This book was well written, but seemed to drag at times. It came together nicely, but it seemed to take too long to get there. This was my first book by Wendy Walker, and I'm sort of hoping I will like her next one a little more

I found this book to be an average thriller.  I love thrillers and was excited by the premise of this book, but just found it to be an okay read.  I had a hard time connecting with the characters and fully appreciating their back stories and motivations which was needed for this book.  Laura and Rosie were not like unlikeable characters, but at the end of the novel, they still felt like unknowns to me.  Accordingly, I could not understand the significance of why certain events were happening which left me feeling disconnected with this thriller. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ stars.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin Press for the opportunity to read and give an honest review of this book.

Laura is a complicated woman with a sketchy history. She is lacking self confidence and filled with anger and she is not clear as to why this is. When she doesn’t return from a date with a man she met in an online dating service, her sister, Rosie, panics and the hunt for missing Laura begins.

Things aren’t always as they seem. This plot twists and turns. The characters are interesting and believable. The author, Wendy Walker, connects all the dots for you and she makes sense of everything by bringing all the threads of the story together. 

I found this interesting mystery/thriller to have some new and creative ideas. If you think you have it figured out before it ends, you may be wrong.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview this ARC of The Night Before by Wendy Walker.

Laura has "fists for hands, is hard to love."  You learn this quickly because it's repeated often in the book.  Laura has always been volatile and difficult.  She has also been desperate for love, but seems to look for it in all the wrong places.  After leaving another sour relationship, Laura moved in with her sister Rosie in order for a fresh start and companionship with her sister and brother-in-law.  But Rosie is now saddled with worrying even more about her sister and what her sister in capable of doing.  This becomes all the more real after Laura doesn't come home the night after her Tinder date.  What has happened to Laura, or more troubling, what has Laura done to her date?

Ugh, I don't know.  I can see the appeal to this book.  It wasn't awful, but it was a bit too much of a slow burn, and it reached way too far.  I really struggled to invest in the story or the characters.  The one thing I did appreciate was the spotlight shone on how people will respond to how they are raised and the narratives created about them.

Loving Wendy Walker, I jumped right on the opportunity to read The Night Before.  Actually recommending and including both titles as picks for my book club being All is Not Forgotten was unforgettably amazing.  Unfortunately, this one was just an average psychological thriller for me.

This is the first book I have read by Wendy Walker. This is a psychological thriller that was a fast paced and entertaining read. I look forward to reading more by this author. Would recommend.

This is a real page turner.  It kept me on the edge of my seat and I didn’t want to put it down until I was finished reading. (Which of course is impossible because there’s real life!) This book is a must if you enjoy suspense, plot twists, and some psychological questioning. I definitely want to read more books by Wendy Walker. #netgallery #thenightbefore #amazon #goodreads

Thanks to the Publisher and NetGalley for this ARC. 

I REALLY enjoyed this book. It went along differently than most thrillers I have read with it basically naming the 'villain' from the beginning. I loved seeing things from the three different characters perspective, especially Laura who seemed very emotionally withdrawn with the way she viewed the world. 

Anyone who loves a good thriller with a twist will love this book!

I really liked most of this book, but it was slow in the middle.  It took me awhile to get back into it!  But overall, a great read!  Thanks for the opportunity to read this!

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an advance copy to review!** 

So, Wendy Walker's Emma in the Night stands out for me as a story I was talking about for a long time after I read it. It wasn't all positive, it wasn't all negative, but I was talking about it in every book conversation for quite some time. This one was a fun, fast read, but not one that I've been referencing back to. I'm usually pretty gullible, but even I recognized that there was a major red herring happening in this story. 

Not bad, and it's fast, so I'd still recommend trying it out!

Thank you Netgalley for sending me this arc. I will be reviewing this book in the near future with an honest rating and review.

Suspenseful novel about a woman who has left New York City and moved in with her sister in the town she grew up in, in Connecticut. The reader eventually learns about her break-up in the city and the events that took place in her home town when she was younger.  The story starts with her going out on a date with a man she has met online. When she doesn't return home, her sister, family and friends start a frantic search for her which leads to events in her distant and recent past being dug up. A page-turner right to the end.

I struggled with this one. 
I'm not sure if it's because I wasn't in the right mood to read it or whether it's just not a book for me but I was ready to DNF at the 30% point. I had however gotten into the plot and I needed to know how it ended ad what actually happened on the night before so I pushed through and actually quite enjoyed the ending but it definitely wasn't anywhere higher than a three star for me. 

The main thing that put me off this book were the characters, I didn't like any of them and in fact found Laura quite irritating for basically the whole of the book but to make it worse the start was so slow. I was fed up with listening to Laura, and I couldn't sympathise with her or understand her at any point in the book I just wanted something to happen to push me to keep reading. It wasn't until about half way through that it did, but once it did I completely forgot about the fact that I didn't like Laura and got myself fully wrapped up in the plot - which I enjoyed quite a bit. There were plenty of twists I wasn't expecting to keep me on the edge of my seat but it was how cleverly the plot was written that had me. I loved working it out and seeing how everything was brought together to work out as it did. It really was done very well, by the end. 
I just wish the characters were more likeable and it got started abit earlier than it did. I'm sure I'd have loved it a lot more if that was the case. I'm glad i finished it though, it was worth crawling through that first 30%

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publishers for this Arc copy to review.

The Night Before is one of those books I picked up based completely on the author. I honestly didn’t know what it was about, but if it was anything like Wendy Walkers first book, All is Not Forgotten, I would love it.

I was right!! The Night Before was a wonderful mix of suspense, mystery, and misdirection. The author has you questioning everyone and even wondering if Laura really was responsible and just got away with murder like they all said.

I’m happy to say even I didn’t see it all coming and had no idea how dark it would get before we learned the truth. For me the sign of a wonderfully written suspense book is one that keeps me engaged and guessing up until the very end but can still hit you with something you wouldn’t have guessed.  The Night Before is that book. Wendy Walker gets you so lost in the story you are a part of it.

I Loved this book and recommend it to any suspense/thriller lover. I can’t wait for this authors next great book.

This book kept me guessing!!!

I did not want to walk away from the story of Rosie's missing sister Laura. Although, as life will have it, I did have to put the book down and participate in my own life from time to time. The mystery in this story was kept taut and the suspense was fabulous. I think Wendy Walker has crafted another great story for mystery, suspense, and thriller readers.

I enjoyed the alternating between points of view and time line disorienting in the best possible way. This structure kept me off-balance and unsure of who I should trust throughout the story. This lack of trust in the characters, made it hard for me to *like* any of them, but I did care about how the story concluded. This is a fine line for me. I wanted to see justice for all, but did not feel myself rooting for any of the protagonists, and probably would have been satisfied with any of them being the guilty party. 

There was suspense and story a plenty here, and certainly a satisfying conclusion that did not require any stretch to believe it was true. I will watch for future titles by this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this e-book!

Laura goes on a date after a bad break up in NY, which made her leave her job and her old life behind. She lives with her sister-Rosie- her husband, and their child in their old hometown while she gets back on her feet. She doesn’t expect the roller coaster of events that will occur when she takes a leap of faith and goes on a date with a man from a dating site.
Written in two different periods of time: The night before and present day, this novel will have you wondering if Laura actually killed a boy from her childhood, or is someone is making her think that she did.
The writing of this novel was really interesting, I enjoyed the flashbacks to their childhood that everyone can connect to-running into the forest to play with your friends, playing spin the bottle, and even keeping secrets in a small town.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for the free ebook of The Night Before.

In this thriller, there is an overall unspoken distrust of Laura, who suddenly comes home to live with her sister Rosie and family. What exactly happened at the party many years ago that left her boyfriend dead and her eventually exonerated for the death, and moving away with a new name.

Rosie and Laura both feel like Laura has been unlucky in love, but both for different reasons. With Laura back in her hometown, the old childhood gang is back together. Finally a group of people who know and support her.

Laura is ready to start over and start dating, but weirdly, she doesn’t return from her date.

I was on edge trying to weave together the past with the present trying to figure out what happened those many years ago and how does it matter in finding Laura now.

I received a Digital Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

I loved Wendy Walker’s previous novels, and was excited to read this one. This was a solid mystery with an intriguing plot, but it didn’t match the originality or character development of Emma in the Night. A quick, enjoyable mystery by a talented writer, but the reveal felt like an attempt to surprise the reader instead of genuinely shocking the reader with an explanation of characters’ natures And motivations.

I LOVED this book! It got pushed to the back of my shelf reading somehow, but I am so glad I finally read it! This was my first book from Wendy Walker, but after finishing it I am definitely going to go read more by her! This is everything that makes up a good thriller and then some! Thank you for providing a copy for me to read and review!

This was a bit slower paced than Walker's previous book, Emma in the Night, which I adored. I enjoyed this one too, but the end felt like a bunch of things I'd read before, and I wasn't as engaged with this one as I'd hoped.