I needed tissues for this one. This Author really does pick topics that are emotional and hard!

Gripping read. Sad. But a great story and unpredictable plot.

Found it hard to put the book down and really enjoyed the twists.

I need a bigger scale! Again a solid 3.5 stars. Gripping story with likeable characters that you will root for from page 1. Heartbreaking and uplifting at once.

Another great read from Charity Norman. I love the way she explores relationships & characters in great detail.

I did guess the whodunnit early on as well as who Sasha's father was (there aren't really enough male characters to make this a mystery!) but still enjoyed the book & how events played out.

I absolutely love Charity Norman’s writing style. She instantly hooks me with the story and then gives a twist I wasn’t expecting!

We read about Finn’s fall first, and then we get the background into Martha and Kit’s family. Reading the background, I immediately assumed that Kit had something to do with Finn’s fall. All signs pointed to that conclusion, but boy was I wrong.

Martha has to make a split-second decision. Should she protect her whole family in hopes that any investigation will blow over? Or should she sacrifice the one person who caused this whole mess?

I don’t want to say what happened, but it was shocking to me! I was not expecting that twist at all, and it was done wonderfully. I could feel Martha’s indecision and I could feel her heartbreak over what had become of her family because of her decision to move them.

Okay, I’m going to get spoiler-y here…..

I do want to discuss the ending a bit. I don’t feel that Sacha’s ending was earned. I wish that she would have had to pay for her actions. If I were Martha, and I don’t have children so this may affect my decision, I would have called the police or sent Sacha to rehab! Instead, she basically got her way by acting out and got to go back home. She ripped her family apart and caused her family to go through a very hard time, including investigation.

One thing that stuck out to me was when Kit was asking the social worker for an apology. These types of investigations can ruin a family’s reputation. Kit and Martha were cleared, but the memory of the investigation will be fresh on people’s minds and they may forever be viewed as abusers. Instead of being allowed to worry about their child, they had to worry about an investigation instead. It’s a fine line because the investigation is necessary, I see that, but at the same time, it’s hard for the innocent parents to deal with.

This was a wonderful book by Charity Norman, and I really look forward to reading more from her! She is two for two right now :)

*This book was provided for review on Confessions of a Bookaholic. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was one of those books I would probably never have read from looking at the cover ,but it was our Book Club choice.I'm glad now because I couldn't put it down!

At the start you get drawn into how lovely the lifestyle in New Zealand is & how idyllic the area where they live is but it soon reveals a much darker,terrifying side.

I enjoyed the characters in this & could understand the dilemma a mother would face & was in complete floods of tears by the ending.Great read & one I'd thoroughly recommend .

This review is also posted on my blog So Many eBooks, So Little Time

“In the early hours of this morning, the Lowe Corporation rescue helicopter was scrambled to airlift a five-year old boy from a coastal address north of Napier”

Some books grip you from the very first sentence, After The Fall by Charity Norman is one of those books. The newspaper article describing the incident raises many more questions than it answers. How and why did Finn fall? Did he survive? If so, how serious are his injuries? As we read the first chapter another question arises; what does his mother Martha know that she does not want to admit to?

Told from Martha’s point of view we are taken back to over a year before when she and her husband Kit decide to emigrate to New Zealand. It is a decision that shocks everyone but it is one that Martha and Kit feel is best for their family. Her sister Lou is devastated, her father tell her to do what she thinks is best, her daughter Sacha thinks that her mum is ruining her life. Somehow they push through all of this and make the move. On arriving in New Zealand they fall in love with a picturesque house in the middle of nowhere and begin to rebuild their lives with school, work, neighbours and a new community.

As the story progresses through the year between the move and Finn’s fall we are given glimpses of the aftermath, but still no hints as to what really happened. Throughout this I found myself wondering how and where did it all go so wrong? Both Martha and Kit’s careers are picking up, the twins are loving their new home and Sacha has made new friends and is doing well at school.

The characters, including the more minor characters, all feel so real and the beautiful town the McNamara’s live in really comes alive so before you know it you are at the last quarter of the book. The first three quarters had me hooked, but I read the last quarter almost compulsively as we finally learn the truth about the events that led to Finn’s fall.

I would say more but trust me, this is not a book you want spoiled for you, it hit me right in the heart and I am still reeling from it.