2.5 STARS - This debut suspense novel, written by R.J Jacobs - a psychologist by trade, brings readers into the mind of a person with mental illness as she tries to solve the mystery surrounding her missing boyfriend.

This novel had the makings of a good suspense read but lacked in a few areas. Initially, I liked that the author put Emily's struggle with her bipolar disorder at the forefront of the story. But with readers only getting Emily's first person narrative, the story soon became choppy with a plot that became more increasingly outlandish.

Unfortunately, the story relied on the reader connecting to Emily, a character that just wasn't likable. I understood that Emily's impulsiveness was due to her bipolar disorder, but it felt like her mental illness took over the plot and was mainly there to provide an excuse for her being an unreliable narrator (a writing style that has been overdone in recent years).

This debut thriller has a stunning cover and the interesting addition of mental illness, but unfortunately didn't deliver for me. It lacked focus, momentum and good twists resulting in a story that dragged in a few spots with a character that needed more depth.

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to Crooked Lane Books for providing me with a complimentary digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I really liked Emily!! She definitely has her faults, but I enjoyed her story. I did have a good idea of how this would all play out, but it was still a great ride. A lot of mystery and suspense, especially the closer it got to the end. Would definitely read more from this author! Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC!!

Wow. This was a really tense and exciting thriller. I thoroughly enjoy this debut. A really tough book to put down as I had to find out what was going to happen next. Very clever, well written insightful read. Recommended

This book, And Then You Were Gone by RJ Jacob, gripped me from the start. The twists and turns throughout the book left you wanting for more. The main character, Emily, is someone you want to just shake your head at with some of the things she comes up with and yet at the same time you worry for her. This comes out on March 13, 2019 and is a must read! 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 is my rating for sure! Thank you Netgalley for letting me read this for my honest review!

Publisher’s Description: “After years of learning how to manage her bipolar disorder, Emily Firestone finally has it under control. Even better, her life is coming together: she's got a great job, her own place, and a boyfriend, Paolo, who adores her. So when Paolo suggests a weekend sailing trip, Emily agrees - wine, water, and the man she loves? What could be better? But when Emily wakes the morning after they set sail, the boat is still adrift... and Paolo is gone.

“A strong swimmer, there's no way Paolo drowned, but Emily is at a loss for any other explanation. Where else could he have gone? And why? As the hours and days pass by, each moment marking Paolo's disappearance, Emily's hard-won stability begins to slip.

“But when Emily uncovers evidence suggesting Paolo was murdered, the investigation throws her mania into overdrive, even as she becomes a person of interest in her own personal tragedy. To clear her name, Emily must find the truth - but can she hold onto her own sanity in the process?”

This description for R.J. Jacobs’ “And Then You Were Gone” immediately made me think of the movie “Double Jeopardy,” where a woman wakes up on boat after a night of romance to find her husband gone, a blood-soaked boat, and eventually herself accused of murder. While the execution of the story lines weren’t the same, I was not disappointed in the way this book played out.

I have seen a number of reviewers who were put off by what seems like disjointed narration, but the protagonist Emily is bipolar, so the narration of the story from Emily’s point of view takes us increasingly further into her manic state of mind as she tries to figure out what the heck happened. She begins to distrust her own thoughts, we as readers can’t trust her point of view, and that is exactly the point! While Emily knows that she didn’t have anything to do with Paolo’s disappearance, she feels the paranoia creeping in. Paolo’s colleague Sandra comes to Emily with “evidence,” and Emily can’t decide whether Sandra is telling the truth or trying to implicate Emily even more. Paolo’s best friend Cal seems to be listening to Emily, but he never really liked her, so she begins to question his loyalty as well. But she feels like she just has to keep going. She has to get to the answer. And so did I!

I didn’t get through this nearly as quickly as I wanted to just because life was busy, but I didn’t want to stop reading. Along with Emily, I suspected at first that Paolo had disappeared, not died. When she became a murder suspect, I had to start to question whether she had something to do with Paolo’s disappearance/death or if someone was trying to frame her. This is a great whodunit that you’ll want to pick up.

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for an advance digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

What a page turner! I love that the protagonist was a little unreliable, it added another element of suspense to the story. The plot moved quickly and I found it hard to put down until I reached a very satisfying ending! Recommended!

I was hooked by the synopsis and disappointed by the book. Just not for me.

I all fell flat for me. It felt too unbelievable. The pacing was slow. We were in the head of Emily so much that the storyline started to drag and I lost interest. I never connected to Paolo or any of the other missing/dead characters. By halfway through I just wanted to get to the end to figure out what happened and move on from this book. I also did not like the ending.

When I look at others that reviewed this book it appears that I am in the minority with my opinions and I can respect that. Read some other reviews to get other takes because just because I did not enjoy it doesn't mean that you won't either.

This is actually my first-ever NetGalley read! A debut novel from the author, this one drew me in with its premise (and its cover... I am a sucker for the suggestion of underwater mysteries). The narrator, Emily, is a Nashville psychologist who takes an overnight lake boating trip with her researcher boyfriend, to wake up to find him vanished and their boat drifting on the lake. But, the more that the reader discovers about Emily, the more unreliable of a narrator she seems... She battles her own faulty memory of that night - plus her ongoing balance of life with being bipolar.

Not only does the book deal with mental illness, but also with contagious diseases as her boyfriend is a researcher into the same virus that killed Emily's father twenty years before the book's opening. This medical angle gives this thriller a fresh angle (though admittedly not the underwater angle I had been hoping for!). It's a solidly entertaining read that keeps the reader's interest despite some uneven pacing. I do wish that I had felt more connected to Emily, but she does feel like a realistic character - almost detrimentally so at times (her cavalier attitude towards her own medication may rub some readers the wrong way - along with some of her relationships). Overall, this is an interesting debut and it will be interesting to see what the author writes next!

Just finished reading, And Then You Were Gone by R.J. Jacobs and I was immediately hooked.

Life can take dramatic turns and for Dr. Emily Firestone her life has seemed to be in a constant state of upheaval due to the severity of her bipolar disorder, but nothing could have prepared her for the sudden disappearance of her boyfriend, Paolo, an epidemiologist who has been conducting research to create a vaccine for a deadly virus. Is it possible for someone to just vanish?

While not overly suspenseful there were some unexpected twists that I love to see in a psychological thriller. I also really appreciated the writing of Dr. Emily Firestone’s character and found her inner dialogue to be powerful. I found myself empathizing with her emotional responses and I think R.J. Jacobs writing of Emily’s character highlighted important aspects of mental health and more specifically bipolar disorder. Overall I really enjoyed reading this book.

I want to think NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for providing me this ARC in return for an honest review! Pub Date is March 13th so go pre-order already.

I received this novel from Netgalley in hopes I would leave my honest review.
This nice had great potential and just failed all around. Emily and her boyfriend went on a weekend getaway and she woke up alone, scared and sick.. Started off as a strong beginning and then lacked the rest of the way from jumping from plot to plot with no real story to finally the last 10% of the ebook it took off and completed the circle.

I was quite interested by this book when reading the synopsis. But in the end, I must say I have a weird feeling when closing this book. Indeed, I had quite a hard time waiting for the story to really take off, and maybe because of that, I did not have any interest in the characters, which is something critical to me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for an ARC, in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of this book was intriguing, and telling the story from Emily's POV sounded like a great hook. However, I had problems not becoming irritated with the fractured, splintered randomness of the narrative - the pace seemed incredibly fast, but going nowhere. This may be an accurate portrayal of someone with bipolar disorder, I don't know, but it made reading a chore rather than a pleasure.

Continuity suffered, and the repetition of certain key concepts got annoying - and yes, the ending was very foreseeable and not a big surprise.

All in all, something different and an interesting premise, but IMO needed to be edited more stringently.

This book was incredibly difficult to put down. I just had to know what happened! I read the entire book in two sittings. If you are thinking of reading this (and you should) stop reading reviews right now! This book is best gone into with no preconceived notions about what you are going to read and spoilers would ruin half the fun! I think you will be surprised at the direction the mystery takes.

The main character Emily is presented as a classic unreliable narrator with her bipolar disorder that may or may not be under control with medication. Her condition seemed to throw doubt on her competence with the police but I rarely found her unbalanced. She’s a fairly likable and understandable character. It must be awful always having people doubting your opinions and memories solely due to a mental illness.

The story took a turn in direction I was not expecting and I quite liked where it went. It surprised me and I was intrigued when it turned out to be about something much bigger and scarier than I was expecting. I do have to say that despite all the red herrings, I did suspect the “bad guy” so that wasn’t a shocker but the complete picture of what was going on was a bombshell. We got little teases of it as the story progressed but at some point things turned dark real quick!

I really enjoyed this thriller and it literally rarely left my hands until I was done. It’s one of those books you need to start on a weekend when you have a clear schedule because once you get into the story it doesn’t let you go!

Thank you to Crooked Lane Books for providing an Electronic Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley for review.

Soooo this was almost a DNF for me. A few chapters in, I just wasn’t really feeling the writing style, the story telling felt a bit forced, and I wasn’t really drawn into the characters. But by chapter 3, this book took off and just didn’t stop. It did feel like some of the manic behavior by the main character, who suffers from bi-polar disorder, felt a bit forced to fit the narrative, and I figured out the who-done-it well before Emily did. But overall, it was a quick, fast-paced, suspenseful read that kept me intrigued. A solid 3.75 rounded up for me and an author that I would definitely read again.

2.5 stars | What a book. For me it didn't worked as a thriller or mystery book at all because I was constantly annoyed by Emily Firestone. Her name is as stupid as her decisions. I don't blame her because it was for her and her mind an extreme situation but it made the plot redicilous and predictable. Halfway through I knew how this would end (I have to admid that there has been one tiny surprise). Emily being bipolar didn't felt like an extra, more like a plot element and this, I think, was the biggest mistake Jacobs could do. There is nothing wrong with an unreliable protagonist, this can be extremly intriguing.
If the ending would have been able to surprise me I would have given this book 3 stars. There were moments, which were really good written. For example the scenes between Cal and Emily where they talk about grief and try to process their loss: such a strong, emotional moment!

Wow! I read this one quick! Lots of suspense in this one! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Thanks NetGalley!

After years of learning how to manage her bipolar disorder, Emily Firestone finally has it under control. She's got a great job, her own place, and a boyfriend, Paolo, who adores her. So when Paolo suggests a weekend sailing trip, Emily agrees. But when Emily wakes the morning after, the boat is still adrift... and Paolo is gone.
A strong swimmer, there's no way Paolo drowned, but Emily is at a loss for any other explanation. Where else could he have gone? And why? As the hours and days pass by, each moment marking Paolo's disappearance, Emily's hard-won stability begins to slip.
But when Emily uncovers evidence suggesting Paolo was murdered, the investigation throws her mania into overdrive, even as she becomes a person of interest in her own personal tragedy. To clear her name, Emily must find the truth - but can she hold onto her own sanity in the process?

Really great read, started off slow at first but picked up after the first few chapters. I found myself relating a lot to Emily’s character, she just seemed real. The suspense definitely builds up as the story unravels but I loved it, the feeling of needing to know the whole story, that itching feeling to get through the whole book, I haven’t felt that in a while. Again, this was a great read, definitely recommend.

Wow, oh WOW! I loved this book. I had a hard time putting this book down. I actually thought I had figured out a different ending. Emily is a child psychologist. She is enjoying time on a boat with her wonderful boyfriend. They spend the night on the boat, and when she wakes up, he is gone. Emily doesn't accept that he drowned, so she searches for answers. Emily becomes a suspect and must clear her name. A great read!

This was the kind of read that keeps you on the edge of your seat. I really liked the main character Emily; she has flaws, but that only made her more relatable. I also liked her because even though she was dealing with many problems at once I didn’t feel as if she pitied herself the whole time.

I couldn’t put this book down and read it in two nights because I had to find out what happened. I was completely hooked from the first page to last page. I would definitely read more of R.J. Jacobs’s books in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Publishers for letting me read this book in exchange for a review. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This book was good, but predictable. I read it in two days (70% in the first day, might I add), only because I started it late and didn't plan on the beginning being as good as it was. I think I made it about 60% through before figuring out the ending (but of course you can't just STOP once you figure out the end; you have to follow through and make sure you're right!). The writing was good; it was easy to follow, even when talking about the science stuff. There were errors though (I think. I may have read it wrong and not followed along well). So unfortunately, even though the writing itself was good, this book only gets ⭐⭐⭐. Better luck next time, Mr. Jacobs!