I Dreamed of Falling
by Julia Dahl
In acclaimed author Julia Dahl’s new standalone, the death of a young mother triggers an avalanche of secrets in a small Hudson Valley town.
Roman Grady is the sole reporter for the local newspaper in a tiny Hudson Valley town – a town so small that every store opening and DUI is considered newsworthy. But when Roman’s longtime girlfriend, Ashley, the mother of his four-year-old son, is found dead, he realizes he had no idea what was really going on in her life.
And when he starts asking questions, he’s not prepared for the answers.
What was Ashley doing at the cliffside home of her troubled ex-girlfriend? How did no one in a house full of people see what happened to her? And why does it seem like everyone in town suddenly has something to hide? As Roman and his mother dig into Ashley’s last few months, the truths they uncover threaten to expose painful secrets. The kind of secrets that can get you killed.
A gripping thriller and a moving portrait of a family struggling through tragedy, I Dreamed of Falling showcases Julia Dahl’s talent for using crime fiction to tell an immersive and unforgettable story. Dahl’s unflinching novel asks hard questions about love, regret, inequality, and the possibilities and the perils of forgiveness.
My Rating:
Favorite Quotes:
Although his boss had to pretend to embrace the family-friendly nature of the town whose newspaper he ran, privately he was a man with a heart as atrophied as his calf muscles.
His chin was crumbling and sobs felt like stones in his mouth.
Tara felt as if her entire body were made of wet sand. Like chunks of it might fall off if she moved.
My Review:
This was my first experience reading her work and I quickly began to covet and admire Julia Dahl’s exceptional word skills for creating and maintaining an eerie and prickly atmosphere that was taut with tension and unease while pregnant with an odd and incongruent mixture of anticipation, sensual pleasures, and deep-seated resentments.
This skilled wordsmith’s agility in shaping her deeply troubled and fatally flawed characters’ development was beyond insightful, richly perceptive, and profoundly observant. Poignant handling and thoughtful touches tucked in unexpected places added additional heft and depth to the reading experience. I was riveted to my Kindle.
Julia Dahl was born and raised in Fresno, California. In 1994, she stumbled onto the staff of her high school newspaper and has been chasing stories ever since.
Her first novel, Invisible City, is the story of a New York City tabloid reporter investigating the murder of an Hasidic woman from Borough Park. Invisible City was a finalist for the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award for Best First Novel and was named one of the Boston Globe’s Best Books of 2014. Invisible City also won the Barry, the Shamus, and the Macavity Awards for Best First Novel, and has been translated into eight languages.
The sequel, Run You Down, was published in June 2015, and Conviction, the third book in the Rebekah Roberts series, was published in 2017. New York Magazine called Conviction “a murder mystery for our tumultuous times,” and it was named one of the best books of 2017 by the Boston Globe and LitHub.
Her fourth novel, a stand-alone called The Missing Hours, was published in September 2021. The New York Times called it “a great reckoning with the moment we find ourselves in,” and the book was the September 2021 Oxygen Book Club pick.
Her fifth novel, a stand-alone called I Dreamed of Falling, published in September 2024. The book has received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Library Journal, which named it their Mystery Pick of the Month.
Dahl has been a freelance reporter for the New York Post, an associate features editor at Marie Claire, the deputy managing editor of the Crime Report, and a crime and justice reporter for CBSNews.com. Her feature articles have appeared in the Guardian, Fast Company, the Columbia Journalism Review, Business Insider, Seventeen, the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, and Salon, among others.
These days, Dahl teaches journalism and advises students at NYU. She also does freelance manuscript editing and coaching, and teaches online courses for fiction writers.
Dahl has a BA from Yale and masters degrees in creative writing and journalism from The New School and American University, respectively.
After 20 years in New York City, Dahl now lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband and son.