ARC READER REVIEW

Some books entertain you. Some books keep you up at night, flipping pages until your eyes burn. And then there are books like The Canadian Fall, the ones that crawl under your skin, take up space in your mind, and refuse to let go.

I went into this book thinking I was getting a mystery. A thriller, maybe. A woman trapped in a bad marriage, sure. I’ve read stories like that before. But The Canadian Fall is different. It doesn’t just tell you Ann McFadden’s story—it pulls you into it so completely that you feel every suffocating second of her life.

Ann isn’t just a woman in a difficult marriage. She is a woman erased. Slowly, quietly, systematically. Not through violence, not through scandal, but through the kind of control that’s so insidious, so normalized, that it doesn’t even look like control. Until it does.

And that’s what The Canadian Fall does so well. It takes you by the hand, shows you this woman’s life, and then, before you even realize it, you’re suffocating right alongside her.

Mark, her husband, isn’t a villain in the classic sense. He’s worse. He’s the kind of man who thinks he’s a good husband, who plays the role of success, who believes that love looks like ownership. And his mother, Grace? She is the kind of character that makes you want to reach into the pages and shake someone. The way she speaks about marriage, about a wife’s duties, about the things she truly believes will keep a man happy—it’s chilling because you know there are people out there who actually think this way.

And just when you think you know where Ann’s story is going, just when you start to believe in a way out, The Canadian Fall does something you don’t expect. It twists the knife.

There’s a moment in this book, I won’t spoil it, but it involves a dream. And for one heart-stopping second, I actually thought Ann had given in. That she had gone back. That she had submitted.

And I felt rage. Real, genuine, almost physical anger.

Then I turned the page. And I exhaled. And then? I realized this book had me. Completely.

This isn’t just a thriller. It’s not just a domestic suspense novel. It’s a psychological experience. It’s about power, control, freedom, and the terrifying reality that sometimes, the worst prisons don’t have locks.

If you pick up this book, be warned:It will get into your head.It will make you feel things you weren’t expecting to feel.It will stay with you.

And long after you turn the last page, you’ll still be thinking about Ann. I know I am.