I really enjoyed this book, I like how the past and present and the night before kind of flowed together, so that there wasn't much foreshadowing and the story unfolded together, all three timelines. It worked really well and kept me wondering. Really great read!

First of all, what a gorgeous cover.

Second of all, I really did love Wendy Walker’s first thriller, All is Not Forgotten. Although I found the narrator repulsive, the premise of the book was so compelling and original.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t a huge fan of The Night Before. To be fair, I read it while doped up on Nyquil, so I’m not sure if that affected my reading comprehension, but I found it to be a fairly shallow thriller, albeit with a crackerjack surprise at the end.

The novel centers around two sisters, Laura Lochner (the night before) and Rosie Ferro (the morning after). A bit of a twisted and aimless soul, Laura is back living with her sister’s family after a disastrous end to a relationship leaves her reeling. Although Laura wants nothing more than to find love, the past looms ever present in her blood-stained rear-view mirror, and informs every decision she makes, from omitting her infamous last name on her dating profile, to seeing a psychologist to try and work out her own fears.

Still hellbent on finding her happily-ever-after, Laura heads out on a blind date, and doesn’t come home. In the morning after, Rosie frantically searches for her, aided by her husband Joe, and their childhood best friend, Gabe. In tracing Laura’s footsteps, they find her abandoned car, and the tension ratchets up a notch. But who is Rosie actually worried about?

Laura?

Or the man she was meeting?

Told from different narratives and different timelines, the novel gives us snippets of Laura’s date (which is tedious and for the life of me, why did she stay on it?), Rosie’s search, and interspersed, Laura’s sessions with a psychologist who seeks the truth of why his patient feels so unlovable and broken.

Though the denouement surprised me (I had zero idea who the actual villain was, and it was a shocker), I didn’t find there was enough pull in the actual narrative to keep me invested. Laura’s voice was scattered and unappealing – with a ton of repetition and confusing back-flows into the past. While Laura was at least complex, I found Rosie was a cardboard cutout – absolutely no character development at all – she existed solely to find her sister and/or worry about her.

While The Night Before wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, I won’t deny that it was entertaining and twisty, with enough “wtf” moments to keep it from sliding off the cliff. I think it was balancing on the edge of being truly good, and with some careful editing (Rosie’s flatness, Laura’s inner monologue, and the endless meandering date), it could have been a complicated and dark mountain of a novel.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. I appreciate it!

Wendy Walker’s first two crime novels, All is Not Forgotten and Emma in the Night established her as a powerhouse writer in the crime fiction community, but nothing prepared readers for the splendor that is The Night Before. This is Wendy Walker’s best book to date and readers will be flocking to it for the remainder of the year.

So, why does The Night Before work so well? It’s another in a line of psychological suspense novels with dual narration, unreliable characters, multiple twists, and a shocking conclusion, but the way Wendy Walker draws the reader under her spell is nothing short of magical – almost as though readers are hypnotized and unable to stop until the final page is turned.

Laura Lochner is a woman who has never been good at choosing men. After a tragedy in her youth, she has continually hopped from man to man, never quite finding the one that will make (and keep) her happy. A recent difficult breakup has brought her to her sister’s door – looking to restart her life in the location where it all started going wrong in the first place.

Rosie Ferro cares about her sister, but spends more time worrying about her choices than really building a relationship with Laura. She sees this relocation as a chance to put right what has always been a challenging dynamic. Little does she know, but the stress of welcoming Laura into her home is going to threaten her stable marriage and family life.

As the novel begins, Laura is preparing for her first date with a gentleman she met on an internet dating site. Rosie is sure this is too soon and a very bad idea, but she is unable to talk Laura out of this decision. But when Laura never returns to the house, Rosie begins the process of tracking her sister’s final moments on that fateful date.

Wendy Walker presents her plot in two time periods. Laura’s point of view which slowly documents the date night activities and the ever-increasing menace imposed by this complete stranger. Meanwhile, Rosie’s chapters describe her worry the next morning when it is clear that Laura never made it home and then moves forward in time as Rosie begins her investigation, eventually putting her own life at risk to find out the truth about her sister’s disappearance.

The juxtaposition of the night before and the days after is so compelling that when one point of view interrupts the other, readers just want to skip ahead to see how things in the previous POV continue to unfold. Except, before long, that same reader is sucked into the second point of view perspective and the same pattern repeats. Having two very distinct characters helps the reader keep track of where they are in time, but it is the sister’s love for each other that really bonds the reader with these two women.

Occasionally, both narratives are stopped and readers are given a slowly unfolding question by question accounting of a therapy session that sheds light on some things and makes others even more intriguing. There are multiple twists in The Night Before, and readers who are familiar with the recent rash of psychological suspense novels will likely ferret out a few of them before the characters are able to, but rest assured that Wendy Walker is not a writer interested in following cliché resolutions, so some of the later rejiggered elements are truly surprising, ingenious, and yet, completely believable. This is a work to cherish and I for one cannot wait to see what Wendy Walker does next. She just keeps getting better and better with each new novel.

Thank you so much to St. Martins Press and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Wendy Walker has always been one of my favorite authors and she wrote another amazing book once again. I have read her other two published novels and this is by far my favorite one. This book was full of suspense and mystery and I loved that it bounced back and forth between the two main characters every other chapter.

After another failed relationship Laura decides to take a temporary leave from her job and apartment and move in with her sister Rosie who has the perfect family with her husband and son. Laura is struggling to break free from her past while it seems that Rosie has it all together. When Laura goes on a blind date with a guy from a dating website and then never comes home Rosie takes matters into her own hands to find her sister. Due to Laura's past and the fact that she's still viewed as killing her boyfriend years earlier, Rosie can't help but think Laura did something bad again. But what Rosie and her husband Joe uncover will leave everyone reeling and casting doubt on one another.

I cannot say enough good things about this book. I was immediately hooked from the beginning and could not stop reading, I love how Laura's character was viewed as the tough as nails chick with the "fists for hands" while Rosie was the more maternal have-to-take-care-of-everyone character. The storyline and plot were excellent and kept me thinking one thing but then threw me for a huge loop when it turned out I was wrong, way wrong.

This book was completely different from Wendy Walker's other books and I loved that. I definitely think she should continue writing mystery/suspense novels because she is beyond amazing at coming up with some crazy stories

Twisting and Turning

A psychological thriller told from the different POVs of two sisters starting in the present after one sister disappears along with flashbacks to a disturbing incident in the past. As the story unfolds, new twist and turns keep appearing and changing the reader's expectations. The characters and their still solid childhood friendships add another element to the depth of the characters.

It's a psychological thriller which makes it extremely difficult to just pick up and put down the book. It keeps your attention all the way through!

Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

{My Thoughts}
The Night Before is Wendy Walker’s third novel, all being thrillers with some sort of psychological twist to them. I enjoyed her first two, All Is Not Forgotten and Emma in the Night, so was very much looking forward to her latest. Unfortunately, for me The Night Before just didn’t deliver the way the other two did.

My biggest disappointment was with the book’s central character, Laura Lochner. She was a woman in her late twenties who had never been lucky in love, and after her latest devastating break-up returned home to the comfort of her older sister’s house to lick her wounds. Her obsessive desire for love drove her toward Internet dating after only a few weeks. From the moment Laura’s first date began, she became more and more pathetic to me, until I reached a place where I actively disliked her. Walker did an admirable job trying to piece together a backstory that could explain Laura’s actions and her unrelenting indecisiveness, but for me they never quite added up. Her choices and her crazy “self-talk” disappointed me over and over.

The supporting characters, Rosie, Joe and Gabe, Laura’s sister, brother-in-law, and childhood friend, I found more likable and certainly more reasonable, but they were all so deeply enmeshed in Laura’s life, that I easily guessed the ending’s major “twist.” In addition, one of the more minor twists felt like a bit of a cheap trick. While The Night Before was definitely an easy, fast book to read, in the end it just didn’t deliver on the psychological or the thriller.

Note: I received a copy of this book from St. Martin’s Press (via NetGalley) in exchange for my honest review.

Wow! This was such an amazing book. The writing flowed smoothly even with the change in timeline and character perspectives. I was drawn in after the first few chapters and started trying to figure out “Who dunnit”. My guess changed quite a few times throughout the book but I never came close to that ending. It was a complete surprise, came out of nowhere. Very enjoyable reading experience!


I was provided this book for free in exchange for my honest review. Thank you #stmartinspress and #netgalley for this opportunity.

This was nuts! I seriously need a drink after reading this mind bender of a thriller.

Let’s review the players - Laura Heart has come home after being away for a while, because Laura has just been through a really bad breakup. Rosie Ferro is her sister, and the two are close, but Laura can be difficult to love because of an event that happened when they were younger. Rosie is married to Joe, who has loved her since they were in high school. Gabe is their close friend who works in IT, he and Joe have been best friends since they were little, and the three of them let the younger Laura tag along. Got it? Good, because now that you do, Wendy Walker flips the script and you really know nothing!

Now for the plot - As I said above, Laura has recently had a bad breakup, and in fact, has not had a great history with love. Her first love from high school was brutally murdered and although she was cleared, doubts remained to this day by many of her guilt, including her sister. She perseveres on, but is coming home to stay with her sister for a bit. She signs up for a blind date on a dating website, and she is excited, doubtful, curious - is this guy who he says he is? Is she? When things take a turn that night, so many things are brought to light from all sides, and that’s what I mean when nothing and no one is what it seems.

This is told from different time periods, the night before and present day, and also from Laura and Rosie’s POV’s. This was captivating, I was hooked from the beginning, wanting to know what happened in the past, what happened on the date, and how everything would be resolved. The sisters also have a complex relationship, you know they love each other, but they also have their struggles. Laura feels resentful because Rosie seems to have had an easy life, unlike her. Rosie feels resentful because everything has always been about Laura, given the what happened to her when they were younger. These resentments and events make them unreliable narrators, although Laura definitely more so than Rosie.

If I say any more I will give too much away, but believe me I really want to, so how about instead you all just go pick this one up and read it for yourselves. In the meantime, I will continue processing and thinking on this one!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced copy to review. All opinions above are my own.

I did something with this book that I rarely do. I finished it and then sat with it, trying to decide how I felt about the story. First of all, I will say that I didn't find the riveting thriller that's promised in the blurb, although it does eventually get thriller-like toward the end. The story jumps back and forth between Laura and Rosie, one happening in the present and one happening the night before. Then, we get snippets of therapy sessions thrown in here and there. The jumps are frequent and at times served to pull me out of the story rather than the opposite. For a large chunk of this one, we're left to wonder whether Laura is out with a psycho or if she's the one who's unhinged, which is a decent enough plot device except Laura's waffling about her date grew tedious much too soon in the story. The writing is a little too dry for the amount of tension this type of book should have, and the big reveal didn't produce the shock I think the author was going for. Once you figure out the who, which is pretty easy, the why kind of falls into place. I did finish the book, and I suppose my feelings about it are somewhere in the mid range. I didn't hate it, but it's also not one that I'll think about down the road.

Thank you St Martin’s Press and Netgalley for a copy of The Night Before by Wendy Walker! Available now.

The Night Before is a good book. Nothing amazing about it but the pacing is good, there are a lot of POVs to keep your interest and keep the mystery moving. Written as a Before and After really helped the mystery of what happened moving as we get Rosie’s view of the current time and Laura’s view of the night before and the two really dovetail nicely into a solid finish.
I liked it but didn’t love it because I found myself not really getting into the characters as much as I would have liked. There were many hints of Laura’s past and maybe it would have been helpful to have more of that upfront so we learned more about the characters right away.
But it was good. Especially if you like the multiple timeline/multiple POVs plots as much as I do!

DNF 40% I just couldn't get into this at all. I suppose it's the characters and the fact the plot didn't grab me in those first few opening chapters.

The Night Before by Wendy Walker is a timely and compelling thriller full of unexpected twists. I read it one sitting!

Walker was inspired to write the novel once she re-entered the dating scene at age 42. She quickly learned that a man she was dating was too-good-to-be-true and was still married. The short-lived relationship provided the “perfect fuel for Walker’s fire.” It was interesting to read that after I finished the novel because I did think the online dating aspect was quite riveting—the idea that people can hide who they really are. But in this novel, perhaps that can also be said with people you know, even those closest to you.

The story alternate between the present, which is the “the morning after,” where we learn that Laura did not return from her first date with the man she met online. “The night before” takes place as her date is happening, which brings even more suspense to this novel. The reader knows Laura is in danger before she does.

I loved the pace of this novel; it was the ideal blend of dialogue and setting. You really felt like you’re on the scary ride with Laura and the confusing one with Rosie. And just when you think you know what will happen—the story takes a sharp turn. There’s some misdirection that is done really well.

You’ll want to crave out some time when you pick this one up because you won’t want to put it down once you start!

3.5 stars. Fun thriller with two povs (sisters) and a disjointed timeline that keeps you wanting more. And I didn't guess the ending, which is a big win in thriller world! My only downside was that there was a lot of negativity toward the main character/"victim." I know that's a thing in lots of these women-centric thrillers (the unlikeable/unreliable narrator) but I found it unwarranted in this one. (I won't get started down my "likable" women rant but...)

This story grabbed me from the beginning and didn’t let go. There were a lot of twists, a few red herrings, and a whole lot of guessing (and being wrong). The author did a phenomenal job of keeping the reader off-balance. Occurrences which sent the book in a different direction were plausible enough so that it didn’t feel forced. Everything felt like it could actually happen. I read this book in one day, and highly recommend it to anyone looking for a psychological thriller that will keep you on your toes. See my blog at Fireflies and Free Kicks Fiction Reviews for a more in-depth review. Thank you to St.Martin’s Press and NetGalley for a pre-release digital ARC.

Definitely a case of me and not you, my lovely story. This book was filled with pet peeves that probably only bother me and not others. The foreshadowing was annoying. Each chapter had italicized words that tried to give insight into the past and how it played on the future. but it was frustrating - I'm able to draw conclusions and don't need an author to spell them out. Plus, I found them completely misleading. What is foreshadowing is almost laughable compared to what it seemed to make me want to think.

all in all, I think others will love the mystery. I just found myself annoyed.

The Night Before is a complicated book. Both murder mystery and psychological mind game. Luckily the cast is small so it is easy to track all of the players. At first, everyone feels familiar and comfortable, like your own childhood memories. Right up until there is a terrifying scream in the woods. Then poor Laura really falls into a trap of always choosing the wrong men. Is this disappearance normal behavior or a call for help? Rosie is truly the best big sister ever! I think I was rooting for Laura mostly because Rosie believed in her. This is definitely not your typical mystery and I loved every twist.

It was a quick easy read. The author has made a good attempt at creating the mental chaos... the protagonist remains unaware of her situation till the end, which is hard to digest, with so many happenings around her.. could have done a better job of the character of the stalker

A very compelling story! The short chapters made it feel like the story was flying by, and I had to know what in the world was going on! I suspected the who, but had no idea about the why, and there were definitely some unexpected twists along the way (which I appreciated, because it's difficult to surprise me at this point.) I also really liked the back and forth timeline. A very fun, page-turner perfect for summer.

I felt a little bit let down by this one. It was a good thriller with some spine tingling majorly suspenseful moments but it just didn't do it for me as much as Emma in the Night. If I hadn't had such high expectations after reading her first novel I think I would have loved this book more but after the haunting character of Emma and the almost eerie writing that just stuck with you for so long after The Night Before's characters just sort of fell flat for me. The thriller aspect itself was good it just didn't capture my interest in the same way.

The Night Before is a psychological thriller with enough suspense, twists and surprises that will keep you up reading all night. It is well written with great characters and interesting plot. The story is told with multiple points of view in the past and present by Laura and her sister Rosie.

Laura is so devastated by a break up that she leaves her high profile job and moves back to her hometown and in with her sister Rosie. Rosie convinces her to try online dating. Laura had a tragic event happen when she was younger that causes her to have problems falling in love. Laura reluctantly goes on the blind date, but never returns. Rosie frantically looks for Laura. Knowing Laura's past, she wonders if Laura was hurt or if Laura hurt her date. This is the second book I have read by Wendy Walker. A must read author for me. Thank you to Wendy Walker, Netgalley, and St. Martin's Press for an ARC of this book and this is my honest review.