - the daughter that you were sure was asleep down the hall. It only gets worse when Abi talks to the doctors -not only is Olivia brain dead but she is pregnant and the hospital has to keep Olivia on life support until the baby is delivered. When Abi sees the bruises on Olivia's wrists she begins to question the police who believe that this was an accident and not a homicide. As Abi starts questioning her daughter's death, she not only learns more about her daughter and their relationship, she also begins to discover who she is not only as a mother but also as a woman.

Was Olivia pushed? Was it an accident? Did she commit suicide? This wonderfully well written novel will have you asking those questions to the end as you become part of this family mystery. FANTASTIC!!

Thanks to the author for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.

Told from various points of view makes this book hard to put down because you feel like you know something that other characters don't but you know that you haven't solved the mystery so you have to figure that out and the only ones that can help you are those same characters who know less than you do. Some parts of this are heart-wrenching and the characters are definitely modeled after people you may know or have seen in life. I will be looking for more books by this author.

To call this book a suspense doesn’t do it justice! This book is swirling with emotions, complicated relationships, and at its heart, the love between a mother and daughter. This book was captivating from the very first page through the last. Its two timelines; Olivia’s story being told through flashbacks as we learn how events unfolded; Abi’s story in the present as we follow Olivia’s fate and that of her unborn child; are equality riveting, each story filled with heart-pounding moments as well as a myriad of feelings. I was brought to tears so many times, as I was so deeply involved in the lives of this family.

Predictable story that kept me engaged, but didn't really leave much of an impact afterward. Found myself wondering why so many details were left in the story, when they felt unnecessary.

There were so many aspects of this book that I enjoyed. I really liked the way the author told the story, alternating chapters from mom's perspective and then to the daughter's. Both mother and daughter are likeable people, flaws and all. I liked the way the author wove in props, like the bracelet, plate and cigarette butt, and as you continue reading, you are excited to see what is going to unfold and how those things came to be where they were. I also found myself looking up images of Portage Point and the zig zag bridge. I liked the way the reader found things out and the way the author made you want to keep reading to see how the characters in the story were going to deal with these things when they found out. I would definitely recommend this one! Thank you Christina for sending me your book to read - people aren't going to be happy waiting until February 2019 when this is released!

WOW!

What a story! I don't even know what to say other then WOW!

A great story from start to finish. The ending will have you sobbing. AMAZING story!

I was browsing through the new releases when this cover cover caught my attention, then I read the preview and I was curious. A mother unraveling the truth of brain dead daughter?!

Mom get awoken by a phone call (we go with with mother over next few months)
go back 6 months with daughter

What do you do when you know something and nobody will listen?
When you need answers and nobody will provide them?

Mother tries to solve mystery of how this happened while
also dealing with some past buried issues.

Are you looking for a read that balances mystery and heart? ...read this book!

I've read a lot of five star books this year, but The Night Olivia Fell is the only debut novel among them. 

I could tell from the first page that this book was a standout. I think I often in reviews say that the writing is good, almost as a way to articulate that I liked the book even if I wasn't completely fond of the story.

In this case, the writing is outstanding. It goes beyond good. It's intelligent and vibrant. The word choices are fantastic. The story is heartbreaking and heart mending. 

Olivia and Abi are strong, relatable characters, and I found myself wishing throughout that Olivia wasn't actually brain dead and that there would be some kind of deus ex machina solution. 

The supporting cast of characters were, for the most part, well developed, too.

I wasn't a big fan of Madison. I thought she was pretty terrible best friend, and Kendall was no better. I'm not sure if it's just that I'm older and don't have any teenage children, but my only criticism of the book was that I didn't find their characters believable and often found myself wondering if teenagers really talk like that.

This is a thriller, so of course there are plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing, and I thought they were executed well. There was enough misdirection that I didn't figure it out until the author intended me to, and the solution was credible.

I don't think there is anything more I could have asked from this book, and I am delighted that McDonald was signed to a two book deal. I can't wait for the next one!

5/5 stars. Expected date of publication is February 5, 2019.

I received an ARC from Gallery Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.