Hannah thought her life was wonderful. Then she made an awful discovery. Now she has landed in the psychiatric hospital after doing something unspeakable in retaliation. Unspeakable at least for her. And Hannah needs to understand why. For one thing, her husband Danny cheated on her. That’s pretty bad, but was that it? And, by the way, does Danny really want his wife to get better? Does he want her to come back home? He loved her once, but now it seems as though he can barely stand to look at her. Is what Hannah did so much worse than what Danny admits to doing? In order to appease her husband, she agrees to remain in therapy until the issues can be resolved.

"Tammy Cohen has created clever backstories leading to complex motives that stretch across the characters. All the while, readers will have sympathy for many of the patients, therapists, staff members and family inhabiting the pages."

While in the hospital, Hannah makes some special friends. The women help each other work out their problems. But in reasonably quick succession, Hannah loses two of them to what the administration is calling suicide. The staff writes it off as fairly normal, considering why the women are there in the first place. But Hannah has trouble believing that they killed themselves. She’s not sure what she thinks happened to them, but she’s scared. Really scared. However, getting people to listen to you when you’re in a psych ward is almost impossible. Hannah, though, is determined to try. Unfortunately, her claims just make her sound crazier than she already did.

Finally, Hannah confides in her mother, Corinne, hoping she will be the one person to believe her. Corinne wants to believe her daughter --- of course she does --- but doubts keep nagging at her. In point of fact, Hannah isn’t who she thought she was. She did that awful…thing. No one ever saw that coming. So it’s hard to believe her now. But once Hannah has her mother convinced that things might not be as they seem --- might not be --- then at least her mom starts to consider there may be some truth to it. Eventually, then, Corinne does some digging. And as she digs, she uncovers secrets. In fact, she uncovers many secrets. And the facts she uncovers lead to many revelations. Hopefully, she won’t be too late.

THEY ALL FALL DOWN tackles the thorny issues of how fragile the human psyche is and how people deal with someone during a mental crisis. Hannah’s own mother doesn’t know if she has lost her mind. She did break down, after all. And just the stigma of being in a psychiatric facility puts one’s credibility in the spotlight. It casts a web of suspicion on one’s perceptions. And that opens the door to all sorts of ways that patients can be manipulated and deceived, maybe even destroyed forever.

In this book, author Tammy Cohen has created clever backstories leading to complex motives that stretch across the characters. All the while, readers will have sympathy for many of the patients, therapists, staff members and family inhabiting the pages. And, as for others, quite a lot of contempt. In the end, though, they may not choose to like the right ones or see the answer coming. Great twists abound.