Falling

by T. J. Newman

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

This relentless thriller will keep you on the edge of your seat! Buckle up for one of the most original and shocking suspense novels we've read in a LONG time. We held our breath the whole way through!

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“T. J. Newman has written the perfect thriller! A must-read.” —Gillian Flynn
“Stunning and relentless. This is Jaws at 35,000 feet.” —Don Winslow
“Falling is the best kind of thriller...Nonstop, totally authentic suspense.” —James Patterson
“Amazing...Intense suspense, shocks, and scares...Chilling.” —Lee Child

You just boarded a flight to New York.

There are one hundred and forty-three other passengers onboard.

What you don’t know is that thirty minutes before the flight your pilot’s family was kidnapped.

For his family to live, everyone on your plane must die.

The only way the family will survive is if the pilot follows his orders and crashes the plane.

Enjoy the flight.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982177881
Publisher:	Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	07/06/2021
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	177,935
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

T. J. Newman is a former bookseller and flight attendant whose first novel Falling became a publishing sensation and debuted at number two on the New York Times bestseller list. The book was named a best book of the year by USA TODAY and Esquire, among many others, and has been published in over thirty countries. The book will soon be a major motion picture from Universal Pictures. T. J. lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Drowning is her second novel.

Editorial Reviews

★ 05/31/2021

Soon after Coastal Airways captain Bill Hoffman, the hero of former flight attendant Newman’s superlative debut, is airborne on a flight from Los Angeles to JFK Airport, he gets a blank email from his wife, Carrie. The attached photo shows her and their 10-year-old son, Scott, standing in their living room, their faces covered with hoods and bombs strapped to their bodies. Then he gets a FaceTime call from Saman Khani, who presents the pilot with a choice: Bill must crash the plane, or the terrorist will kill Carrie, Scott, and Elise, the Hoffmans’ baby. Telling anyone of the situation or sending anyone to the house will ensure their deaths. Determined to avoid choosing between the lives of his loved ones and those of his crewmates and the 144 passengers on the flight, Bill must use all his experience and smarts to achieve that impossible goal by trying to get help to his family via a crew member who has a trusted relative in the FBI and by taking the flight attendants into his confidence. Newman makes buy-in to the setup easy by ensuring every character, including Khani, is multidimensional. This tense, convincing thriller marks the arrival of an assured new talent. Agent: Shane Salerno, Story Factory. (July)

Publishers Weekly

One of the year’s best thrillers . . . This novel is like the films Die Hard and Speed on steroids . . . Newman keeps up an extreme pace from the first page.”
—Library Journal (starred review)

“Brilliant . . . Incredibly suspenseful . . . With abundantly human characters, natural dialogue, and a plot that unleashes one surprise after another, this could be the novel that everyone is talking about this summer.”
—Booklist (starred review)

“A superlative debut . . . This tense, convincing thriller marks the arrival of an assured new talent.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“High-octane drama . . . Newman’s background means Falling brings a freshness and depth to the genre. While the story is propelled by the impossible situation Bill and his captive family find themselves in, at its heart is the relationship between the tight-knit crew. . . . It’s an eye-opening look into the reality of working on a plane.”
—The Guardian

“Falling is the best kind of thriller (for me as a reader anyway). Characters you care deeply about. Nonstop, totally authentic suspense.”
—James Patterson, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“T. J. Newman has taken a brilliant idea, a decade of real-life experience, and crafted the perfect summer thriller. Relentlessly paced and unforgettable.”
—Janet Evanovich, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Amazing . . . Intense suspense, shocks and scares plus chilling insider authenticity make this one very special.”
—Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“A bullet train of a thriller with incredible tension and personal stakes. The real engine of this stunning and relentless book is how far would you go to save your family? I read Falling with my heart in my throat—this is Jaws at 35,000 feet. An extraordinary debut and the perfect summer page-turner.”
—Don Winslow, New York Times bestselling author of The Force and The Cartel

“Heart pounding. Heart wringing. Heart STOPPING! A great book! One of those where you’re afraid to turn the next page, but you can’t stop.”
—Diana Gabaldon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Outlander series

“Think Speed on a passenger jet—with the cockpit dials turned up to supersonic.”
—Ian Rankin, #1 internationally bestselling author

“Buckle up for a completely original edge-of-your-seat thriller that will keep you guessing until the final nail-biting pages. Save your family or save the hundred passengers who have put their lives in your hands. You cannot save both. T. J. Newman’s chilling novel stayed with me long after I finished reading it. This is the best thriller I’ve read in years.”
—Adrian McKinty, New York Times bestselling author of The Chain

“A jet-propelled thriller that will have you in its grip from first page to last. A truly astonishing debut and an incredible work of pure suspense.”
—Steve Cavanagh, #1 bestselling author of the Eddie Flynn series

“Falling redefines the phrase roller-coaster ride. It redefines the term edge-of-your-seat thriller. Falling is that rarest of things, a book that is even better than everyone says it is. T. J. Newman has delivered a stunning debut.”
—Dervla McTiernan, #1 internationally bestselling author

From the Publisher

2021-08-18
Terrorist to pilot: Crash the plane and kill everyone aboard, or your family will die.

That's the choice that faces pilot Bill Hoffman after he is FaceTimed in the cockpit of Coastal Airways Flight 416 by a man who has his wife, son, and infant daughter bound, gagged, and strapped with suicide bombs—a man he believed was a cable repairman when he left the house on his way to work. "I’m not going to crash this plane and you’re not going to kill my family," Hoffman bravely replies—but it's clearly going to take some doing. This authentically detailed and unquestionably thrilling thriller is the debut novel of a bookseller-turned–flight attendant–turned-novelist. Newman uses her background to great advantage in portraying her three flight attendants—a Black woman named Jo, a tiny White guy they call Big Daddy, and a newbie still on probation, Kellie. From their intuitive evaluations of the passengers as they board to their collaborative problem-solving style to little details like how they funnel leftover first-class meals to the pilots, these characters give the high-flying heroics of the plot a grounding in reality. Air traffic controllers and pilots are also depicted with veracity and respect. On the other hand, the FBI agents are two-dimensional, and the characterization of the villains is a serious flaw. Casting Middle Eastern men as terrorists crashing planes is dated and reactionary at this point, even if the word Islam is not mentioned once and the characters explicitly reject jihadism. These guys' avenging rage has its roots in the horror of the U.S. withdrawal from Kurdistan and the American public's complete lack of interest, but this is not enough to rescue this racist stereotype.

An exciting story with great details, lots of action, and an unfortunately problematic premise.

Kirkus Reviews