I initially found the book difficult to get into at the beginning, but it did take off and keep me wondering! It’s about a man who goes missing while on a camping trip with his wife and children. In the aftermath of her husband’s disappearance, Sarah uncovers secrets about his past as everyone tries to figure out if Matthew left, was involved in an accident, or if he was met with foul play.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC! This was my first ARC book and I was so excited to jump into it. The first two chapters felt a little strange - there were so many "big" words that felt like they were replaced with a word from a thesaurus and it just felt completely out of place. Thankfully, the rest of the book didn't read like that. The author did a great job of depicting all the various scenes. I did feel like the chapters jumped around a bit, from different perspectives and that was sometimes challenging to catch on to - I had to reread a lot of sections to make sure I was following the story line. The plot had me guessing and going back and forth trying to figure out what really happened. I was a bit let down by the ending. Overall the book was a great debut novel and I enjoyed reading it!

This was a 3.5/5 star read for me. It was ok, but definitely not my favorite book of the year. I liked it and wanted to know what happened, but I also didn't really care what happened. It wasn't a huge thriller feel to me, more like a mystery. The ending was mundane and what little build up there was, was just leading to nothing. It was like, really? It wasn't exciting to me. I didn't connect to the characters and didn't really care about the plot. There were no plot twists. If I hadn't been reading this book as an arc, I probably would have dnf'ed it. It was well written as far as, it didn't feel like a cheaply produced, words typed without a thought type of book. It just wasn't good. To be honest, I wouldn't recommend it.

(3.5 stars)
"She was reactive in this environment, obsessed by basic needs—food, water, shelter—and fearful that Mother Nature would betray her." Sarah Anderson and her husband Matthew seem like polar opposites. He likes the Canadian wilderness, she hates it: "For every charming group of river otters playing on a granite slab, there were voracious mosquitoes using her arm as makeshift buffet." When Matthew disappears on a family holiday and Sarah is cold, collected and distant with the police tasked with finding him, she looks very guilty. Everything points to him being about to leave her, and their marriage being on the rocks: "the pressure built into periods of discontent."

So what happened that night? Into the Fall sees first-time author Tamara L. Miller craft a credible story that keeps you guessing. Miller paints a picture of the environment quite nicely too. When the twist comes, I found it believable. While it didn't quite hold me on the edge of my seat, I enjoyed reading this one.

I enjoyed this book a lot.

There were times where I was gripped as new information was unraveling.

However the ending was not how I had expected, it was a little too tame compared to what I thought it could have been for a thriller.

There were also certain aspects of the story which I think could have been explored further.

I liked the time jump between chapters, it allowed you to build the full picture of what the family was really like and helped you to understand the plot well.

I thoroughly enjoyed the plot of this book and loved the way the author unraveled the story. At times when scenes would shift quickly, I still thought I was able to keep up, even if the shifts were steep.

My favorite thing about Into the Fall, is that I genuinely couldn't figure out or predict what the outcome was going to be. My only disappointment was that I wanted a better ending. I felt like the build up led to something kind of anti-climatic, therefore I gave it a 3 instead of a 4.

I received an ebook copy of this arc through NetGalley.

I gave this book 3 1/2 stars rounded up to 4.

This book is about Sarah and her family going camping at a special place her and her husband shared. She wakes up one morning and realizes her husband never came to bed. She fires looking for him and he is missing. Her and her 2 children are stranded so they flag down help and get the authorities involved. She also reconnects with her sister. They have had very little contact in the last two years but before that they were extremely close.

This book is a mystery and we don’t know what happened to Matthew. As time passes and the investigation continues, tidbits of information are dropped. As Sarah comes to learn more about her husband she wonders if she ever really knew him.

I enjoyed this book and the mystery. I definitely wanted to find out what happened to Matthew and if anyone was involved with his disappearance. Throughout the book I had different thoughts on so it could be, but I did not see the end coming. It was a little slow for me. And the main character, Sarah, didn’t have much of a personality. But I also understand that was most likely a choice by the author after the character being married with kids for years.

Overall I think this book is worth it if you like creepy outdoors type mysteries. Or if you just like mysteries period.

I received this from Netgalley and the publisher as an ARC.

This is labeled as a thriller but it felt very slow and didn't pull me in like I was expecting. The story was atmospheric and descriptive and has the potential to be great but it needed more suspenseful moments to hit the thriller mark. Also I think the chapters should be labeled with the POV of the person narrating because there was jumping around from character to character and it took me a minute to figure out which character was speaking.
I can't say too much without giving it away but I wasn't happy with the ending bit of a surprise and a feeling of "oh, that's it?".

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publishers for this ARC and opportunity to provide my honest review of this book. I was definitely excited when I read the description and was glad to be granted a chance to indulge in this experience. The overall story started somewhat slow for me but when it picked up, it was a worthy ride. I enjoyed the experience and would love to see more from this author.

Thank you NetGalley for this advance copy of Into The Fall. I thought this was a great debut novel. This mystery of a husband and father disappearing on a camping trip takes place in the Canadian wilderness. It begins with Sarah waking up to find her husband missing and the story goes on from there. I will say I expected more of an adventurous, lost in the wilderness, survival story but the book went into a different direction almost immediately and went to multiple timelines and learning more about Sarah and Matthew’s marriage and what was going on reading to his disappearance. There was a dip in the story for me during the search portion of the book but it picked back up about midway and I enjoyed it.

I started reading Into The Fall with the expectation that it would be a fairly routine psychological thriller, albeit with an interesting setting in the Canadian wilderness. As a middle aged male with a penchant for the genre, I was nevertheless more than pleasantly surprised to find that it was much, much more than that. Yes, there are the usual elements of the psychological thriller - missing person, suspicious circumstances, police investigation, unanswered questions, etc - and the Canadian wilderness, setting for much of the story, is beautifully and evocatively described. But this book is really about what it is to be a wife, mother and sister and what a woman is prepared to do to protect the ones who she loves. A thoughtful, engrossing and beautifully written book which I highly recommend.

"Into the Fall" by Tamara Miller is a true crime mystery that I overall felt underwhelmed by. The story was interesting, but the ending fell flat. I also had a bit of trouble with the narration. It jumped from person to person and past to present all in the same chapter, which required me to back track and reread a lot of the same paragraphs. Although on the shorter side, it took me a while to finish.

What a book! I could feel the agony and anger and confusion and the secrets. Oh, the secrets. It was a great read!

Thanks to Net Galley for providing this ARC to me for my honest review. I enjoyed reading this book and also thought it was well written especially by a debut author. I wanted to give it 4 stars, but ended up giving it 3 stars mainly because the ending wasn’t quite worthy of the build-up. I was let down by the way Matthew died, esp after we found out about all the secrets he was keeping. And then how the story kept flashing back to Sarah in the past and making it seem like she was keeping even bigger secrets that would affect the (hopefully) dramatic conclusion. Sarah’s sister, Izzy, and Boychuk, main investigator, were crucial side characters and their POV helped provide more suspense to the book. Overall, great read that kept me coming back, but I just wanted a little more thrilling conclusion.

#Thomas&Mercer #ARC #NetGalley #IntoTheFall

I really enjoyed this book and didnt think it was a debut novel. The writing really got me on the edge of my seat trying to figure out what happened. I loved that it was set in the woodsy outback of canada and it just made the atmospheric thriller of it all even more. The ending twists and turns really had me shaking my head because Im usually the one that can figure it out beor the end of the book but not this time. i really enjoyed how the writer weaved her own home experiences with nature into this story I kept feeling like i was there with her trying to help find her husband.

Interesting domestic thriller. Great use of scenery in the Canadian wilderness, it is very unpredictable and leads to a conclusion that is very different than expected.

This was a fascinating book about a family that goes on a camping trip in the Canadian woods and, in the middle of the night the husband goes missing. The story is then told from two different timelines, the search for Matthew, the husband, and the events that led up to his going missing. Although this book was filled with many twists and turns, the ending felt a bit anti-climatic and I was a little disappointed with it. This was Tamara L. Miller's debut and she did a great job with it. I'd like to read more by her.
Thank you, NetGalley, for this ARC.

My interest was initially piqued by Tamara L. Miller’s “Into the Fall” because she’s Canadian, and there’s something to be said for supporting local talent but this did not disappoint and is in no way Can-Con filler! Miller’s debut novel is a tightly woven tale that she expertly and finely unravels until the very end. Based out of Ottawa, Miller is the President of Ottawa Independent writers and her website can be found at By Tamara Miller.

“Into the Fall” is a suspenseful psychological thriller about a family broken apart overnight by the disappearance of husband and father, Matthew in the wilds of northern Ontario. The family has traveled north of Ottawa into a part of the country that is undeniably beautiful, but also incredibly dangerous. We are constantly reminded of this by Officer Rob Boychuk, a veteran of the force and though reserved with our title character, he consistently shows Sarah and her children kindness. I laughed out loud at the name of Boychuk’s partner - Chantal Dubé, Miller couldn’t have possibly used a more French-Canadian name and in a world of books written by Americans, it was like a secret joke for the Canadians (truth be told, I think I know a Boychuk. Canada is small).

In a former life, Miller was a policy writer and it is evident in the complexity of this story and the background she is able to create for each character. The world she builds for each scene and interaction is complete and well-thought; we feel the growing tension and begrudging respect between Boychuk and Sarah with each subsequent meeting. 

Entertaining and well written, “Into the Fall” is an elevated thriller, perfect for readers looking for a complex story that draws you in and holds you captive until the end. “Into the Fall” hits bookstores 21 January 2025.

Thank you so much for a copy of Into The Fall!

Into The Falls Sarah and her family after her husband disappears on a camping trip and she the investigation into her his disappearance makes her realize maybe she didn’t know who here husband really was after all.

This was a very solid debut. I really enjoyed the writing and the beautiful description/setting. I really enjoyed the lead up, but if I’m being honest the ending/last half of the book felt a little anticlimactic and i wasn’t a huge fan of the way it all ended up wrapping up. I also don’t think I’d categorize this as a thriller. More of just a mystery.

Still, overall a solid book and I’d still recommend checking it out if the premise intrigues you!

First, I want to thank both NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for providing me with the ARC of “Into The Fall” by debut novelist Tamara L. Miller. An overall success for Miller’s first work, the novel is a simple, captivating read with beautiful descriptions and believable characters.

Perhaps my favorite element of the book was the setting and descriptions of the serene and peaceful lake environment that paradoxically can be equally harsh and unforgiving. The author certainly takes the reader to the banks of the river and along with the family on their mysterious and life altering camping trip.

Sarah, the MC of Miller’s novel is one the reader can attach to and sympathize with. Forced to navigate and finally accept devastating circumstances, Sarah remains stoic for her children and family, but teasingly curt.

As a critic, I was left wanting a little more than the Occams Razor like conclusion to the disappearance of the husband/father. If I am reading fiction, let there be fiction, not a simple answer to an end one might read about in the daily news.

Well written and gripping for the majority of the book.