The night Olivia fell

*Starred Review* Single mom Abi Knight receives a call that her teenage daughter, Olivia, is clinging to life after plummeting from a bridge into a fast-moving river. Then, at the hospital, Abi receives another shock: Olivia is pregnant. While the detectives investigating the incident believe it was an accident, Abi suspects foul play, and she begins looking carefully at her daughter's life. The deeper Abi digs, the more difficult it becomes to trust anyone. Is it the paranoia of a grieving mother, or is Olivia's absentee father, a rising star politician, making good on a past promise? In alternating chapters, Olivia tells her own story, which includes a love triangle, a friendship gone sour, and an encounter with a young woman who looks uncannily like Olivia. McDonald ratchets up the suspense with every chapter, including plenty of gasp-worthy twists and turns as Abi and Olivia's story pushes towards its devastating conclusion. The suspense is supplemented by relationships of surprising depth and tenderness, providing balance and nuance to the story. A worthy debut from an up-and-coming domestic-suspense author; readers who enjoy mother-daughter stories in the genre should line up for this one.--Nanette Donohue Copyright 2019 Booklist

Abigail Knight, the protagonist of McDonald's complex, emotionally intense first novel, is determined to get answers after her 17-year-old daughter, Olivia, who recently seemed unusually distracted and moody, is found, brain-dead and pregnant, at the bottom of an embankment below a bridge in her hometown of Portage Point, Wash. Meanwhile, Abi manages the grief of seeing Olivia being maintained on life support just long enough to allow her granddaughter to live. The chapters told from Olivia's viewpoint in the months leading up to the accident, during which she struggles with friendships and romantic relationships while piecing together the truth about her absent father, convey the cadence and the awkward urgency of teenage thought and behavior without exaggerating it. Every carefully fleshed-out character behaves authentically, yielding a satisfying sense of tragedy rather than one of villainy. McDonald dives into the mother-daughter conflict without compromising the reader's compassion for either of them. Fans of twisty domestic suspense novels will be rewarded. Agent: Carly Watters, P.S. Literary (Canada). (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

The Night Olivia Fell PROLOGUE "You want the truth? I'm--" My admission was cut off by a streak of blazing hot pain as something exploded against the side of my head. My brain barely registered the blow, my vision a dusky blur of red, pain searing into my skull and down my jaw. I felt my body spin with the force of it. I reeled backward until my legs whacked against the low cement wall and I tumbled over, my body hurtling sideways across the ledge. A dark fog pressed against my outer vision, and before I knew it I was falling, plunging into empty space. I hit the river on my back, my eyes fastened on the bridge's soaring spires illuminated by a flickering streetlamp. Then the shadowy water tipped me under. Excerpted from The Night Olivia Fell by Christina McDonald All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.