Since We Fell

by Dennis Lehane, Julia Whelan (Read by)

Overview

Since We Fell follows Rachel Childs, a former journalist who, after an on-air mental breakdown, now lives as a virtual shut-in. In all other respects, however, she enjoys an ideal life with an ideal husband. Until a chance encounter on a rainy afternoon causes that ideal life to fray. As does Rachel’s marriage. As does Rachel herself. Sucked into a conspiracy thick with deception, violence, and possibly madness, Rachel must find the strength within herself to conquer unimaginable fears and mind-altering truths. By turns heart- breaking, suspenseful, romantic, and sophisticated, Since We Fell is a novel of profound psychological insight and tension. It is Dennis Lehane at his very best.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062850904
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	05/01/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 5.80(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Dennis Lehane is the author of thirteen novels—including the New York Times bestsellers Live by Night; Moonlight Mile; Gone, Baby, Gone; Mystic River; Shutter Island; and The Given Day—as well as Coronado, a collection of short stories and a play. He grew up in Boston, MA and now lives in California with his family.

Julia Whelan is a screenwriter, lifelong actor, and award-winning audiobook narrator. She graduated with a degree in English and creative writing from Middlebury College and Oxford University. While she was in England, her flirtation with tea blossomed into a full-blown love affair, culminating in her eventual certification as a tea master. 

Hometown:

Boston, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

August 4, 1965

Place of Birth:

Dorchester, Massachusetts

Education:

B.A., Eckerd College, 1988; M.F.A., Florida International University, 1993

Website:

http://www.dennislehanebooks.com

Editorial Reviews

[Lehane] remains one of the great, diabolical thriller kings who seems intimately acquainted with darkness and can make it seep from the page or screen.

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

09/04/2017
Reader Whelan captures the complexity of the protagonist and suspense of Lehane’s psychological thriller set in contemporary Boston. The story revolves around Rachel Childs, the once rising star TV news reporter whose career ended in 2009, when she melted down on-air while covering the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. In the years since, Rachel has remained jobless and emotionally shattered, and become prone to panic attacks. She attributes her crippling anxiety to her absent father, who abandoned her when she was five. Rachel, now in her late 30s, rarely leaves the house except to investigate the identity of her father, which she sees as the antidote to her mental issues. That’s how she meets Brian Delacroix, a handsome and charismatic private eye, who becomes her new source of stability and eventually her husband. Yet one bump in the road of married life, and Rachel loses control leading her to conspiracy theories about her husband. Whelan pulls the listener along this ever-twisting plot with a cool, low-key delivery that allows Lehane’s clean, proficient prose to flow easily without any embellishments. She keeps characterizations of supporting characters, such as Brian and Rachel’s mom, to a minimum, but the dialogue is delivered naturally and easy to follow. Whelan excels at subtly voicing Rachel’s interior state as she grows from insecure, agoraphobic recluse to a take-charge woman of action. An Ecco hardcover. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Audio

03/27/2017
Set in contemporary Boston, this expertly wrought character study masquerading as a thriller from Edgar-winner Lehane (World Gone By) features his first-ever female protagonist. Once a star journalist, until something snapped during her TV coverage of the devastation in Haiti following the 2009 earthquake, Rachel Childs now barely leaves her house. Lehane portrays the frantic hamster wheel of waxing and waning anxiety with unnerving clarity. A lifetime of tension, much of it spawning from her now-deceased mother’s refusal to disclose the identity of Rachel’s father, weighs on Rachel. The quest to put a name to half her DNA is what first sets Rachel on a collision course with Brian Delacroix, a PI (or so he claims) who advises her against the whole thing. Fast forward several years, and Rachel and Brian meet again. Their eventual marriage is romantic and life-affirming, as Brian coaxes Rachel through the swamp of her psyche, until it’s suddenly not. The book’s conspiracy plot doesn’t cut the deepest; it’s Lehane’s intensely intimate portrayal of a woman tormented by her own mind. 15-city tour. Agent: Ann Rittenberg, Ann Rittenberg Literary. (May)

Publishers Weekly

[Lehane] remains one of the great, diabolical thriller kings who seems intimately acquainted with darkness and can make it seep from the page.” — New York Times

“A pleasantly twisted character study and a love story. . . . Lehane is in command of what he’s doing.” — Washington Post

“A pleasantly twisted character study and a love story. . . . Lehane is in command of what he’s doing.” — Tampa Bay Times

“Lehane has written two books-one, an insightful examination of the search for identity and belonging, and two, a thriller that constantly leaves you guessing-and then smashed them together into one terrific read.” — Gillian Flynn

“A riveting exercise in psychological suspense.” — Providence Journal

“Endlessly surprising. . . . [A] twisty tale.” — Wall Street Journal

“Lehane writes expert, compelling thrillers. . . . He’s one of the game changers who smashed the imaginary boundary between genre and literature, proving that we can have the best of both at once.” — Tana French, Washington Post

“Make no mistake, Since We Fell is crime fiction, filled with con men, murder, greed and revenge. But the love story gives this novel its heart.” — Associated Press

“[Lehane’s] work always combines pulp thrills with literary heart and sophistication.” — Entertainment Weekly

“The most thrilling novel I’ll read all year. Since We Fell is simmering with emotion, menace, and humor. I loved it.” — Kate Atkinson

“Complex, tense, compelling, and an emotional and strategic hall of mirrors, where nothing is what it seems—but I would follow Dennis Lehane anywhere.” — Lee Child

“Another winner from the author of Mystic River. . . . A raucous mix of lust, greed, and betrayal.” — AARP Magazine

“The surfeit of plot twists and emotional baggage are buoyed by Lehane’s hard-boiled lyricism and peerless feel for New England noir.” — USA Today

“One doesn’t ‘read’ Since We Fell so much as plunge and tumble through its pages like a raft in white water. A sweet bullet of a book.” — Richard Price

“Once you pick up a Dennis Lehane novel, you’re hooked. It’s just that simple. Since We Fell is a complex, compelling, page-turner of a novel from a master storyteller at the top of his game.” — Kristin Hannah

“[Since We Fell] should have crime fiction fans busting out the bottle rockets and champagne. . . . It’s impossible not to succumb.” — Lithub

“With sharply acute characterization, this is classic Lehane.” — The Guardian

“A ride you won’t want to miss.” — New York Journal of Books

“The mystery and intrigue never let go; the twists and turns are engaging and unexpected all the way down the track.” — James Lee Burke

From the Publisher

[Lehane] remains one of the great, diabolical thriller kings who seems intimately acquainted with darkness and can make it seep from the page.

New York Times

Lehane writes expert, compelling thrillers. . . . He’s one of the game changers who smashed the imaginary boundary between genre and literature, proving that we can have the best of both at once.

Tana French

Make no mistake, Since We Fell is crime fiction, filled with con men, murder, greed and revenge. But the love story gives this novel its heart.

Associated Press

Endlessly surprising. . . . [A] twisty tale.

Wall Street Journal

A riveting exercise in psychological suspense.

Providence Journal

The most thrilling novel I’ll read all year. Since We Fell is simmering with emotion, menace, and humor. I loved it.

Kate Atkinson

Lehane has written two books-one, an insightful examination of the search for identity and belonging, and two, a thriller that constantly leaves you guessing-and then smashed them together into one terrific read.

Gillian Flynn

A pleasantly twisted character study and a love story. . . . Lehane is in command of what he’s doing.

Washington Post

A pleasantly twisted character study and a love story. . . . Lehane is in command of what he’s doing.

Tampa Bay Times

[Lehane’s] work always combines pulp thrills with literary heart and sophistication.

Entertainment Weekly

Endlessly surprising. . . . [A] twisty tale.

Wall Street Journal

A pleasantly twisted character study and a love story. . . . Lehane is in command of what he’s doing.

Washington Post

Complex, tense, compelling, and an emotional and strategic hall of mirrors, where nothing is what it seems—but I would follow Dennis Lehane anywhere.

Lee Child

A ride you won’t want to miss.

New York Journal of Books

The surfeit of plot twists and emotional baggage are buoyed by Lehane’s hard-boiled lyricism and peerless feel for New England noir.

USA Today

[Since We Fell] should have crime fiction fans busting out the bottle rockets and champagne. . . . It’s impossible not to succumb.

Lithub

With sharply acute characterization, this is classic Lehane.

The Guardian

Once you pick up a Dennis Lehane novel, you’re hooked. It’s just that simple. Since We Fell is a complex, compelling, page-turner of a novel from a master storyteller at the top of his game.

Kristin Hannah

One doesn’t ‘read’ Since We Fell so much as plunge and tumble through its pages like a raft in white water. A sweet bullet of a book.

Richard Price

Another winner from the author of Mystic River. . . . A raucous mix of lust, greed, and betrayal.

AARP Magazine

The mystery and intrigue never let go; the twists and turns are engaging and unexpected all the way down the track.

James Lee Burke

The surfeit of plot twists and emotional baggage are buoyed by Lehane’s hard-boiled lyricism and peerless feel for New England noir.

USA Today

Make no mistake, Since We Fell is crime fiction, filled with con men, murder, greed and revenge. But the love story gives this novel its heart.

Associated Press Staff

02/15/2017
After covering tragic events in Haiti, reporter Rachel Childs suffers a mental breakdown on live TV and is fired. Her public trauma leads to divorce and severe agoraphobia. Almost two years later, she has remarried and is finally starting to recover—until the day she spots her husband, Brian, who is supposedly out of the country. When she confronts him, Brian convinces her otherwise, and facts seem to support his story and the existence of a doppelgänger. When a mysterious friend of Brian's reappears and divulges new information, she finally follows Brian and his true betrayal is revealed. Rachel's life careens into a nightmare and a fight for her life as she discovers the depth of his deception. The first third of this book details Rachel's background and reads like literary fiction. The latter portion ventures into thriller territory. Rachel's fully-developed character grounds the suspense to ease this shift, and Lehane (Shutter Island; Live by Night) writes with a smooth ease that makes the pages fly by. VERDICT Readers will enjoy going along for the ride in this engrossing story about love, deception, and marital commitment. [See Prepub Alert, 11/7/16.]—Emily Byers, Salem P.L., OR

Library Journal

If you listen to audiobooks in the car, prepare to find yourself sitting in the driveway with this one. Julia Whelan does a near flawless job delivering this palpitation-inducing psychological thriller from the great Dennis Lehane. She’s good at accents, switching ages and genders, and her pacing is impeccable. Rachel Childs, the only child of a beautiful, very smart, very damaged mother, is looking for her father, whose identity she never knew. Always a great setup, but Lehane is using it as a springboard to explain how Rachel falls into a totally different swamp of deceptions. Whelan struggles with pronouncing “atheneum,” and someone “demured” at one point instead of demurring, or this performance would be a bases-loaded home run. Maybe is anyway. B.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

MAY 2017 - AudioFile

★ 2017-02-06
Don't zoom through this latest entry in Lehane's illustrious body of work. You'll miss plenty of intrigue, intricacies, and emotional subtleties.The clinical term for what ails journalist Rachel Childs is "agoraphobia." Even if the term didn't appear twice in the novel, it'd be easy enough for the reader to identify—and identify with—her pain thanks to Lehane's delicate, incisive rendering of her various symptoms. They include panic, rage, depression, and, most of all, self-loathing. ("That's who I've become," she thinks to herself. "A creature below contempt.") The reasons behind Rachel's breakdown are likewise cataloged in short, vivid strokes: a childhood spent mostly with her brittle, brilliant mother who refused to tell her anything at all about her father, leading to a yearslong search for that father culminating in desolation and heartbreak. The coup de grâce to Rebecca's self-esteem comes when her meteoric rise to prominence as a Boston TV reporter literally crashes from her on-camera nervous collapse while covering the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Through all these jolts and traumas, one person is always around, whether close or from a distance: Brian Delacroix, a witty, handsome Canadian-born businessman whom she first meets as a private investigator, later through his occasional "keep-your-chin-up" e-mails, and then, after she's all but locked herself away in her apartment, outside a South End bar. Brian gradually becomes the only one who can even begin to draw Rachel out of her deep blue funk, first as a confidant, then as a lover, and finally as her husband. Happily ever after? You know there's no such thing in a Lehane novel if you've dived into such rueful, knotty narratives as Mystic River (2001), Shutter Island (2003), and World Gone By (2015). It spoils nothing to disclose that Brian isn't quite who Rachel thinks he is. But as she discovers when she tentatively, gradually subdues her demons to seek the truth, Rachel isn't quite who she thinks she is either. What seems at the start to be an edgy psychological mystery seamlessly transforms into a crafty, ingenious tale of murder and deception—and a deeply resonant account of one woman's effort to heal deep wounds that don't easily show.

Kirkus Reviews