Well, this one started off a bit slow. Not gonna lie, I did put it down a few times in favor of something else. This is me admitting I was WRONG!! This was SO GOOD!!! It all starts off as another typical Mother/Daughter-Strained-Relationship type of story, but we quickly realize it most certainly is NOT! I don't want to ruin it for anyone else so just let me say the characters were fantastic! 24 yr. old Catherine wants to move out of her mom's house for a new job. Mom is dead set against it. We soon start learning why and WOW! Great ending and even an Epilogue that just had to add even more! I highly recommend this one!

(Thank you to St. Martin’s Press, Sarah Pekkanen, and NetGalley for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

I will post my review to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Instagram and other retail and social media sites upon the August 1, 2023 publishing date.

I received the audiobook & an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was my first time reading a book for this author, and I already can’t wait to read more. I thought this story was told in such a unique way that I haven’t seen before, and I really enjoyed it. The two main characters, a mother and daughter, Ruth and Catherine, were so interesting to learn about. There were so many times throughout the book that I thought I had figured out what was gonna happen by the end, but boy was I wrong. It’s amazing the things a mother will do to protect their child. I had the privilege of also listening to this on audio, and I really enjoyed the narrator. My only complaint about the audiobook is that there was only one narrator for both parts, Ruth and Catherine. And times it was really confusing to figure out if we were on Ruth's dialogue or on Catherine’s. I often had to backtrack and confirm who’s part I was actually on. If there were two narrators for this book, I think it would’ve been a little less confusing.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book! It was well written, pretty twisty, and I had my anxiety through the roof at many points. If you’re looking for something original or a book you really won’t be able to put down then this is for you!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Every family has secrets, a few skeletons in the closet perhaps. But Sarah Pekkanen may make you question how well you know your own family.

Ruth Sterling loves her daughter Catherine with every fiber of her being. It’s always just been the two of them doing their best to get by. Ruth and Catherine. Catherine and Ruth. Ruth has shared very little information with her daughter about her family, about her life before Catherine, and with Ruth now exhibiting signs of forgetfulness, Catherine is determined to find out as much information as she can about her mother’s secretive past, while she still can.

When Catherine accepts a job as a nurse in a different city, Ruth realizes that she can’t let that happen. Any mother would have mixed feelings about their child leaving home. On one hand, you’re happy to see them making their way in the world, but on the other hand, you’re going to miss them dearly. Normal, right? Ruth’s interest in keeping her daughter close raised some very red flags.

Gone Tonight is told in alternating chapters between Ruth and Catherine. I loved this back and forth between mother and daughter. It was a gateway into each of their thoughts and lives.

As with any book in this genre, I didn’t trust any of the characters. My suspicions were always on high alert, I wasn’t sure who was reliable and who was being deceptive. That is the pull of these types of novels, though. I want to be uneasy, unsure, and try to figure out what is going on.

Sarah Pekkanen has written a fast-paced novel that is filled with suspense, shocking twists, and heart-pounding moments. Gone Tonight kept me riveted to the pages and wanting to discover every little detail about this mother-daughter duo.

*4 Stars

Ahh, I love a thriller with tons and tons of secrets. I thought I knew where this one was going but I was completely wrong and so happy that I was. It’s a slow start but once the mystery kicks in it really ramps up. I went between reading and listening for this one and Kate Mara does a great job with the narration, although it may have benefitted from a second person to distinguish between the POVs.

I've never read a solo Pekkanen book before, just those with Hendricks, but WOW am I impressed! She really knows how to tell a story and keep you on the edge of your seat. I love books where you think you've figured out the twist early on, but that turns out to just be a part of the story and things keep coming that you didn't even see. Highly recommend!

Wow. This was a wonderfully twisted, heart-racing read. I love getting the story from Ruth and Catherine - insights we wouldn't have if each one wasn't telling us their side. Even with those insights, I just couldn't put it down, I was dying to know where the story would take me next. (Does it count as cardio if your heart is racing while you're reading for hours? Asking for a friend). Ruth and Catherine were great narrators, and their characters are well-developed, making them feel very real, and the story all that more thrilling. If you're looking for a new read that will have chills running down your spine even in the summer heat, then you want to grab this one!

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨
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Gone tonight is a dual point of view story between a mother and daughter. It’s also partially a dual timeline, the past being written notes from Ruth to Catherine. Honestly, thats all I think you need to know about this - I highly recommend going in blind.
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This was such a fun read, it was so gripping, deceitful, thrilling, addicting and mysterious that I literally gobbled this one up in one day. Right from the start I was hooked on Ruth and Catherine’s story; then a bomb is dropped and all hell breaks loose. It was a wild ride and one I really enjoyed being on. The story flows perfectly between the two characters and the storyline bring everything full circle in the end. But like that ending though - talk about mind blownnnnnnn. Incredible..
•
Not only was this a fun read but I really resonated with this one, and that makes this even more of a special read to me. As a new mom I really felt so much of Ruth’s journey. Also huge bonus, Pekkanen threw out so many fun references to my preteen/teen years that I found myself smiling from ear to ear in reminiscence - my favorite being “Where The Heart Is” (IYKYK).
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Kate Mara narrated this one and she was phenomenal. She transitioned between the two characters perfectly. I luckily had this one on audio and ebook so I was able to follow along very easily. I highly recommend the audiobook if you are an avid listener like myself.
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Gone Tonight releases tomorrow 8/1 and I am highly recommending this one to all my thriller lovers, this was a phenomenal read!
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Huge thank you to NetGalley, MacMillan Audio, St. Martins Press and Sarah Pekkanen for the eARC and ALC in exchange for my honest review!

Catherine has been noticing increasing incidents of her mother Ruth’s forgetfulness for the past month. A doctor’s visit reveals that Ruth has been having trouble for at least four months. A devastating diagnosis of Alzheimer’s has Catherine changing all of her plans for the future so that she can care for her. As a geriatric nurse she deals with this every day, but striking this close to home it is even more painful. She was scheduled to leave her job in a nursing home and move to Baltimore. Now she will be staying. Catherine was raised by Ruth, who has always dodged questions about her family background. When she begins to suspect that Ruth’s diagnosis may have been faked and that her mother was responsible for destroying her relationship with her boyfriend, she wonders what else she may be lying about.

Sarah Pekkanen alternates Catherine’s worry for her mother and search for the truth with Rut’s story. Ruth’s actual name was Ava. She was loved by her father and brother, but her mother was an alcoholic and abusive. When she met James he was attentive and caring. An incident at school leads to a violent confrontation and Ava is forced to run away. It was not until later that she realized that she was pregnant. Ava’s life has been one of running from the law and hiding from James. Her name has changed several times and she has had to move on short notice when she suspects that she has been recognized. Her first thoughts are always for Catherine and she has always had excuses for her behavior. Using her health scare this time may have been going too far. She will do anything to keep them safe, but Catherine’s enquiries may have called attention to them and put them in danger. It is time to be honest and run again, but is it too late? Pekkanen will keep you turning the pages as the tension rises and the truth finally comes out. I would like to thank NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for providing this book for my review.

Ruth and Catherine, mother and daughter. They've only had each other for all of Catherine's life and she'd like to think she knows her mother very well. Suddenly, her mother Ruth, because secretive and Catherine begins to realize, she doesn't know much about her mother's childhood. It's her push to search for answers that throws them into the situation that Catherine was trying to avoid the most.

Although I thought the plot was interesting and unique, I didn't love the characters. I found Catherine inconsistent. She wanted to be such a great mother but then we hear about abuse and her quick temper. Her inability to really plan anything out or look to the future seemed to make you really wonder how she'd pulled of hiding all these years. Her inability to trust her own daughter and her side-eyeing her constantly really made you wonder how close they really were.

There were a few points I found completely unbelievable but I rode with it to get to the interesting but a little disappointing conclusion. I did like it and find it entertaining but I did have to suspend disbelief to get to the end.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

Having read and enjoyed all the previous works of duo Sarah Pekkanen and Greer Hendricks, I expected Sarah Pekkanen's Gone Tonight to be similar - let's just say I was expecting a lot.

Though it's a bit slow burn, it started off fantastic - it's got an interesting setup, dual POVs from mother and daughter, unreliable narrators, secrets and lies galore, twisty, little, unexpected turns, and shorter chapters, all of which make it easy to say just "one more" all night long.

While I liked both characters, I much preferred Ruth. (Catherine can be a bit whiny at times.) I loved trying to figure out if Ruth was telling the truth and watch her pull the wool over her daughter's eyes.

It was great, and I was fully into it, until I figured out the big reveal and where the story was going, then it was kinda like, meh. All the little twists thrown in along the way were much more exciting and I found myself sitting there in shock more than once, but something about where the story went left me a bit unsatisfied. I might be in minority here.

The book is well written and similar in style to the books Pekkanen has written with Hendricks. If you enjoyed any of those, you will surely like Gone Tonight.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press, Sarah Pekkanen, and Netgalley for an advance digital copy. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own and given voluntarily.

3 ½ stars rounded up to 4 stars

Recommended for fans of:
Psychological Thrillers, Suspense, Mysteries, General Fiction, Women's Fiction, The Wife Between Us, The Golden Couple, You Are Not Alone, An Anonymous Girl

After graduating from nursing school, Catherine is ready to move away from home for a job in another state. Catherine changes her plans when she learns her mom, Ruth, has received a devastating diagnosis. When Catherine starts to suspect her mother is hiding something from her, she starts digging into her mother's past, not realizing that doing so could be putting both their lives at risk.

This was such a good read and definitely in the running for my top five so far this year. The description is fairly vague and I'd urge you to go in blind. It definitely goes into a fun and twisted direction. I did love the dynamics and relationship between Ruth and Catherine, and how it changed over the course of the book. The ending was fantastic and so satisfying, and I loved how everything was wrapped up. Highly recommend adding to the top of your list!

In Gone Tonight, Sarah Pekkanen has woven a taut psychological thriller with a fascinating study of mother-daughter co-dependency.
Ruth Sterling is a 42 year old single mother, who is a skilled waitress at a local diner, and who is also skilled at disappearing, as she notes, “We women do it all the time.”
Catherine, Ruth’s daughter, is a newly minted 24 year old nurse, working in Memory Care at a geriatric facility, but getting ready to move to Baltimore and a coveted position at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
It has always been just the two of them, with Ruth’s secrecy and longtime obsessive over-protectiveness beginning to chafe at Catherine. The push-pull of their personalities and relationship is fascinating to observe as they navigate their love/hate feelings, complicated by subterfuge and running away from events in the past.
The story is told from the alternating POVs of Ruth and Catherine, with the reader also informed of events in their mysterious past, revealed bit by bit as Ruth writes her memoir.
No spoilers here—the story builds with suspense around every corner and hits an exciting climax! The characters are well-drawn, especially Ruth, whose difficult childhood and troubles in high school defined her 24 years of raising Catherine. Ruth is complicated and, at times, my heart was with her as she valiantly tries to protect her daughter. Catherine is a conundrum—sweet and warm with her senior patients, but stubbornly fractious with her mother, revealing glimpses of a cold-hearted core.
I highly recommend this book to readers who look for mysteries with a slow build, layered revelations, and strong character development.
Sarah Pekkanen has added this compelling stand-alone thriller to her already excellent body of work!

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Book Review
Gone Tonight by Sarah Pekkanen

Tropes, Triggers and Thoughts
📚Family drama and psychological thriller
📚Ending leaves the reader questioning what really happened
📚Loose threads at the end give the reader the impression that the story isnt over yet
📚Sterotypical depiction of murderers and psychopaths - was this an intentional red herring? Or just expected character development? It felt a bit stale.
📚MCs are On the run which explains away a few inconsistencies and gaps in the storyline- I get it but…. Again a bit stale
📚 Suspend reality and belief - some plotlines were highly improbable and hard to accept at face value

Overall
I kept turning the pages. The red herrings worked. My questions and curiosity was piqued. I wanted to know if I was right. I was and wasnt.
A solid read- but a bit too formulaic for
My taste.

Thanks to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for my eARC in return for an honest review. Opinions expressed are my own.

I really enjoyed this one! It was fast paced and kept me interested the whole time. I definitely recommend 😍

The bond between a mother and daughter is something special. This book is all about that --it's a tense, well written twisty tale. Thank you NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Ruth left home as a pregnant 16 year old and it's been her and her daughter Catherine against the world ever since. But with Catherine coming into adulthood and getting ready to spread her wings, and Ruth wanting to hold on to what they have, secrets each have been holding threaten to change everything.

This book was filled with suspense, twists and turns. From the beginning, I kept being surprised by the pieces of information that were slowly revealed. I flew through this book in a day because I could not put it down! This book was unique and filled with tension. I don’t want to give too much away but I loved it!

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press for the gifted copy.

This book surprised me in the best way possible! I began reading it and just thought it would be more about the relationship between a helicopter parent and her daughter trying to get some freedom, but I was definitely wrong! The first twist dropped at the end of part one and I literally did a double take after reading it. I was hooked from that moment on! There was twist after twist with this one and I loved it.

I will say, this one was a little slow to get into, but that could have also been because I'm still coming out of a Fourth Wing book hangover. But after getting about a third of the way in, I couldn't put it down. I went back and forth on who to believe and who to think was 'in the right' with their actions, which is a true nod to Sarah Pekkanen's writing capabilities. This was my first novel of hers and it won't be my last.

The ending was great and it all wrapped up nicely. It didn't feel overdone or unrealistic, which a lot of thrillers end up that way. This whole book was just really well done.

I'm giving this one 4/5 stars!

This book was a twisty, page-turner form me and kept me on the edge of my seat until the very end.

The story is told from two points of view - Ruth, a single mother, who is first presented as having early on-set Alzheimer's disease. The other point of view is from Ruth's daughter, Catherine. It has been just Ruth and Catherine, since Catherine was born. However, Catherine is ready to break away and aceept a job at John's Hopkins as a nurse and move away. As much as Ruth loves Catherine, she doesn't want her to move away. At first, it makes sense because of the Alzheimer's but as Catherine digs deeper, she finds out that her mother may not be the person she says she is. As Ruth reveals her secrets to the reader, I found myself questioning if her actions were justified, especially as we watch how it impacts Catherine.

As the story played out, the twists and turns keep coming and I had a hard time putting this one down.

I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed above are my own.

Big fan of author Sarah Pekkanen. Discovered her a few years ago and have enjoyed all of her books, This new book Gone Tonight is a thriller. Loved it!
I found the first part of the book to be a bit slow but the ending is exciting. I enjoyed the way the past diary entries tell the story and I liked that the chapters were told by the two main characters perspective.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own,

Thank you NetGalley the opportunity to read and give an honest review.

Thank you to St Martin’s Press and Sarah Pekkanen for my ARC of Gone Tonight.

This story is filled with suspense! Told in alternating perspectives, the reader gets an inside view into the main characters and their thoughts.

Gone Tonight focuses on a daughter, Catherine, who would like to go off to school to focus in the care of the elderly. She is a bright girl with a promising future.

The reader also hears from Catherine’s mom, Ruth. Ruth has recently been exhibiting memory problems and Catherine is very concerned. However, things may not be as the seem. Catherine quickly begins to question everything. What is true and what is false?

It was fun having an inside view into what is really happening in the lives of this mother and daughter pair told through the three “Acts.”

Pekkanen writes in a way that keeps the reader interested in learning what is going to happen next. I found this to be an enjoyable book and would read more from this author.