They have been friends for over 20 years. Ashley, Lauren, and Natalie. Always there for each other, sharing everything with each other. And then, they weren't. Ashley trying to reconnect with her two best friends, suggests a trip to Mexico. It is to be a time of relaxation, and being able to let bygones be bygones. A time of forgiveness. The secrets each has kept from the others will prove to be their downfall.
The character of the three friends, can be actual. Someone is always feeling a little left out in that type of situation. The secrets they have could also be consistent with the shame each feels. Good storyline.
4 Stars

Everyone enjoys a fun night out with your best girl friends. The complicated relationships in the book mimic the troubles one may have had in grade school. Three friends often don't work, one is always without a partner. This is where the story begins and then it twists and turns. I have to say I didn't see the ending coming. An enjoyable weekend read. Thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishers for my arc.

Three friends go on a gir!s ' trip to Mexico and one goes missing ! A well written , heart pounding thriller filled with secrets , crazy drama and unlikable and imperfect characters ! Thanks to Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for the digital copy in exchange for my honest review !! #Netgalley #LakeUnionPublishing #GirlsNightOut

I read a copy of the book from Net gallery.
I found the characters a bit unbelievable,3 being an odd number for friends,a lot of description which I think was unecessary,expected a twist to the story at the end but fell a bit flat,storyline seems unbelievable,characters a bit flst.

I wanted to enjoy this book but I found that I just couldn’t get into it as much as I wanted. I found the characters too similar to allow me to differentiate and the plot a little too predictable.

"The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies." (Chobir Dokan)

The penetrating rays of the intense sun beckon three estranged friends to mend their disjointed relationships on the beaches of the Yucatan Peninsula. Tutum seems like just the right destination to sort the broken shards among the seashells. But this attempt at reunion will be more than they ever bargained for.

Once upon a time in a kinder, gentler universe, Natalie and Ashley brilliantly developed a styling brush that hit the market by storm. They worked tirelessly to get it the attention it deserved. The result was mega orders from big box stores and a surge of recognition on social media. Lauren, their mutual friend, was supportive from the onset.

But like the typical honeymoon stage, there eventually became so much less honey and so much less moon. Stress became the daily garment that enveloped these women constantly and it bled into their personal lives. It was time to have a face-to-face meeting and sort out the future come hell or high water.

Not even Mexico has enough tequila shots to deaden the anxiety that these women faced in finding a mutual platform for discussion. Too much pain from the past and too much inability to arrive at a consensus. A few too many mojitos brings Marco, a local, into this mix. But when Ashley goes missing, questions are raised as to why. Was she running away from something or towards something?

Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke (quite the writing duo) have created the perfect getaway from one hot spot of existence into another. The dialogue is spot-on with female friends caught up in what's fair and what's not. Oh, and the blame game ratchets up the stakes until perhaps there will be no winners. It can be a bit off-putting at times when you feel the need to cup them alongside the head as the intensity escalates. But that's what happens when you cast your fate to the windward side of the peninsula. Internal fear and utter helplessness drive this one into a scorpion-infested jungle of their own making.

I received a copy of Girls" Night Out through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Lake Union Publishing and to Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke for the opportunity.

OMGeee!! This was a fast-paced, engrossing, unputdownable book!! This the 3rd book I have read by this writing team and is in my opinion their best book yet. This book will keep you up late into the night reading. The character are well developed and all have good and bad qualities. I have to say that I wasn't rooting for one friend over the other. Ashley, Natalie, and Lauren all had me on their side even if they weren't always on each others' side.

There was a lot of struggle and trying to come to terms with each other and the hope of forgiveness but there was a lot of light fun moments too. I love the setting of being on a Girls' Week in Mexico.

I highly recommend this book to everyone!!


I received an ARC from NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing

This is the second book I’ve read by these authors, and I really enjoy their writing!

Girls Night Out is about family, friendships and forgiveness. A girls trip to Mexico turns bad after friendships are torn apart without anyway to mend. Marriages are up in the air and now three women are in another country that’s dangerous for woman to be alone. What could possibly go wrong? Well, a lot actually!

I really enjoyed this story. The characters were relatable and had issues you could identify with. Problems with marriage, old friends trying to men’s fences, and just trying to take a break from everyday life to forget about all of the problems.

I would recommend this book for anyone looking for a good thrilling read with a little Mayan history thrown into the mix! (Which I absolutely loved).

Thank you to NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing, Liz Fenton, and Lisa Steinke for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Girls' Night Out is about three longtime friends and their attempt to revitalize their disrupted friendship. The dynamics between the three friends rings true to anyone who has been part of a friendship triad - it is true that 3 is a hard number in female friendships. I really enjoyed reading Girls' Night Out and it kept me engrossed, though in the end, I found that the ending fell flat for me and was too abrupt. The twist at the very end was not surprising but I would have liked the authors to have delved a bit more into it and to have explored the ending more deeply. I felt dissatisfied when I was done reading. However, I enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to others who enjoy reading about the intricacies of the friendships between women.

I have absolutely adored Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke's books, every single one that I've read has kept me entranced the entire time. This new book they've come out with, Girls' Night Out, has kept up with that trend, I couldn't read this one fast enough, although at times I wanted to take it slow and let the story linger-I just couldn't because it was so delicious. I love that Liz and Lisa are taking a turn down the psychological/suspense/darker side of writing and creating these intense masterpieces.

Ashley, Lauren, and Natalie have known each other for twenty years, and they've always had a topsy turvy friendship, Lauren and Natalie tend to push each other out of the way to get to Ashley, who seems to always be the center of attention. In order to pull their relationships back together, the three decide to take a girls' trip to Tulum, in Mexico, in order to try and repair their wounded souls, and their friendships for good.

After the success of their blow brush, Natalie and Ashley's company BloMe has started to create some friction in their friendship, Natalie wants to sell to Revlon, while Ashley wants to hold on to what they put their heart and souls into. While on the trip, Natalie is hoping to convince Ashley to finally break free, and Ashley just wants to have a good time, and reconnect with Lauren who's husband just passed away.

When Natalie wakes up one more soaking wet on the beach, she can't remember how she got there, and when she heads back to the hotel room, she realizes that Ashley is no where to be found. After contacting Lauren, Natalie discovers that Lauren has no idea where Ashley is either, and the fact that Natalie can't remember anything after they left a club last night is really dampening her mood. Where could Ashley be? Is she okay? Did the man she hung out with through out the "girls' trip" have anything to do with her disappearance? 

Through the next chapters you'll go on a wild ride spanning the length of the trip, going back and forth in time, and as the mystery unfolds, and Natalie gets her memory back, certain lies are uncovered, mysteries are solved, and friendships become cracked and repaired over and over again. When you think you've got it all figured out, just keep reading, because you're never going to be quite sure. I give this book 5 out of 5 stars, another winner from this incredible writing team!

Friends, Secrets, and maybe a Skeleton…. My favorite genre!

I love this book cover - it's gorgeous!

I was expecting a raunchy, fun girls’ trip to paradise. Maybe a midlife Girls Gone Wild. But, it was so much more than that. It is a study of complicated female friendships wrapped in mysteries and a missing person. I loved it.

You know that saying, “You can take the girl out of Kansas, but you can’t take Kansas out of the girl.”? This definitely applied to the characters in this book. Ashley, Natalie and Lauren were transported to Tulum, but brought all of their emotional baggage with them that has been building for years. They brought so many unresolved issues that they were reluctant to address.

At the start of their trip, they do what most women do – they mask their true feelings and pretend to have fun. They don’t confront the things that are bothering them, and glossed over emotional topics. But then - throw in alcohol, drugs, money, and a sexy local manwhore - and this idyllic vacation turns explosive as secrets and true feelings are brought to light.

Ashley is charismatic, alluring, beautiful, and charming. She is an expert manipulator and gets what she wants. She attracts people to her, and uses them to get what she wants. It’s hard to say no to a friend like Ashley. Many of us have an Ashley in our own lives, and will empathize with Natalie and Lauren and their relationship with Ashley.

Where is Ashley? Why did Natalie wake up on the beach, with no memory of the previous night’s events? Why is Lauren so grief-stricken? Slowly everything is uncovered in this suspenseful, gripping book. The ending wasn’t exactly satisfying, but it does give closure to all of the open plot lines.

This is a must-read about a girls’ trip gone wrong. It was sucks you in and makes you want to binge read it. It’s a nightmare that no one would want to experience. That’s why it makes for such a good read - you can travel to this exotic, lush locale, experience a girls trip gone wrong and return home unscathed. Highly recommend!

After reading The Good Widow I was excited to read Girls Night Out. The book kept my attention for the most part, other then when Ashley and Natalie were arguing about “Revlon” I thought “if they bring that up one more time”, I’m going to scream!! (I did actually scream once) but if you want a good beach read, you will like it. Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy.

Such a big thank you to Net Galley for allowing me early access to this book. I really enjoyed The Good Widow and was hopeful Girls’ Night Out could deliver in the same way. And oh did it! This book hooked me from the beginning and kept me guessing right until the end. I believed the friendships and relationships of the characters. Combine that with a mystery with an ending you won’t see coming and you’ve got a winner. Do yourself a favor and read this book!

I loved their first book, The Good Widow. With this one, I had a harder time liking any of the characters. I love the idea that we're all flawed, that friendships--particularly as we get older and when business and money are mixed in--grow more complicated. But it was difficult to empathize with any of the primary characters because they were, well, awful. Understandably so, as each as under an enormous amount of pressure in their personal lives and unable to discuss it with the other two. It was just difficult to find anyone to root for.

Apparently Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke are branching out to the thriller/mystery genre. Doesn't it feel like every book lately is in this genre? I didn't read their first offering, "The Good Widow" but can honestly say that if it set up like this book, I am going to pass on that one.

"Girls' Night Out" is about a group of friends (Ashley, Lauren, and Natalie) going to Tulum, Mexico in an effort to repair the fractured friendship between the three of them. There is tension between this group and it takes a long while before you find out why, I honestly thought the reveal to one of these plot-lines was just aggravating as can be. The character of Ashley disappears (not a spoiler, it's part of the synopsis) and then Lauren and Natalie try to figure out what happened to her. The back and forth between three characters showing them before Ashley's disappearance and after doesn't mesh well. The flow was really off for me while reading. The ending was so anti-climactic, I just didn't buy it at all.

The characters of Ashley and Natalie are not only long-term friends, they are business partners. Part of the tension between them is that they received an offer from Revlon to buy their company. Natalie wants to sell and Ashley doesn't want to. I was curious about why in the world they just didn't bring up Ashley buying Natalie's share out? I mean, it seemed the simplest solution and it was weird I didn't see anyone just saying that. That whole plot point was just to show how Ashley is selfish and doesn't care about other people.

Ashley and Lauren have tension for a very good reason. I don't want to spoil the whole thing, but I am sorry, I had zero sympathy for Lauren. What a piece of work. I wish that the authors had decided to just have her have some self awareness about things, but nope, we don't even get that in the end. Just her and her grudging forgiveness.

Lauren and Natalie's tension is mostly about wanting to be the center of Ashley's attention. At times I wondered how old these three women were (almost 40, with one of them being 40) and who does stuff like this. It was a contradiction I found throughout the book. They get angry at Ashley being self involved and managing to make people bend to her will. And then they would be jealous if she sought one of them out and not the other.

Ashley is the center of this story (for good or bad) and she was not that interesting. Sorry, I just was getting a whiff of poor little rich girl here until we get a random aside thrown out about her marriage. I really wanted all of these women to go into therapy and just cut each other off. They all were the definition of a toxic friendship.

The secondary characters were not developed that well. We know that the three women have husbands, but they might as well has been called husband #1, #2, and #3.

We had the character of Marco that was obviously a con-man. I don't get why the character of Ashley was even telling this guy all of her business. Her justification didn't make a lot of sense since as other characters said, what was the point of her hanging out with her friends if she was going to listen to some mystical crap from some random dude she met on a beach.

I think it would also have been better to set up the book prologue with the three women meeting in college. I just needed to see/believe that they were actually friends. The book jumps too quickly into Ashley's disappearance and then goes back to days before she went missing and then to days after they noticed she was missing. It was hard to keep things straight. The authors do set up each chapter heading with the character and they do let you know how many days has passed or not passed, but I still found it confusing. Maybe because we have characters referring to conversations that we didn't get to see.

I wish that we had more dialogue instead of people having inner dialogue with themselves . It also didn't help that sometimes in a paragraph you would have a character having a conversation with someone in the past (both Lauren and Natalie's passages did that) and it would take me a while to realize that I wasn't in the current timeline that I was reading something that had happened before.

The flow was off almost from the beginning. I think it's because of the before mentioned changing POVs with the different timelines.

The setting of Tulum, Mexico was obviously very well researched. I have actually stayed there and visited the same locations that these characters did (Chichen Itza) so reading about that made me happy. I think though that besides a few things here and there, once again we don't get to see the women enjoying things, we just jump around too much.

The ending was way too simple. I don't want to spoil, but I had a hard time with it. It felt like the two authors just gave up 3/4 of the way through.

Girls Night Out: What my nightmares are made of. Seriously, this book will keep you from ever drinking too much or touching anything that might possible lead to a blackout. What's scarier than waking up on the beach in Mexico with no memory of what happened the night before? Waking up on the beach in Mexico with no memory and NOT BEING ABLE TO LOCATE YOUR BEST FRIEND.

This book by Liz Fenton had me on the edge of my seat the entire way through. I do have a couple of complaints, however. I feel like this book could have been about 100 pages shorter. I feel like there were a lot of repetitive moments and there were a few situations that dragged on without much purpose that could have definitely been cut down. And secondly, holy teenage drama. There are A LOT of immature arguments that were difficult to get through. There's something very irritating about reading page after page of 40 year old women acting like a bunch of 14 year olds. BUT if you can get through those couple of flaws then you are sure to enjoy this whodunnit mystery. It's sure to be one of the best of the summer!

What a breath of fresh air! Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this early! I absolutely devoured this book from the first chapter. This book is based around a girls trip to Tulum, Mexico to mend friendships. Well something goes terribly wrong and Ashley goes missing. This is told from all three main characters points of view and what a wonderful job they did at that.
There is not a better word for this book other than SUSPENSE at its very best! Can we please appreciate how much work and detail was put into the setting and atmosphere of this book. I felt like I was on the beach with them. The authors did such a wonderful job at describing the locations the girls visited while also painting a beautiful picture of what this place is like.
It has been a long time since I felt so drawn to characters in a book. I actually teared up on some parts. Don't wait to read this! You don't want to miss it!! Also THAT ENDING!! I hope everyone enjoys this as much as I did!

This was a suspenseful and crazy book about 3 women who's friendship has been in peril for the last year. Thinking a trip to Mexico would help heal the problems, Ashley organizes the trip. I couldn't put the book down. The authors did a great job at portraying the characters as ending was a surprise.

Three college friends, now approaching 40, take a girls trip to Tulum, Mexico. They've had some friendship issues, business problems, and personal tragedies and a jaunt to paradise with girlfriends seems like an ideal way to get back on track. Things don't go as planned, and one of the women goes missing.

This exciting, tense thriller goes back and forth in time and alternates between all of the womens' perspectives. The descriptions of friendship, especially the difficulties in a triad friendship are spot on. The mystical, beautiful location adds to the suspense of the book. Great suspense , read this in a day!