1st Place Novel, Connecticut Press Club, 2022

(read the press release HERE)

A remarkable protagonist leads a robust cast in this absorbing tale of self-discovery.

Kirkus Reviews

Gravity Hill is a story about Jordan Hawkins, her family, and a small rural town in Connecticut wrecked by the tragic death of three boys on Gravity Hill. But what first appears to be a tragedy of drunk driving leads back to a mysterious accident that has plagued a small town for years, sending Jordan on a journey to clear her brother’s name. What she discovers—a hidden toxic waste site—sends the whole town on its own bumpy road to self-awareness and healing. 

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Gravity Hill by Susanne Davis shows a world upside down with a pickup truck turning over in a sunset sky. There is an award emblem that says 1st Place Connecticut Press Club Award 2002

The recorded interview below is with Susanne Davis by G.P. Gottlieb for New Books Network.

What people are saying about Gravity Hill:

Reviewed by Rebecca Ryan for discovery
Loved it! 😍 Death. Desire. Mystery. Follow Jordan Hawkins on her journey as she strives to uncover the truth surrounding her brothers tragic death… When I started this book, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The author Susanne Davis has beautifully penned the story from 19-year-old Jordan’s perspective. As the main character is so young, I was waiting to stumble upon childish threads and petty feuds. Instead, the story itself was very mature and adult in nature. It follows Jordan’s path of self-healing as she tries to come to terms with her brothers’ death. This underlying arc of death throughout the book rang painfully true and the emotions were not downplayed or once ignored. I sat and read the entire book in one sitting which; for me at least, shows how deeply the story can consume the reader.
Read the full review.

Susanne Davis’s Gravity Hill delivers the goods: hers is a heartfelt story of loss and renewal, populated with characters who are flawed, feisty, and entirely sympathetic. At the heart of this story is Jordan Hawkins, an irrepressible young woman whose grief over her brother’s death triggers the risky behavior and impetuous decision-making that will send her down roads she had not meant to travel. Davis has a gift for dialogue and vivid description; her details about agricultural life, the family dynamic, and the rules of the road are evocative and precise. It’s both a pleasure and an honor for me to endorse Gravity Hill, a story to which readers will be drawn and by which they’ll be rewarded.

—Wally Lamb, New York Times bestselling author of
We are Water and She’s Come Undone

Susanne Davis is an extraordinary writer. She creates characters that you instantly care about, that you worry over, that you live with. She writes about situations and lives that, like John Irving, are not only fiercely entertaining, but they also have a deep moral center about how we should be living our lives, what we should care about, how we can manage our rich and complicated world. A diamond talent.

—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of both
Is This Tomorrow and Pictures of You

In Gravity Hill, Susanne Davis has tackled the wide, sweeping themes of love and loss, environmental troubles, feuds, families forced to confront each other’s mistakes, communities coming apart and then coming together, regrets, fathers and sons, and families torn up by old lies and secrets. This story, told with gentle but vivid writing, brings us to painful tears of recognition about the human condition and yet uplifts us with the redemptive quality of hope.

—Maddie Dawson, author of The Stuff That Never Happened

Gravity HIll--shows a blacktop, treelined road with skid marks.
The Quanduck River
A damaged No Trespassing sign on the Revere Superfund site
From left to right: Gravity Hill, (yes, there really is a place called Gravity Hill), The Quanduck River, and a “No Trespassing” sign on the Revere Superfund site.