Wonderful book! Great storyline and interesting characters. Thanks for the advanced copy. Can't wait to read more by Andrew P Foster

A great mystery and thriller book. I would recommend reading it. Thank you to NetGalley for your allowing me to read this book.

💫 Book Review 💫 
Snow Fall by Andrew P Foster

A debut author brings a murder mystery with a whole lotta confusion. I hate having to write reviews like this but as this was a gifted copy for an honest review, I’ll have to do it. 

First the good: complex characters, fantastic premise and the makings of what could have been a heart wrenching story. The chapters are short so it’s easy to flip through them.. and even though I didn’t like so many of the people in the book, I still wanted to know how it would tie together. 

It’s the story about a man (Philip) who loses his wife in a plane crash (Ellie). In order to begin a new start after she dies, Philip takes their young son Christopher to NYC to begin again.  As the story unfolds, the reader is taken into the underground world of pornography, drugs, murder and acting. I think that was part of my problem with the book.. there was just too many things happening that I didn’t have enough time to catch up. 

It sounds as though this will be a series, so I wonder how it’ll continue.... perhaps I will give it another chance with book 2 when it comes out. Maybe it dives more into the complex topics that it introduces.

Snow Fall by Andrew P Foster takes place in New York, during Christmas of 1984.  Philip Sanders has just lost his wife in a plane crash and has to pick up the pieces and move on for himself and his young son Chris.  The characters are very complex and have moments that are both deeply moving and raw.  Sooner rather than later, Philip gets caught up in a mystery!  A few twists and turns will keep you guessing and WOW that ending!  Can't wait to see what's next from Mr. Foster!

The author has a way of writing that draws you deeply into the story. His description of grief is so true and authentic. And I love his imagery - he writes in a way that you can almost taste what it is like to be in the theater, or enjoying a crisp downhill run on skis.

This was a very convoluted story about a wife and mother who is supposedly killed in an airplane crash but is found to be really more involved than previously thought. This novel has many twists and turns with references to the drug world, real estate, pornography and snuff films. This kept my interest throughout even though I had to read it twice as I hadn’t left a review the first time.

Phillip Sanders has the perfect life! He’s in love with his beautiful wife Ellie and a 4-year-old son, Chris. Sadly, Ellie tragically dies in a plane crash. Or so we are led to believe. But when Phillip leaves Los Angeles and moves back to New York he gets mixed up in all kinds of mysterious events. Then he finds some signs that maybe Ellie didn’t die in the crash, and instead she left him and Chris, which he really can’t believe.  Unfortunately, the story goes a little bit crazy from there, too many characters, too many lines to follow, too many side stories.  I did finish the story, but have to admit to skimming quite a bit, which didn’t seem to hurt the story at all.  I wish the author had stuck to one storyline and followed it through. Thank you to NetGalley and the author for this copy of Snowfall.

Thanks to Netgalley and CityBound Books for giving me this ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

Snow fall started off on a great note. Philip is devastated after the death of his wife, Ellie. He moves to New York with his 4-year-old son and starts hanging out at his old haunts. However, he finds that NY has changed, and not for the better.

There are too many things going on in the book. I often felt that the author has bitten off more than he can chew. I couldn't connect with any character and the writing was haphazard. 

The story had great promise but it seems to have been wasted. Maybe some good editing will do it a world of good.

One time read at the most.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. It has been published in June 2020.

"Snow Fall" by Andrew P Foster takes quite a fresh approach to the missing-person thriller subgenre, combining the protagonist's very personal investigation about his wife's disappearance with a larger-scale investigation into the world of illegal drugs, child pornography, snuff movies and real estate mafia.
On the one hand, it's interesting to read about the connections among these apparently very different worlds. On the other hand, that many themes were maybe too much to properly develop in one single novel, and the story suffers from never actually getting to focus on any of these very complex subjects.
There are a lot of characters and it's hard to keep track of all of them, or to get emotionally invested in any but a few.
I liked very much the protagonist, who never gets whiny (even when he'd have every reason to) and never indulges in self-pity.
I also appreciated how the protagonist's son is described: there's no room for the saccharine idealization of a young child here. Chris is one regular four-year-old, who can be sweet at times, and throw horrible tantrums at others. He never does or says anything that would make him sound much older than his age, like it so often happens in many other novels.
I disliked Marcie's character: she gave me creepy vibes from her first appearance, and I didn't really understand her motivations. I was very surprised and not particularly reassured by the role she was given in the epilogue.
The plot twists were not particularly surprising, but the story itself is action-packed and the writing style combines humour and pathos in just the right mix, so it was overall a good, entertaining read.
It would have been even more pleasant if it weren't so full of typos! I'm talking about several mistakes (misspells, missing words, words in the wrong order) in every single page, and the book is over 200 pages long. That's an awful lot of mistakes, and they're so frequent that they actually impact on the legibility of the text. Makes you wonder whether they even employ a proofreader.

This book blew me away! I was unable to but it down. Perfect, dazzlingly, very well written. The details the author described throughout the book was so amazing. The  characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming  Truly Amazing and appreciated the whole story. This is going to be a must read for many many readers. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! No spoilers. Beyond amazing I enjoyed this book so very much. The characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming  Could not put down nor did I want to. Truly Amazing and appreciated the whole story. This is going to be a must read for many many readers. Maybe even a book club pick.

Plot: I'm really not sure. It started as a story about a man and his child who experience a loss after the wife dies in a plane crash and they move to New York City from their rich and famous life in LA.

Opinion: I started the book thinking it would be a sort of murder mystery and it seemed that way but then the writing shifted to more of a contemporary style. It's confusing because I really don't know what to expect on the way the story is set to unfold. 

The writing itself is very disjointed and somewhat difficult to read. The writer describes the characters really vividly and gives you a feel like you know these people really intimately but the way the story flows itself is very stop-start-stop which becomes difficult to read after sometime. I don't know if that was a stylistic choice but personally I found it very exhausting. Aside from that, I have also struggled to truly appreciate the content because I really don't know what I was reading. As such, I have had to DNF(Did Not Finish) this book at 31%. 

Recommendations: 
Better flow to the story, i.e. pick a theme and stick to it. If the writer intends to make us understand relationships and loss then this should be the theme of the story, but if it is more of a mystery/thriller it should have that distinct feel. The manner in which he tried to mix the two themes falls flat in this book. 

He should also have made the writing less static and more fluid. eg. Phillip starts thinking one thing, but then gets distracted and randomly moves to another thought in the middle of his previous one, and it's confusing to the reader because you literally have no clue what he is actually trying to put across. 

All in all, good effort but I don't think I will be finishing this book.

Snowfall is the story of a recently widowed man and his child moving back to New York, starting their lives again after their loss. With his acting career going no where, he agrees to help support a local woman with an investigation into the current increase in drug related activity in the neighbourhood. 
The story is told from the perspective of Philip Sanders, the widowed husband and it is well written with the ability to transport you to New York, to see what Sanders is seeing and feel what he is feeling. That said, the first half of the book is slow, I found it very difficult to get into and it didn't leave me wanting to find out what happened to Phil. I didn't feel much for him as a protagonist, despite being imperfect and likeable. His relationship with his kid isn't dug into in great depth, however, the moments of the relationship you do get to see are touching. The back end of the book moves with greater pace and the story unravels, but apart from a few twists, it becomes apparent quite quickly what the twist is.
Overall, I enjoyed the book but I was hoping to feel a bit more drawn into it.

I received an eARC of Snow Fall by Andrew P. Foster from City Bound Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

This book held so much promise but unfortunately fell short for me. There were A LOT of moving parts to the story, it was difficult to get into and you don't get to know the characters very well at all. I give this book 2 stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and publisher CityBound Books for the ARC.
It took me a while to get into this book and to understand the main characters, but I did enjoy it.

It's two weeks before Christmas and Philip Sanders and his four year old son Chris, mourning the loss of Ellie in a plane crash six months previously, have moved from their Hollywood home to a an apartment in a seedy side of New York.  Both Philip and Ellie were documentary produces and Ellie travelled a lot for her assignments;  Phillip preferred to do the research side of documentaries.  But now he has returned to where they both studied in theatre arts, where they married and where he likes to recapture images of their time together.
His sister Eileen found him the apartment; she works in real estate sales for a group of investors.
Philip explores his surroundings - the drug deals, the prostitution, the lack of policing and an abandoned building used as a crack house.
Then a week later he receives an envelope containing letters addressed to Ellie seeming to point to her having an affair, as well as a safety deposit box - Philip understands none of it, especially when he comes across a pornographic photo of a young girl..  
A phone call from Jake Sculler Snr invites Phillip to meet him - he's a real estate tycoon, his son Jnr. being Philip's landlord.  He knew Ellie and he knows Eileen.  He's offered a weekend in Vermont in an executive chalet and there he meets ski instructor Kate.
Philip is questioning his life with Ellie and determined to find the truth as he chases-down her correspondences.  When he really starts researching and, finding that Eileen and Kate know each other, some secrets and deceits start revealing themselves - did Ellie die in the plane crash or had she left him?.  But nothing can prepare him for the whole devastating truth.  Who is actually pulling the strings?  What did Ellie get herself mixed up in?

I admit to having to skim-read some lengthy narrative passages where Philip muses on his life with Ellie but I thought the conclusion was good and thoughtful.

Snow Fall is the story of a man whose wife dies in a plane crash and the events that follow as he moves back to New York from LA with his young son. As the story progresses, he learns that the crash, his wife, and life as he knew it, may not have been what they seemed. If you like a book with a lot of moving plot points and changes around every corner, this might be the one for you. While that may be for some, I felt that there were too many pieces to this plot for me to get fully invested in the story. To name a few - the death of the wife/mother in a plane crash; landlord with a sketchy history, possibly related to the wife, trying to sell the apartment building where the main character lives; an intense drug scene; pornography; murder; and a failing acting career. I wanted to be intrigued by this mystery/thriller, but struggled to follow along.

Phillip Sanders loves his life, he has a beautiful wife Ellie and a 4 year old son, Chris. Ellie tragically dies in a plane crash ... but did she?! Phillip takes the opportunity to move to New York with Chris and gets caught up in a life of drugs and mysterious events occur all around him. Phill asks questions about Ellie to the neighbours, but who can he trust? Is Ellie dead? On a hunt to find the answers he bumps into people who know more than they are letting on.

I would give this book 2 stars and I really feel that's being generous! I just can't like or care about any of the characters. Phillip leaves Chris all the time, takes drugs and is utterly careless! Such a poor excuse of a parent and part of me wished he got killed off! There are a lot of characters in this novel and some only make a brief appearance, it's hard to keep on top of and not sure if everything was ever fully explained or completely told. I was bored reading it and will not read any further books by this author.

A complex and intricately woven story. Drug dealing, pornography, death, mourning, starting over; there's a lot going on in here. I lost the thread a few times but overall, a decent read with a satisfying ending. While it plodded along at some points, the end had my heart racing. I would have liked some character development. I do love stories set in NYC, though. 

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

This book started so well, with Philip struggling to deal with the loss of his wife, thought to have died in a plane crash, but then it all goes badly wrong when he moves to New York in search of the truth about her life and death.  

His search takes him into the underworld of drugs, paedophilia, pornography.  As the story progresses he is a less and less convincing character. From being a devoted father to his young son, increasingly he leaves him at home alone, or with babysitters he's only know for a very short time in a world in which he can trust no-one and where he and consequently 4-year-old Chris are in increasing danger.  In addition, whilst taking on the drugs world he indulges in illegal substances quite a lot himself! 

When the 'hero' of a novel takes on the criminal world, puts himself into increasingly bizarre and dangerous situations and survives to tell the tale, it seems such a cliché and is totally unbelievable.  And the last straw was sending his little boy down a black ski run.  Sadly most of the novel consisted of a catalogue of situations I just could not believe in.

I really enjoyed the writing and some of the insights of this author. Its a tough story, with lots of loss and duplicity, some of the right reasons, some not. 
There are some things that don't make sense to me, how a loving mother could put herself into so much danger, but human behavior never fails to baffle me. 

Sudden, unexplained loss is hard enough, furthermore to explain to a child. But our hero does the best he can and muddles through with the best of intentions. His awareness of himself is good, but sometimes not enough to make the better decisions. Making a dramatic move after the death leads him into a very dramatic and dangerous series of events, some are truly horrible. I can not stand when animals are involved-

The ending is ok, a bit poignant but hopeful. 
Recommend.