You Look Beautiful Tonight: A Thriller by L. R. Jones is about a secret admirer's devotion that turns deadly in this twisting novel of psychological suspense.
This book was good, though quite long. I loved the line, "I'd tell her to not just read the words but use them," in order for Mia to find her voice to speak and be seen.

The ending was sad as it captured a tortured soul and a lost friendship and deception.

Overall, a good story, but it did get bogged down in the middle, and I found myself skimming pages.

I would rate this 3.5 stars (rounded to 4) out of 5.

#YouLookBeautifulTonight #NetGalley @AmazonPub

Call me a sucker for a mysterious title...

You Look Beautiful Tonight

L.R. Jones, you have captured my attention and put me on a roller coaster of a lifetime.

I started out thinking this was going to be a murder mystery with a cat and mouse like plot. Obsessed stalker, poor little victim trying to stay alive.

NOPE

This book is one hell of a psychological thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end. The writing style was simple, easy to follow along with and had a nice even flow that pushed you right into the next chapter. In addition to being a thriller it also had elements of romance which kept things interesting and made the story multi-dimensional.

This book had it all from secrets, lies, deceit, obsession, murder and a twist you will never see coming!

Big Thank You to LR Jones, Netgalley and of course Thomas & Mercer for allowing me to read and review You Look Beautiful Tonight before the big debut in May 2023!!!

Teaser :

A secret admirer’s devotion turns deadly in a twisting novel of psychological suspense.

Mia Anderson is an invisible woman. An unremarkable thirty-two-year-old Tennessee librarian, she’s accustomed to disappearing in a crowd, unseen and unheard. Then she receives an anonymous note: You look beautiful today.

It doesn’t stop there. The attentive stranger—a secret admirer named Adam—has plans for Mia. With each new text comes a suggestion for her hair, clothes, or attitude, and for the first time in memory, Mia feels noticed. Slowly, she develops a confidence in herself she’s never had. But Adam has a surprise coming…and Mia finally sees him for who he is and what he’s prepared to do for her. Even kill.

Fearing she could be implicated in the murder, Mia’s forced to turn to the stranger in the shadows watching her every move. Adam’s game of cat and mouse begins with Mia as the prey. In order to survive, she must also become the predator.

You Look Beautiful Tonight by L. R. Jones is a great slow burn thriller debut.

The writing drew me in and kept reading way too late.
I enjoyed the characters and seeing how this story played out was exciting.
I was so pleasantly surprised by how fun this book was.
It is more on the slower side but that didn't stop me from being engaged and flipping the pages.
I will definitely pick up this authors work in the future.

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

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL TONIGHT by L,R. Jones. Publish date May 2023. You can not believe what you see. Salt looks just like sugar. Mia is an invisible girl, a librarian , who has her books and her two best friends jack and Jess But one day she starts getting notes left for her. You’re beautiful tonight. I like you in red. Wear your hair down. Is she not invisible? Does she have a secret admirer or a stalker?. This is a great must read

I did and didn’t love this book. I didn’t love most of the book till like 50% it wasn’t till that point that things started to get interesting.
I felt that the characters where a bit underdeveloped.
We don’t know whole lot about Jess , Jack or mia . It was super repetitive the whole invisible thing that Mia constantly talked about almost annoying.
I feel like when i got to that 50% point after Kevin is killed i couldn’t stop reading. I’m glad i dorky DNF it because the beginning really dragged but i feel like the last half of the book was a 4 star. All together i think it was a pretty good psychological thriller .

I love the slow, creepy build of this novel. It all feels vaguely ominous but can also be written off as normal. I also love the feeling of invisible girl starting to come into her own. This was an incredible read for me! The chapters are the perfect length to hold my interest and I felt like I could really connect with each of the characters.

sadly this was a DNF for me - i’ve heard great things about Jones’s books so i was really excited to finally try one. unfortunately this was not at all what the blurb made it out to be - it felt more like a romance story with maybe a hint of suspense rather than a suspenseful thriller. it may have picked up further in the book but life is too short to keep reading books you’re not enjoying so i quit about 40% in

Thank you NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the copy of You Look Beautiful Tonight. The premise of this book was great and I was excited to read it. At first I was loving it but I slowly started to lose interest because it was so heavy handed. Mia feels invisible then she goes to the coffee shop and the barista ignores her not once but twice. That’s taking “feeling invisible” too literally. Feeling invisible is when you start to talk and someone talks over you. Or you’re in a group of people and you’re the only one not asked for an opinion. She meets Adam online and suddenly she’s spilling her guts to him, even after he starts to give off creepy vibes. It all just got exhausting and disappointing how desperate she is portrayed.
It was worth reading until the end just to see how it all wrapped up, even though the ‘bad guy’ was predictable, I liked the last turn in the story and how I can imagine Mia’s life turned out.

Let me just start by thanking this author for a nail biting thriller that keep me guessing and on the edge of my seat. It is true in thrillers that everyone is a suspect, and I truly never saw the real ending coming. Excellent work and I hope to see more from you.

Okay. I almost gave up on this book. So glad I did not. It starts slow but definitely picks up. Please, if you continue with this book, you will not regret it. Mia is a quiet unassuming librarian. She is used to being invisible. She begins to get some attention from an unknown source and perhaps seeming invisible is not so bad. I really did enjoy this book. I was not expecting the twist ending.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for an arc copy in exchange for my honest review.

A very clever psychological thriller that keeps you well and truly hooked. Friendships and secrets that lead to obsession and murder, and a surprise ending you will not see coming. A highly recommended read and worthy of five stars.

dnf at 20%

The story was spinning it’s wheels, not going anywhere. So much talking between characters and nothing happening. I loved the blurb but sadly the story wasn’t giving me the suspense I expected.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for an arc copy in exchange for my honest review.

You Look Beautiful Tonight
A Thriller
by L. R. Jones
I just could not get into this book. It was just pages going nowhere. Not a thriller, just no meat in the story. Very slow and never panned into anything.

i picked this up thinking it was a thriller about a stalker/murderer since it says on the cover that it is, but this one is actually a psychological suspense novel according to google. well, it wasn’t at all thrilling either way. it’s coming out next year on 9th of may if anyone’s interested in reading it!

the characters for me were under developed. there was Jess, who was this rich, know-it-all girl. then Mia who felt completely invisible to everyone else and Jack, the geeky one. at first i really liked them but then they all just got obnoxious, having cheesy conversations and all 3 of them just dull. i wanted to get to know Jack more but the author ALWAYS kept him away by making him go work to his desk every time he talked to Mia. like how am i supposed to get to know his character properly then ?? Mia just got way too repetitive with her frustration of no one noticing her but when someone actually gives her attention she’s like oh i wish i was invisible again !! like girl tf you want from life then omg. not to mention how Adam came right into her life to help her with “self-discovery” via a dating app and ofc she fell for it cos he was handsome as hell. it was cheesy and it
was poorly done. i’m all for self discoveries in books but not in this unbelievable way.

the writing style was also simple, basic one. i didn’t understand the need to every now and then going to the “present” chapters when it didn’t do fuck all to the story until 52% mark (that’s when i dnfed). could’ve just talked all this time about the past and left the present chapters for the 3rd part of the book, but that’s just my opinion. i just felt they weren’t important as of yet 🤷🏻‍♀️

the plot was boring too. it read more like a romance novel and not at all like a suspense since i didn’t feel any of it. i predicted instantly who was leaving Mia the notes as well and i don’t normally try to predict stuff so that says something.

overall, i did like it at the beginning, but the more i read, the more i realized that it was just too boring for me to continue. personally, i wouldn’t recommend this.

4.5 out of 5 Stars. I mainly picked up this new thriller because of the cover and the stalking plotline. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the writing style and the main plot/character. I managed to fly through this novel in two sittings and was thinking about finishing it the whole day because I needed to know the end of it. I will be reading a lot more from this author in the future! Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this early copy.

Dnf at 38%. It was a great premise similar to You, but in my opinion the author could not deliver. I couldn’t stand the writing, the cheesy dialogue and the characters were obnoxious. It was so slow and nothing is happening!


Mia is a librarian and frequently voices how she feels invisible. With the help of a friend she creates an online dating profile. Things start getting weird when Mia begins getting notes from a secret admirer. Eventually, things escalate and she finds herself tangled in a dangerous web.

You Look Beautiful Tonight is available May 9,2023.


Thank you to netgalley and thomas&mercer for this arc in exchange for my honest review

I could not relate to the main character, there was too much “woe is me” and complaining

I think I got about ten pages in before I stopped

Mia, a librarian in Nashville, is used to being ignored and overlooked. That is until what starts as a simple online dating profile turns into a series of unusual and dangerous events that spiral out of Mia’s control.

Though I didn’t know where the story was going at first - and it took a while to fully take off - the final product still satisfies. This novel is more of a slow-unraveling mystery than thriller (especially with how rushed the ending feels), but a good mystery indeed. It has smooth, clean writing with short chapters that give it a quick pace. And Jones provides plenty of misdirection; although I did eventually have a hunch about where the story would end, there are so many red herrings that make it a fun guessing game along the way.

As a protagonist, Mia feels deeply real. I like messy protagonists, so Mia’s questionable decisions are, to me, a sign of good characterization and story development. Mia’s friends are nicely created, too, and every single character - though at times one dimensional - played some type of necessary role.

(Having read this pre-publication, there were some formatting issues, namely that the text messages and other similar passages seemed to get lost in the regular narrative).

I recommend this book to fans of “You” or stalker mysteries/thrillers in general, especially one that entertains and keeps you guessing.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was quite the page turner! I stayed up way too late reading this! I thought I knew who was Mia’s stalker but I was so wrong! Plenty of twists made this thriller engaging!

Mia Anderson is an invisible woman. An unremarkable thirty-two-year-old Tennessee librarian, she’s accustomed to disappearing in a crowd, unseen and unheard. Then she receives an anonymous note: You look beautiful today.
It doesn’t stop there. The attentive stranger—a secret admirer named Adam—has plans for Mia. With each new text comes a suggestion for her hair, clothes, or attitude, and for the first time in memory, Mia feels noticed. Slowly, she develops a confidence in herself she’s never had. But Adam has a surprise coming…and Mia finally sees him for who he is and what he’s prepared to do for her. Even kill.
Fearing she could be implicated in the murder, Mia’s forced to turn to the stranger in the shadows watching her every move. Adam’s game of cat and mouse begins with Mia as the prey. In order to survive, she must also become the predator. At the end of chapter one she realized she can’t run away from the killer because she is the killer!

I must admit that my emotional attachment to the characters can influence my judgment here. I fell in love with the main character Mia. I loved her interactions with her mom and dad and her two best friends Jess and Jake and therefor the twist at the end of the book did not make any sense to me as it was too far fetched. I understand that an ambiguous ending must be the most creative choice — but that doesn't make it any less disappointing when you've stayed up all night trying to read to the end.
And of course, sometimes a disappointing ending is just plain bad. Sometimes you get the feeling that it was late, the author was tired, and they just wanted to wrap it up and send it off to their editor so that they could go to bed. In the end ….This book could have been so much more….