"One Night Gone" by Tara Laskowski weaves a compelling mystery in a coastal town. The atmospheric setting is vividly described, immersing readers in its eerie charm. However, pacing occasionally falters, and character depth could be further developed. The dual timelines add complexity but may confuse some readers. Despite these drawbacks, Laskowski crafts a haunting tale worth exploring.

This was fine. It held my attention but was pretty predictable. I feel like it’s a plot line that has been done before and so I was able to guess how it was going to go.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC.
This was a great twisty mystery! Just when I thought I had it figured out, something would happen to change my mind. I thought it was slightly out there that the MC comes to town and is magically thrown into a murder mystery. But that aside, I really liked the characters, dual timelines and the plot.

I loved this book! Thank you for the ARC. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that I wasn’t leaving reviews on netgalley and was solely sharing on Instagram. My apologies. Huge fan of this author! I actually received the tangible copy. Trying to clean up my netgally account

The book didn't grab me and had characters I didn't care for. There wasn't one character that I liked; they were all about drama. There wasn't one character that stood up for anyone, they all bent like saplings in the wind when someone looked at them funny. None of it felt grounded in anything real. It was hard to finish but I did. The end was a little different than I expected but by the time it ended, I didn't really care who or why.

The amazing debut from Tara Laskowski was an absolute gem, and deservedly won many awards, including the Agatha and Anthony

I actually really liked this book! I found it to be quite atmospheric and gripping!

Maureen, a young girl seeks a fresh start in Opal Beach, a beautiful beach town. She is an outsider who observes the lives of the wealthy and elite. She's made friends, and despite being a "summer girl," she intends to make an impression and be involved in these people's lives. She's young, full of hopes, goals, and plans. However, one night, she vanishes, never to be seen or heard from again.

Thirty years later, Allison Simpson decides to take a house-sitting job in Opal Beach. She's also seeking a fresh start after losing her job due to a live outburst on television about her cheating husband. She's divorced, jobless, and ashamed, and she's seeking a change of scenery.

She soon becomes interested in the disappearance of the young girl who went missing. This disturbs many people in the community and Allison soon fears for her own safety.

The story is told in dual POVs, both Maureen’s perspective and Allison’s perspective, which made it much more interesting and intriguing for me!

So much mystery and suspense! Plus, the setting of the book made it so eerie and the ending was quite unexpected and surprising!

If you are looking for a fast-paced book that will keep you entertained, you will not be disappointed with this one!

Mystery in a little town - where everybody know everyone. The mystery involves a decades old missing persons case involving the young carnival teen. This book had trails that lead nowhere, manipulation, and backstabbing, with an edgy twisty conclusion.

This book sat so dang long in my TBR pile, that I literally said I was going to read the book on the bottom and this was it. I wish I had read it sooner!

Engaging and page turning! I wasn't an Allison fan, she just didn't come together for me. I don't know what it was, maybe it was her trying to find so much in common with missing girl, Maureen. I don't know. She didn't do anything for me though. That aside, the book drags in a few places but that didn't stop me from putting it down. I solved it just before the ending.

A bit late to the game, but well worth picking up!

Thank you netgalley, for a copy of this book, in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4228389243

Overall this one was just fine for me. Not horrible, not amazing but I’m not exactly mad I read it. I found it to be a little on the slow side and also thought it was predictable as well, maybe check it out if you’re in the mood for a lighter style mystery that doesn’t require a ton of attention.

Thanks to the publisher for the advanced ecopy of Tara Laskowski's debut novel, One Night Gone. I was late to the game in getting to this book off my TBR pile, but I am glad I finally did! The book was a decently paced mystery/thriller about a troubled carnival girl who is last seen in the late 1980's in a beach community where the wealthy spend their summers. Narration of the story goes back and forth between Maureen in the 1980's and current timeline, Allison, a meteorologist and recent divorcee who is licking her wounds in the same town after having an on-air tirade against her wealthy, philandering husband.

Allison meets Tammy, who tells her about Maureen. Tammy is the friendly local coffee-shop-owner who draws Allison into the mystery of what happened to Maureen. Soon, of course, Allison finds herself in danger as she digs and starts uncovering secrets this community would like to leave buried.

If I were to rate this book as I would a seasoned author, I would probably have only given it 3 stars as the story was short on character development and sometimes even on plot development. However, for a debut novel, I rounded up as the author shows promise and the book did hold my interest start to finish.

I am looking forward to reading what Tara Laskowski can do with her second novel!

I can't stop thinking about this book! It's been over two weeks since I finished this book, and I wish I could erase it from my memory so I could read it for the first time again. Such a though-provoking and suspenseful story that will keep you guessing until the end.

Traveling With T’s Thoughts:

Missing girls and cold cases make me want to hit that request button on Netgalley lightning fast.

For me, this was a solid 3 star book. When you read a lot of mysteries- not a whole lot surprises you. So I have to say that Tara Laskowski was not breaking any new ground truly in what happened to Maureen- but I liked the way she put the story together.



What I liked:

That cover. That house is beautiful. Plus the cover hints at darkness in this town.

Allison and Maureen. Both of them are dealing with the cards that life has dealt them and I enjoyed both of their stories.

The ending! Not bad at all.



Bottom line: Solid writing. I would be interested to see if Tara will take the ending of this book and have it develop in a series.



*This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration. All thoughts and opinions are mine alone.*

Tara Laskowski’s One Night Gone is an unsettling mystery involving two women, thirty years apart. In the year 2015, Allison, recently divorced, career in shambles, is in Opal Beach hoping to reclaim some of her life. In the year 1985, Maureen, a teenage runaway finds a job in Opal Beach with a traveling caravan.

I love the back and forth between the past and present as Allison begins to unravel what happened to Maureen in 1985. An interesting writing trick Tara Laskowski has used well in this story is the use of past tense in Allison’s story and present tense in Maureen’s. The two characters are very similar, and I think without this distinction of tense, I would have struggled to tell them apart.

Tara Laskowski is wonderful at setings. Opal Beach was easily imagined. I felt as though I was transported to this location and was right alongside Allison, attempting to solve the mystery.

One irk is that I had most of the reveal unraveled before it was shared. This didn’t take away from my enjoyment and all the praise, but I felt it is something to mention in this review.

Overall, I enjoyed One Night Gone. It is not a fast-paced novel, but a more contemplative novel. I found it fascinating and with a beautiful setting and intriguing characters, I would recommend checking it out!

This story inside a story is an interestin concept and both tended to keep the reader on the edge of his/her seat The interweaving of the two stories always kept up the reader's interest and and the fact that the two girls sort of mirrored each other made it interesting. and how they ended up in Opal Beach was interesting. I especially enjoyed the ending, but I'm not going to give anything away!

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This is a good thriller. Told with dual POVs, past and present, it really builds the suspense. My only critique is that there is a little supernatural element that felt unnecessary to me. I didn't feel that it added to the story in a meaningful way. Overall, I would recommend to anyone who enjoys mysteries/thrillers.

3.5 stars rounded up. I don’t know what took me so long to read this book. It was a perfect fall read as the weather is turning cooler. I like that it has mystery and a hint of creepiness wrapped into it.

I enjoyed the dual storylines of Maureen and Allison. Maureen comes to spend a summer in Opal Beach working for the traveling carnival. She soon makes friends and wants to find a way to stay and make her life there. Then one day she vanishes.

Thirty years later, Allison is house sitting for a couple that live in Opal Beach. As she meets people who had their lives connected to Maureen, she begins to dig into the past to find out what really happened to her.

There a small twist but nothing jaw-dropping, and it’s not really all that believable. However, I enjoyed the writing style and was drawn to reading it each night.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC. This book is available and ready to be read.

(2.5 stars)

One Night Gone promised to be a thriller with it's subtitle boasting "It was the perfect place to disappear..." That was enough for me to be intrigued even before reading the summary. The story was told in two different point of views during two different time frames, Maureen in 1985 and Allison in present. I was sucked in from the start when we are introduced to both characters. Maureen is traversing the wealthy beach town as a struggling traveling fair worker who finds herself associated with some bad people and in a bit of money trouble. Allison ends up in the same town to unwind and figure out her next moves after a humiliating on-air weather report blowout with her cheating ex-husband.

The stories collide once Allison discovers that Maureen had left that summer of '85 without a trace. Solving the mystery surrounding Maureen's disappearance becomes Allison's passion project. Especially after receiving unexplained packages on her doorstep that could end up being clues that could explain what happened to Maureen.

It's not lost on me that I am in the minority in regards to my star rating for this book. While the potential was there, I was losing steam when Allison began hearing Maureen or thinking she was in her presence. I don't think that the intent of this story was to bring in a paranormal theme, but it still did. It's possible that the presentation of these subtleties is what effected my impression of the book. But I also was not happy with the turnout. While I did enjoy trying to determine who the real bad guy was, if there even was one, I was not satisfied once it was all wrapped up.

For someone who does not read thrillers often and is looking for a quick read, this would be a great book to pick up. For those readers who read thrillers all the time, it would not be my top choice.

One Night Gone by Tara Laskowski is about a teenage girl who goes to a beautiful beach town during the summer hoping to get a fresh start. But then… she disappears. Thirty years after Maureen vanished, Allison is looking for a place where she can start over. She just went through a hugely embarrassing public display of anger, a messy divorce, and needs a place to heal. She heads to the town of Opal Beach, where she learns about the disappearance of a young girl.

What happened, who is hiding what?

What a fantastic plot!

Take a look here:

One sultry summer, Maureen Haddaway arrives in the wealthy town of Opal Beach to start her life anew—to achieve her destiny. There, she finds herself lured by the promise of friendship, love, starry skies, and wild parties. But Maureen’s new life just might be too good to be true, and before the summer is up, she vanishes.

Decades later, when Allison Simpson is offered the opportunity to house-sit in Opal Beach during the off-season, it seems like the perfect chance to begin fresh after a messy divorce. But when she becomes drawn into the mysterious disappearance of a girl thirty years before, Allison realizes the gorgeous homes of Opal Beach hide dark secrets. And the truth of that long-ago summer is not even the most shocking part of all…

This atmospheric novel is a wonderful mystery and will grip you from the opening pages.

Get it now, go here!