Love this author. This book was a little slower than the first one. I was interested to find out what happened, but found it was slightly harder to read and kept me less engaged. I will definitely check back for their next book published.

**Received a free copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review**

Although the book seemed to drag on for me quite a bit, the ending definitely makes up for it. The pace really picked up for me around 80%. I didn’t see the ending coming that’s for sure!

I disliked Both Natalie and Ashley in their own way. I think in the end though I felt bad for Ashley and was shocked by her decision.

I received a digital ARC of #GirlsNightOut from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was the first book I've read from these authors and I would read more. The story goes between the night Ashley disappeared and ultimately what happened, and the events of the week following that night when Lauren and Natalie are trying to find Ashley and piece everything together.

Where is Ashley? Why did Natalie wake up wet and on the beach with no memories of the previous night? Why is Marco nowhere to be found?

This book held my interest as I wanted to find out what had happened. It was well written, although perhaps a little confusing initially as the chapters go from past to present and are told in the perspective of different characters. Once you get used to that it is a great book! Would recommend.

tl;dr Review:

A mystery told through three narrators that kept me guessing until the end. 

Full Review:

When I first saw the cover of this book, I thought it would be in line with Gillian Flynn or Ruth Ware type stories. While that would have been fine as I love those authors, I was pleasantly surprised when Girls' Night Out: A Novel by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke turned out to be so much more than I imagined.

The book's description sets the tone, but the way the authors wove the tale made it 1000x better than the description gives it credit for.

For estranged friends Ashley, Natalie, and Lauren, it’s time to heal the old wounds between them. Where better to repair those severed ties than on a girls’ getaway to the beautiful paradise of Tulum, Mexico? But even after they’re reunited, no one is being completely honest about the past or the secrets they’re hiding. When Ashley disappears on their girls’ night out, Natalie and Lauren have to try to piece together their hazy memories to figure out what could have happened to her, while also reconciling their feelings of guilt over their last moments together.

Was Ashley with the man she’d met only days before? Did she pack up and leave? Was she kidnapped? Or worse—could Natalie or Lauren have snapped under the weight of her own lies?

As the clock ticks, hour by hour, Natalie and Lauren’s search rushes headlong into growing suspicion and dread. Maybe their secrets run deeper and more dangerous than one of them is willing—or too afraid—to admit.

It's clear the authors truly understand the complexity of female friendships because their descriptions and dialauge between the characters hits home. It will absolutely make you re-evaluate your own friendships in terms of honesty, respect, compassion, and whether these bonds are as tight as you believe them to be.

That may make the book sound bad or like it'll make you question everyone around you. However, that's not what I'm meaning to imply. Rather, it will give you a viewpoint to think about your friendships and what you and they are bringing to the table.

But it's not just this external evaluation that makes the book fantastic, it's also the mystery that keeps you on your toes throughout. Every time I thought I might have something figured out, it took me in a new direction. I absolutely LOVE when a book can do that. 

If you're looking for a mystery that's not only honest about friendships but also a tale that will likely keep you up late into the night until you finish it, then I highly recommend Girls Night Out. 

I give it 4.5 out of 5 thumbs up.

Found this hard to get into at first. But please persevere as it’s really good and has a zoomer you won’t see coming :)
5/5 on goodreads

So this story is about a trio of friends, Natalie, Ashley, and Lauren, who go way back to the carefree days of college. But over time, they've had their differences and disagreements. Ashley invited Natalie and Lauren to go on a relaxing trip to Mexico to rekindle their friendship. But, from the second they met at the airport terminal they felt the tension between them.
From page one Liz and Lisa create a whirlwind of events that eventually lead to Ashley's disappearance. After days of drinking, partying, and making friends with a young man named Marco (who oddly never likes his pic taken and introduces himself as Marco "Smith"), Natalie wakes up on the beach with no recollection of how she got there or where Ashley is!
So, the majority of this fast paced thriller, everyone is trying to find Ashley. Did Marco have something to do with her disappearance? Did she leave on her own free will? Do her friends Lauren and Natalie have something to do with this mysterious disappearance? Everyone seems to have a reason to benefit from Ashley not being around! Everyone seems guilty! Holy plot twist ending! Awesome!
I reached to the end to find out what happened and in my page turning fury, I quickly finished this 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ book in less than 2 days! Highly highly recommend! We loved "The Good Widow" so we had high expectations for this one! Thank you to Lisa and Liz and Lake Union Publishers for sending us an ARC of this book!

For the first half of this book, I was hooked. There was so much potential for this book. But at the half way point, everything went downhill for me. The plot is so predictable and slow-moving.

Natalie, Ashley, and Lauren have been friends since college. Now almost 40, a girls trip to Mexico is what they need to reconnect and heal their strained relationships. But one morning, Natalie wakes up on the beach with no recollection of the night before. And what happened to Ashley?

Jockeying for position within their own friendships? Really? Were they still in high school? I can't even tell you which woman I hated more. All three women were selfish, petty and childish. And the bickering over the same topic over and over and over.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for a copy of Liz Fenton's "Girls' Night Out" in exchange of an honest review.

I was very excited when I read the description of this book. My friends and I have a yearly weekend getaway and there is always something exciting that happens on our trips. Of course, we don't get to go to Mexico or anything but our Texas beach still does the trick.
The book starts out great and ends great. The storyline reminds me of The Hangover but not in a comedic way. It is definitely more suspenseful and with more turns. I loved it because I never would have guessed out it ends, just like girl's weekend with my friends.

I received a copy of Girls Night out through Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you Netgalley.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading "Girls Night Out" by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke. I especially enjoyed the exploration into female friendships, particularly when there are three; Fenton and Steinke did an excellent job of depicting the feelings that inevitably occur with that number including feelings of jealousy and feeling like the third wheel. The characters were also interesting and complex, although the character of Ashley irritated me quite a bit, and it was hard to believe that Natalie and Lauren would put up with some of her behavior. Overall, I love the way the story was told (from the perspectives of all three characters, and the book kept me guessing until the very end. I look forward to reading more works by these authors in the future.

Good story line, interesting characters and a wonderful setting, Who can you believe? Fast reading and glad so I could discover who the killer was.

Ashley, Lauren, Natalie --Three friends and all business partners on a girls trip to rekindle their friendship and discover each one is hiding a secret.

The girls meet up with Marco who drives a wedge as a fourth wheel to their trip.

When Ashley disappears the secrets unveil little by little as Natalie and Lauren turn Mexico and the ruins upside down to find her.

I found myself pulled in slowly but as the story can to a conclusion I was disappointed. I had higher hopes for a nice twisted ending. It fell short for me.

While I really enjoyed the characters I struggled with the chapter flash backs. It might of been better to just not have them.

This is my review for netgalley allowing me to read an advance copy. Thank you. I apologize for taking awhile to finish. I had a hard time staying with the story.

I was expecting more from this one to be honest. It is promoted as a thriller but I definitely cannot agree with that. It was written well and I was really interested in finding out what happened but a thriller? No. Its mostly flash backs and them going back and forth about who did this and who did that a year ago. I felt like all three of them were pretty stupid but especially Ashley. I didn't feel for her at all. She is incredibly selfish. I did go back and forth about what happened which is always fun but I was a little let down when it turned out to be so benign for the most part. It really could have been so much better.

WOW. Just WOW.
The follow up thriller to their debut of The Good Widow did not disappoint! Girl's Night Out managed to find the perfect balance between the practical and emotional sides of real-life friendships. Probably because both Liz and Lisa have lived it! I loved that each character was flawed and yet still relatable - aren't we all just striving to be the us we put in our highlight reel? And yet we fall short in so many ways. The girls in the book (Ashley, Natalie and Lauren) were no exception and the layout read like two trains on the same track, each speeding toward the other all while the reader is tormented waiting for the collision! The intense anxiety I had to know what happened has super-ceded the last few thrillers I've read - I LOVED it! And just when I thought it was done, BAM! Another crash waiting for me at the very end. WOW. Bravo ladies! You're killing it in this genre! (& yes, my corny pun was intended!)

Really enjoyed this book, a real page turner that had me gripped throughout, would definitely recommend it.

I honestly expected to like this book more than I did.... I didn't finish it, therefore, I do not feel I could give a valid review of it.

I had a lot of problems with this book since the main premise is centered on the friendship between the three women. I could not believe that they were ever best friends and in fact they were such horrible friends to each other. Also, the story dragged on and it would have been much improved by being significantly shorter. I found myself not caring about the mystery at all since none of the characters were people I was rooting for and so I didn't care what happened to them.

Very compelling tale here - I went through this one pretty quickly & enjoyed the storyline & character development. Thanks to netgalley for the opportunity!

Girl's Night Out is a story about three women, Ashley, Lauren and Natalie, who went on vacation in Mexico to help them mend their broken friendships with one another. Rather than the trip bringing them back together, tensions rose and their disagreements grew. If that wasn't bad enough, the morning they were supposed to leave it was discovered that Ashley was missing. As they tried to piece together what could have happened to her or where she could be, they began to fear the worst.

The plot was actually pretty slow-paced. This is a story about a missing persons case and, and without much to go on the book really focused on the days leading up to Ashley's disappearance. The relationship between the girls and the anger that Lauren and Natalie both had towards Ashley was what was really focused on. At times it felt extremely slow-paced and even a bit repetitive. The same issues that Lauren and Natalie had with Ashley were rehashed over and over . It felt so repetitive that I got bored.

I thought that this would be more of a mystery novel, but it really wasn't. It had no big plot twists and it wasn't much of a page turner for me. It was kind of boring and more about friendship than anything else. I felt as if it could've been done a bit better, or that it was mis marketed as a mystery novel when it was really about friendships.

If this wasn't a review copy I don't think that I would've finished reading it. It was slow-paced and very boring. I was really hoping that it would be great, but I was really let down. This book might be for somebody, but it wasn't for me. The writing was good, but the plot needed some serious work.

I received a review copy from Netgalley and Lake Union publishing

I went into this with high expectations. Unfortunately, I came out the other side with just an average, “hmm...that was just an OK” read.

Three women, lifelong friends. Two of the three are business partners as well. They’ve all decided to head for Mexico for a much anticipated “friends” retreat. They hope to rebuild their fractured friendships and maybe even make a final decision on the direction of their business.

Of course, nothing goes smoothly, to say the least. In fact, it all hits the fan when their thinly-veiled animosity towards one other explodes. Suddenly, the three women are now just two!

I found this book to be somewhat drawn out and struggled connecting to any of the characters. Told from all three voices, and in different timelines, before and after the disappearance.
There seemed to be nothing of substance that made any of the three women’s voices distinguishable from one another. I constantly had to refer back to the beginning of each chapter to confirm who was speaking.

Sorry to say, this just wasn’t a good fit for me. I wish you better luck that you’ll enjoy it!

A buddy read with Susanne!

Thank you to NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing and Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke for an ARC to review in exchange for an honest review.

The book started out slow for me but in the end I really enjoyed it. The plot had me guessing what happened with a good twist in the end.