Freefall

by Jessica Barry

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2019:

Entertainment Weekly USA Today Parade Cosmopolitan New York Post PopSugar Goodreads

"Jessica Barry's Freefall is not only an enthralling, impossible-to-put down mystery that keeps the pages flying, but it is also a gorgeous, resonant tale of a mother's unconditional love for her daughter. I could not recommend this more!"
-- Aimee Molloy, New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Mother

"An absorbing treat." - PEOPLE Magazine

"The corporate malfeasance and shady conspiracies of John Grisham, with the frank feminism of two rounded female protagonists." -- Entertainment Weekly

They say your daughter is dead.

You know they're wrong.

When her fiance's private plane crashes in the Colorado Rockies, everyone assumes Allison Carpenter is dead.

But Maggie, Allison's mother back home in Owl Creek, Maine, refuses to believe them. Maggie knows her daughter - or she used to, anyway. For the past two years, the two women have been estranged, and while Maggie doesn't know anything about Ally's life now - not even why she was on a private plane to begin with - she still believes in her girl's strength, and in their love for each other.

As Allison struggles across the treacherous mountain wilderness, Maggie embarks on a desperate search for answers about the world Allison has been involved in. What was she running from? And can Maggie uncover the truth in time to save her?

Told from the perspectives of a mother and daughter separated by distance but united by an unbreakable bond, Freefall is a heart-stopping, propulsive thriller about two tenacious women overcoming unimaginable obstacles to protect themselves and the ones they love.

--People

• ISBN10: 0062993895
• ISBN13: 9780062993892
• Publish Date: 29 September 2020 (first published 8 January 2019)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Collins
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 464
• Language: English

Reviews

[Amber]

Freefall was nothing standout as far as thrillers go, but I enjoyed reading it and it's one that I could definitely see as a movie. There was quite a bit of action, but barely any character development or in-depth plot, so it's one of those books that are probably best read on an aeroplane or by the beach.

I was expecting a lot more survival stuff, since the main character Ally was stranded in the wilderness after her plane crashed. Unfortunately, there wasn't too much of that, because the book is filled with flashbacks and it also focuses on her mother.

Ally was very underdeveloped, and it took me a long time to care about her at all. I feel like the book would have been much better if there had been more about Ally's background, especially her job and the time before she met her fiance. I would have liked to have seen what led her up to that point in her emotional state, and why she was so desperate for love and approval. Her actions after getting engaged didn't make much sense or have much impact, since I didn't know too much about her character. I was just told that she was a good person.

I did like what Jessica Barry did with the mother/daughter relationship. It was a really good balance in terms of the relationship side of things and the thriller plot.

[lovelybookshelf]

This was a gripping page-turner! I needed to know more! What was going on, who could be trusted and who couldn't? I had all kinds of ideas about how things would pan out, but I didn't actually know what was up until the very end.

My only complaint about the book is that a couple of the women gave off a faint air of med-shaming women with PPD. I wish that had either been countered or left out. It wasn't antagonistic, just insensitive/dismissive.