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 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 fiancé’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.
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Buckle up you are in for a fast paced thriller; 2 stories in one.
Lots of twists and turns. You will want to keep turning the pages; easy to do with a lot of short chapters so you can say just one more.
A roller coaster of a book with strong characters; you are routing Allison along (who survived a plane crash) as she is being tracked down.
Well done Jessica !!
A great Psych. Thriller! The end a surprise.
/ 5
WOW you guys! Freefall by Jessica Barry is a fast-paced survival story that I absolutely could not put down!
What it’s about: Allison Carpenter is on her fiancé’s private plane when it goes down over the Colorado Rockies. The pilot doesn’t make it, but amazingly enough Allison survives. But Allison knows a terrible secret, one that some very powerful people will kill to keep under wraps. So she must run, and not let anyone know she is alive. Meanwhile, Allison’s mom Maggie is told that her daughter is presumed dead. She is shattered but also has a secret of her own – she hasn’t spoken to Allison in 2 years and didn’t even know she was engaged. Even though she knows nothing of this new life of Allison’s, she is desperate to find out what led up to the plane crash, and will not give up hope that her daughter is still alive.
Freefall has a survivalist aspect that I know many people enjoy, and not only do we get to follow Allison on her journey through the mountains, we also get the benefit of her having flashbacks of all the things that led up to the plane crash. I do have to say, that she spends quite a lot of time out there on foot, so it was really helpful that there were flashbacks in her POV. I don’t know if I could have handled only hearing about her surviving in the Rockies.
I loved the pacing of this novel, and I was hooked from the very first page. I’ve seen a few people that said it took them a bit to get hooked, but not this girl. It was a riveting story, and I loved having both Allison and her mom Maggie’s POVs. There ends up being a bit of gore in this book, but nothing too major, and I think Barry did it in a way that it wasn’t incredibly gruesome which is hard for me to read.
I was also pleasantly surprised by the dash of humor the author manages to throw into Freefall. Every once and awhile I would find myself laughing out loud at something, and that is truly one of my favorite things in a book.
Final Thought: I HIGHLY recommend Freefall and I can hardly believe it is a debut novel. I think this could be one of my top books of 2019 if you can believe that. Even though it was not a 5 star read for me, I was still blown away by the excellent pacing, the mystery, and how well this book is written. If you like a bit of a survivalist story with a strong mother/daughter bond aspect then I definitely recommend checking this one out. I can’t wait to read more from Barry, and I hope she has another novel very soon!