It is really hard to find a thriller that seems totally unique. While I loved a lot of aspects of this book, I don’t feel it was a stand out, edge of your seat Thriller for me.
I enjoyed having both Catherine and Ruth’s viewpoints and I enjoyed Ruth’s journal writing and getting to see her last from her point of view.

At seventeen Ruth left home. At the time she wasn’t aware she was pregnant. As time wore on she found ways to survive. Ruth has been on the run for twenty-four years. Her daughter Catherine had no idea, until recently, that her mother has been lying to her. Ruth lied to protect them. Ruth’s one lie leads Catherine down a path of discovery and danger.
…
Gone Tonight is about the relationship between a mother and daughter. Ruth devoted her life to raising Catherine after getting pregnant in high school. It’s been the two of them ever since.
…
Catherine is excited to start her new job out-of-state. She’s been planning this move for the last five months. This will be the first time Catherine will be away from her mother. It’s not an easy decision to leave her mother, but she’s worked hard to earn this position.
…
Sarah Pekkanen tells the story between mother and daughter with alternating points of view. This is truly my favorite way to deliver information about two characters. As Sarah Pekkanen navigates between these two different perspectives readers gains a better understanding of how each character’s thought process was at the time. It’s the best execution in my opinion.
The story is divided into three parts starting from the point when Ruth tells Catherine one more lie which leads down a path into the past. The second part is Catherine hiding secrets of her own. The final part is the past colliding with the present.
…
As thrillers go this one was slow going in the beginning. I find the secret storyline doesn’t come alive until that secret is exposed. Then all the excitement is unlocked. It’s at this point where the story thrives.

Ruth and her daughter Catherine have lived a very insular life, with Ruth willing to give up everything for her daughter. But now Catherine is ready to venture out on he own and Ruth is having none of it. Ruth has carefully constructed a perfect background for herself, and no one has any idea of her real past. But Catherine’s desire to be free of her controlling mother threatens to unearth Ruth’s real past and Ruth just cannot allow that to happen. A creepy story about a mother who will go to any lengths to keep her daughter under her thumb

This is a fabulous novel about a mother, Ruth and her daughter Catherine. As the book opens, we see Catherine planning to move to a new town to pursue her nursing career until she suspects Ruth may be experiencing dementia. Of course she stays and as the events unfold--through alternating voices of the two women, we see that there are SO many secrets to be revealed in Ruth's life that will drastically impact the relationship between mother and daughter as they attempt to find peace and happiness. Fast-paced and filled with tension, this book kept me up late at night as I couldn't put it down!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

Can you imagine what your life would be if everything about it was a lie?

Neither can Catherine. And when her mother, Ruth, is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s (although she refuses MRI or other diagnostic tests), Catherine has a niggling feeling that something is a little fishy. So she sets off on a long quest to discover the truth, unwittingly putting herself in grave danger.

I’m still not sure how plausible I found this story, but hey, I lead a quiet life and I suppose anything can happen. This book unravels the truth like a ball of twine at the end of which … I won’t tell.

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley.

Review: Gone Tonight by Sarah Pekkanen
Rating: 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Disclaimer: I received a gifted copy of this book from netgalley, and I'm in exchange leaving my honest review.
Girl what the FUCK did I just read
Ive read one of Sarah's works before--the golden couple, which she co-wrote, was a really good book. This was too.
But this book mind-fucked me
Around 30% I was just like ok, her mom's crazy. She basically didn't tell her daughter anything about her past or about her dad
70% I think, oh, it runs in the family because she's crazy too.
Then I find out her DAD is crazy too.
Whole lot of crazy going on
I've since concluded all three of them are crazy but Catherine at least seems to be getting it together.

How well do we really know our parents? Catherine always wondered about the secrets that her mother kept hidden and the real reason for why they had to move so often. As Catherine got older she discovered just how many lies her mom has told her and she is determined to learn the truth. The chapters fillip between Catherine and Ruth, telling the story of how Catherine learns about her moms past and how Ruth ended up needing to hid her identity.

While I enjoyed the two perspectives there were components that made it a slower read. I did like how the ending tied everything together and how imperfect the characters were.

Thank you to Netgalley and to the publishers for allowing me to read this advanced copy.

I tore through this book. A lot of authors use the Sarah Pekkanen style. Reading this book reminded me how the little bits other authors get bogged down in when trying thrillers with dual narrators are really irritating. Because it’s possible to make a book like this work and remain zippy & fun. Thank you for the ARC!

I love the books Sarah Pekkanen writes with Greer Hendricks, so I was ecstatic to read an early copy of Gone Tonight. Unfortunately, I struggled to connect with both of the main characters in this book. I was expecting a fast-paced thriller, and this is definitely more of a slow burn. All of that said, I'm still excited to read anything Pekkanen writes in the future.

Catherine and her mother, Ruth, share everything and are very close. Faced with a devastating medical possibility, Catherine and Ruth need to rethink the trajectory of their current plans. When Catherine begins to look into her mother’s past, she begins to pull and unravel the threads of what she’s been told, what she thinks she knows, and who she is. Both Ruth and Catherine are hiding things from each other, and there may be huge, lasting consequences due to their lies.

When I saw that Sarah Pekkanen had a new solo debut thriller coming out, I didn’t even read the synopsis before trying to get my hands on it! I love her previous novels with Greer Hendricks and this solo novel did not disappoint. I’d classify this as a slow burn domestic thriller. It’s told through dual points of view from both Ruth and Catherine. Ruth’s chapters also give the reader insight into the past. There are many twists and turns throughout, keeping the book fast paced. I loved the final reveal in the epilogue. If you enjoy a slow burn with twists along the way, this book is for you!

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press, Sarah Pekkanen, and Netgalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you net galley and publisher for this ARC. This book was a slower pace but interesting as it progressed.

I received an arc copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for my honest opinion of it. I don't know if I was expecting more, but this book was just okay for me. I felt like it started out really good and then I just got to the point that I wanted to be finished. The story centers around Catherine and her mom, Ruth. It is told in parts by each person. Ruth holds alot of secrets and Catherine soon finds them out.

This book surprised me, made my cry and was all around one that I devoured. This was such a wonderful surprise and when I had to stop reading, I couldn't wait to pick it up again. For anyone who has enjoyed Pekkanen's books previously, you will definitely love this one. Make sure to pick it up once it publishes because this will be perfect for summer reading! Can't wait for the next one!

Thank you St. Martin's Press for this ARC!

Gone Tonight was told by two people. Ruth's mom and Catherine, Ruth's daughter. This book has a dual timeline and it bounces back and forth into Ruth's past.

Ruth spent a lot of time protecting Catherine. They moved from place to place, leaving apartments in the middle of the night to keep them safe. She didn't know it at the time, but their relationship was built on lies.

Once Catherine thinks something is wrong, she does everything to understand the truth and what happened with her mom and it puts them in serious danger

I don't want to say too much more, but I found the ending a little too much. A little too far fetched, It was a great story though.

With dual P.O.V.'s from a seemingly controlling mother and her suspicious daughter, this is a recipe for an intense, mysterious read. I love being hit with the feeling when you realize not all is quite what it seems. My feelings for each woman changed so much throughout making it hard to know who to trust. This is definitely one that's hard to put down at night, needing to know what happens next. I definitely recommend this for any mystery and suspense reader. Four Stars.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC.

"Gone Tonight" is a fun, twisty page turner with a theme of mothers and daughters. The ending was a blast. Highly recommended for those who love domestic thrillers. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

I was pleasantly surprised by this standalone after reading many of Pekkanen’s books with Hendricks. An easy read and it kept me engaged the whole time. I loved the characters and the twists were unpredictable!

This book is told in two POV’s - a mom and a daughter. It has always been just the two of them and the mom has disclosed nothing about her past. Then the mom starts forgetting things and misplacing things - Alzheimer’s disease is the thought - right when the daughter was going to move away on her own. Is her mother trying to not let her daughter move on?

“How far would you go to protect the person you love most in the world?”

This is a family drama novel that kept surprising me. It was well written and had suspense and moments in it when I was shocked. Another great book by Sarah Pekkanen. Thank you to NetGalley, Sarah Pekkanen and St Martin’s Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

4.5 stars - Since the publication of their debut book The Wife Between Us in 2018, Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen have been among my favorite authors. I was eager to read Sarah Pekkanen's debut novel as soon as I found out she had written one alone.

For the majority of the novel, the pace felt a little slow to me, but it picked up towards the end and it still kept me going.

Ruth, the mother, and Catherine, her grown daughter, swap POVs in the chapters. Ruth has some significant secrets from her past she’s trying to hide, which causes her daughter to become suspicious and begin looking into Ruth’s past and challenge her intentions. This back-and-forth continued for the majority of the book.

The pacing was greatly aided by a few breathtaking scenes near the conclusion.

With or without Greer Hendricks, Sarah Pekkanan is a fantastic storyteller. I notice that many thriller readers share my enthusiasm for Gone Tonight!

This was a slow burn, mother and daughter thriller. It is told through the POV of Catherine and her mother Ruth. Catherine is in her 20s and about to start a new career. Her mother Ruth, has always done everything for her daughter. It's always been just the two of them. Now that Catherine is about to embark on her own new life, Ruth will do whatever it takes to keep her daughter close. Then Ruth starts to develop symptoms of Alzheimer's and Catherine feels like she cannot leave for her job because of her mom.

Catherine then starts to become suspicious of her mother. Could her mother be faking to keep her from leaving? She starts doing some investigating into her mom and the past. Secrets start to emerge. There were definitely some really good twists in this one that I did not predict. Especially towards the end. The end really threw me for a loop. This author did a fantastic job keeping me invested. I always enjoy her writing. A really good book that I'd recommend!!

Out August 1.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the gifted copy. All opinions are my own. I will post my review on Goodreads, Bookbub, instagram, and Amazon once it publishes!