Freefall

She walked into the trapeze school to reclaim herself. She found a rush, a community of misfits, and a man whose grip felt like safety. But the mentor who taught her to fly has a pattern of breaking the women he elevates.

Six months after a relationship that quietly erased her, twenty-four-year-old Mia Castillo climbs a twenty-foot ladder and lets go of the trapeze bar for the first time. The fall is terrifying. The catch is transcendent. She returns the next day, and the next, drawn to the chalk dust and bruises and the impossible geometry of flight. She's found something she didn't know she needed: a body that can do hard things, a group of misfits who speak her language, and Theo, a quiet catcher whose careful attention feels like the opposite of what came before.

But the school's magnetic founder, Dominic Voss, teaches more than trapeze. He teaches trust as religion. His coaching blurs the line between mentorship and possession, and his former students either worship him or vanish. When Mia learns that a woman named Leah left the community without explanation, and that Theo has been lying about why he's really there, she begins to see the pattern beneath Dominic's philosophy. Now she's caught between two men who have both kept secrets from her, while Dominic grooms his next target: Bex, a twenty-two-year-old nursing dropout who reminds Mia uncomfortably of herself.

The question isn't whether Mia will fall. It's who will be there to catch her, and what they'll ask for in return.

As Dominic's attention escalates and his control tightens, Mia must choose: flee the toxic sanctuary she's built her recovery around, or use the skills she's learned to confront the source of the harm. The trapeze teaches you one thing above all: you have to know when to hold on and when to let go.

Freefall is a taut psychological thriller about the difference between being caught and being trapped, between surrender and submission, and about a woman who learns to fly by first learning to trust herself.

Perfect for readers who devoured The Silent Patient, The Push, Big Little Lies, and The Maid.