Book review: A phone rings at midnight; a parent’s worst nightmare begins

The Night Olivia Fell by Christina McDonald is a compelling new psychological thriller with a level of suspense that will keep you guessing till the very last page.

Single mother Abi Knight has a close bond with her teenage daughter Olivia. However, the bond is too intense and Abi’s need to control her daughter’s life and limit her exposure to possible danger begins to cause a rift between the pair. Olivia wants to live her own life away from the complete control of her mother but doesn’t want to hurt her mother who has already known abandonment and sadness in her life.

Olivia is intent on finding out who her real father was and is not convinced of her mother’s story of a man who died before she was born. Olivia is catapulted into intense scrutiny of her origins when, by chance, she meets a girl her own age who is completely identical to her.

The seed is sown that perhaps the girls’ father is her own father and so she seeks to get to know Kendall. Kendall is the daughter of prominent senator Gavin Montgomery, and as he is involved in a re-election campaign, possible dirty secrets need to be hushed up so he avoids the possibility of his paternity.

The novel is narrated by the two main characters, Olivia and her mother Abi. Tension is created immediately when Abi is contacted in the night to be told her daughter is in hospital after a fall from a bridge, and although she is now brain dead and there is no hope of her regaining brain function, she is three months pregnant.

Abi is completely astounded and waits for the police to contact her as she sees bruises on her daughter’s wrists. When finally contacted by the police, their involvement seems half-hearted and sporadic, and so Abi decides she must find out her daughter’s attacker herself.

The Night Olivia Fell by Christina McDonald is an engrossing read. The plot itself was tight and the tension mounted at a perfect pace. The book itself causes one to consider that the people we believe we can trust may not be trustworthy, and a perfect stranger can become a loyal ally. Abi is facing the sobering fact that for her grandchild to be kept alive and delivered by cesarian section, her daughter Olivia will then die after having the life support turned off.

Manipulation, unmet expectations, secrets, abandonment issues and hush money all feature in this cleverly written story evoking a strong emotional response as the reader empathises with Abi’s frustration at the lack of police support and with the dilemma of watching your child slowly slip away from you.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it comes highly recommended by me. Fans of psychological thrillers with a twist of domestic noir will enjoy this book and as it has a list of book club questions in the back, it would be a perfect choice for a book club.

The Night Olivia Fell by Christina McDonald is available in digital or printed editions from the publisher HQ Fiction.