I Dreamed of Falling

After suffering severe postpartum depression, yoga instructor Ashley Lillian has just gotten back on her feet when she’s found dead, plunging her already-dysfunctional family into a maelstrom of grief, guilt, and recriminations, in this moving psychological thriller from Dahl (The Missing Hours). As police in the tiny Hudson Valley town of Adamsville, N.Y., investigate how Ashley’s body ended up on the slope below the home where she’d been partying with her estranged ex-lover, Bella Abernathy, Ashley’s current partner, Roman Grady—the sole reporter for the local newspaper—can’t help but start asking questions of his own. Roman, who spent the fateful night in Manhattan, wonders when Ashley reconnected with Bella, what happened to her phone, and what accounts for a bizarre discrepancy in the cash-strapped couple’s finances. As Roman takes a fresh look at the people in his orbit—including his domineering mother, Tara, with whom he and Ashley had been living—he begins to fear he may not have known them at all. Dahl’s gift for suspense will keep readers flipping pages, but in the end, it’s her finely wrought characters they’ll remember. It’s an impressive leap forward from the author’s previous, more plot-driven efforts. (Sept.)

This review has been updated to remove a spoiler.