Joshua Fields travels the country, working with his father as a real estate salesman. He's bored and beginning to wonder if he needs to consider changing occupations. Then, on a layover in Atlanta, he meets a mysterious and alluring women, Morgan, who after one kiss in an airport bar has captured his interest and imagination.

In a totally out of character move, Joshua abandons his business trip and follows Morgan on a flight to Tennessee. He is confused when she denies knowing him and determined to get to the bottom of the mystery. Finding through social media she is a missing person, he manages to reconnect with her and tries to help her out of problems. Every time he believes he knows her, she surprises him again. Morgan leads Joshua into more excitement than he could have possibly anticipated, and that may not be a good thing.

Enjoyable but you kinda knew who done it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I really wanted to like this book. I was highly anticipating it because the story synopsis sounded so great. Random stranger you hit it off with and then find yourself involved in strange situations and flying all over the eastern seaboard.

The book is written in Bell’s familiar style of short chapters and not an overload of conversation, which I really appreciate. The beginning is interesting; it grabs you and sets up a great storyline. But towards the end of the book, he loses me.

The male lead ends up sounding desperate. The female lead is dodgy and seems to be a bit cracked. The police interaction is drab and dull. Bell does add in a few twists and one impressive character. However, there’s not a whole lot of excitement in this book.

Like I said I really wanted to love this story because of who wrote it. And while I did really enjoy parts of it, it was too easy to figure out who done it and it seemed very lackluster.

Will I read another by him in the future? Absolutely, because I know what he can produce. This one just didn’t do it for me personally.

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 / 5

Sigh, I really, REALLY wanted to love Layover by David Bell but unfortunately that was not the case. I still really enjoyed it, but it was nowhere near the love I was hoping to feel for this book.

What it's about: Joshua Fields has his life down to a routine. He works for his father's company and spends most of his time in airports, hotels, and different states. But a chance meeting in an airport with a beautiful stranger named Morgan is about to change everything. After they share a kiss in the airport and she leaves telling him they will never see each other again, he finds out that she is a missing person. What follows is Joshua's journey to find Morgan and figure out what is going on with her. But what he finds out isn't quite what he was expecting.

I lie a little bit in my summery about Layover only being about Joshua's quest to find Morgan, because at the same time there is also a detective named Kimberly who is trying to solve a different missing person's case. The book actually jumps between Joshua and Kimberly's perspectives the entire time which also made this book a bit of a police procedural.

The biggest issue for me with this book was that I just didn't think the suspense was there, and the ending really wasn't a surprise to me. The fact that the ending let me down so much is why I got stuck on a 3.5 for Layover. I kept waiting for a shocking conclusion that just didn't come. That being said, this book was definitely enjoyable, don't get me wrong. I read it in 4.5 hours and with it being 399 pages that is really saying something about the pacing.

I also want to point out that a 3/3.5 for me is GOOD, I still really enjoyed this novel and the only reason it didn't get a higher rating from me is because I wasn't really surprised at any of the twists. This was my first time reading a book by Bell and I can definitely see what people love about him. His writing was fantastic, and the book was super readable which are both things I loved about Layover.

Song/s the book brought to mind: Follow You Down by Gin Blossoms

Final Thought: I feel like Layover is one of those books that a lot of people are going to love. Maybe I'm just getting jaded by the number of thrillers I've read, but for someone that can't guess the twists on most of the books I read, I just don't know what it was about this one. However, I am already looking forward to reading more of Bell's novels and knowing that I like his writing style just makes me that much more excited. And I am definitely still going to be recommending this book to the right readers!

Thank you to Get Red PR and the publisher for providing me with an advance review copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

The characters are fairly well drawn and the suspense is built into the story but somehow the characters never reached the level of believable and neither did the story line. I'm not one that needs a tidy, happy ending but this novel ends in a way that doesn't seem to honor the characters that were developed. Despite all of that, I enjoyed reading it and appreciated the way the suspense was crafted.

Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Books for the ARC to read and review.

First and foremost, a large thank you to NetGalley, David Bell, and Berkley Publishing Group for providing me with a copy of this publication, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review.

Being an avid traveller and a great fan of thriller novels, I was sure that the latest David Bell story would pull me in and leave me wanting more. There are few as busy as Joshua Fields, who logs hundreds of thousands of miles in the air each year. With that type of lifestyle comes a great deal of time spent in airports. During one layover in Atlanta, Fields runs into a beautiful woman and they share a drink at an airport bar. With both of their flights soon to board, Fields and this mystery woman prepare to go their own ways, though a scintillating kiss has Fields wanting more. He rushes to find her and boards her plane to Nashville, only to be rebuffed. Unsure of what to do next, he tries to find out all about this Morgan Reynolds, only to discover that her friends have listed her as missing. It is then that some of the pieces fall into place for Fields, who wonders if Morgan is hiding from someone. Renting a car to find Morgan, Fields finds himself in a small Kentucky college town. Much is soon revealed and none of it is quite as it seems. The local police take an interest in Fields and tie-in a larger investigation to a missing businessman and a valuable item that is also nowhere to be found. Could Morgan Reynolds be a completely different woman from the one who shared a drink with Joshua Fields? This may be the kick in the pants that Fields needs to steer clear of others while between flights. An interesting thriller, though not as impactful as I would have liked. Perhaps a little turbulent, but not in a way that would have me tossing out recommendations at this time.

I enjoy newly discovered authors, particularly when they have a collection of books from which to choose. This was my first David Bell novel, an author who comes with many recommendations from those whose opinions I value greatly. Joshua Fields proves to be an interesting, if not somewhat flimsy, character. While he is master of the skies, he seems oddly drawn to a random woman and races to learn more about her. Perhaps I ought to have used this as a yardstick for how he would develop for the rest of the novel, as he thrives on naïveté and silly choices. Juggling his work life and this obsession, Fields seems to have turned himself into an amateur sleuth, while still making some silly choices. Contrast that with Morgan Reynolds, who is always one step ahead of everyone and whose actions have repercussions that few could have foreseen. While I was no more attached to her as a character, I suppose I valued her journey a little more. With a handful of other characters, including a detective who seeks to juggle work and home responsibilities, the story moved forward and came to some expected resolution. There was nothing inherently wrong with this piece, though I was hard pressed to find that spark that left me dying to flip the page or hope for another novel in the series. David Bell is capable at his craft, keeping the chapters short and the cliffhangers coming. I may have to try some of his other work, which has received many accolades, before making a final opinion of this author.

Kudos, Mr. Bell, for entertaining your readers. Like the title, this book is likely best read to kill some time while travelling this summer.

Joshua Fields is on a business trip when he meets a women that he bumps into twice. They have a conversation and she kisses him before saying they will never meet again. Joshua later finds that this mystery women has been reported missing and he sets off to help locate her.

Layover is an interesting mystery with a unique storyline. However I found Joshua to have stalker vibes and Morgan to be a master manipulator - neither character quite likeable and flawed. I was on the edge of my seat wondering how this story would resolve. Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for a digital ARC of this psychological thriller in exchange for an honest review.

An airport, a chance meeting, an unforgettable, secretive woman, a woman who is actually missing, tells lies, and doesn’t care who she involves or hurts.

Joshua saw a woman in the bar and knew she needed some help just by the way she was acting so he canceled his plans with his father to follow Morgan.

Is she really worth helping? After their meeting, Joshua thinks so.

Meanwhile, Morgan’s boss is also missing and not too long after Morgan had been visiting him to try to straighten out the reason she didn’t get a raise after making an app that made the company a lot of money.

LAYOVER moves quickly along, and I wanted to tell Joshua to stop being a good guy and stay away from Morgan who he never knew before this.

Every time they would find each other and Morgan would leave it had me wondering why in the world Joshua was being so irresponsible....just get back to your life, but he wasn’t listening to me. :)

More characters, and I mean people who don’t think, come on the scene and each one has some connection to Morgan, but the only connection they all have in common is that no one knows where Morgan is or where her boss, Giles, is.

LAYOVER kept me in suspense, kept my blood pressure up, and had me shaking my head at the stupidity of Joshua. Why go to these lengths and ruin your life? Maybe he didn’t think he was ruining his life?

Mr. Bell has written another tense thriller with a very manipulative, not nice main character.

Are you intrigued?

ENJOY if you read LAYOVER!! 5/5

This book was given to me by the publisher in print and NETGALLEY in exchange for an honest review.

Actual stars: 3.5
I almost put this one down and walked away...but like the MC in this book, I didn't.
Touted as a "high concept psychological thriller" but I didn't feel like it delivered. It was two things that I dislike in a thriller: predictable and slow.
I really wanted to like this. The premise was there, but the execution just wasn't. 3.5 stars because a general work of fiction, this is really good. Good characters, reasonable story line, but as psychological thriller it under-performed.

I've always been a fan of David Bell's books, and this was no exception. I'm writing this review after it has already made it to the Library Reads July list, but just know that it got my vote for the list as well because I liked it that much!

Bell has a way of writing that makes you feel like you're watching a movie because the characters and situations are described so well. Read this!

Thanks to Net Galley for the opportunity to read this book and review it.

A man wakes up in a hospital room and has no idea what happened or why the police want to talk to him. Well, that is a way to get a reader invested.

The story then flashes back and tells the story of how the man ended up in the hospital. This is a story that is full of twists and turns.

I tried to read this book but I couldn’t get into it. I was most annoyed with the characters who seemed so improbable. This was a DNF for me as I couldn’t get interested in what I was reading.

One of the most unusual thrillers I have read so far. Joshua and Morgan meet in an airport bar and connect almost immediately. They part with a meaningful kiss with Morgan declaring they will never meet again. As the rest of the narrative unfolds we are unsure of Morgan's true motivation. We are also concerned that Joshua is on a path to disaster. Alongside Joshua's story, we follow the small-town detective who gets involved in the intrigue surrounding Morgan. I held my breath until the very end wondering how the story could be resolved. How did it end? I'll leave the answer for other readers to discover on their own.

Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for a digital ARC of this psychological thriller in exchange for an honest review.

The mystery in this book is definitely well spaced out and well crafted. I also liked that we got two different perspectives both in character and 'person' (one being first, the other being third). This way it made it so we could get a lot of different pieces to the bigger puzzle in ways that didn't feel like leaps for either narrative. I was a bit more invested in Kimberly's parts, as I liked her as a character far more than I liked Joshua, and I felt that her choices and motivations matched up far more than his did. The things that I wasn't as fond of were definitely in the Joshua chapters, partly because of Joshua, and partly because of Morgan. I didn't feel like we got a good enough sense of who Morgan was as a character to really feel something for her, be it pity or revulsion. And as for Joshua, I also didn't feel like it was well established enough as to why he would make the completely irresponsible and potentially dangerous decisions he made continuously throughout the story. Having work and life ennui is one thing, but I needed more motivation for him. As it was I just thought he was a complete dolt.

Mystery wise LAYOVER was fairly well done. Characterization wise it left a bit to be desired.

This was a unique, fast-paced thriller that was quite the page turner. Great writing, interesting characters, a few twists and turns that made this a very enjoyable read. I have to say that there were times that I wondered what the heck Joshua Fields was doing chasing after Morgan. Made for a good story, though, and it is one that will keep readers up way past their bedtimes!

I received an advance review copy via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

I struggle a bit with the rating of this book. Do I rate it based on my opinion or on what I think most people will think of it? Do you see the male protagonist as a hopeless romantic or as a man with strong stalker tendencies? I guess to be an honest reviewer I have to go on my opinion – and I see him as the latter. I can’t say I really liked either pathetic Joshua or femme fatale Morgan. I know I would not want either as a friend.

The book is well written and suspenseful. I enjoyed the first half of the book but then got tired of the repetitive cat-and-mouse that was so predictable at that point. I liked how the book ended, but I did not like the tidy explanation that came before the end.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley for giving me this ARC. Obviously, the opinions are my own.

There's a touch of edge-of-seatness in this book to be sure, but I'd describe it more as a coming of age character study than a spine-tingling thriller. And I admit it's a bit of a stretch when it comes to believability; but then again, this is a work of fiction - so whether it could happen in real life really doesn't count for much. The bottom line is how well it's written - and I have no real complaints on that score; had I been able to finish it in one sitting, I would have.

Joshua Fields is your average Joe - went to work for his father, spending his days (and not a few nights) on the road helping with real estate deals and making his dad proud. He's got a girlfriend, although they're not quite seeing eye-to-eye at the moment and are taking a break. He makes decent money and, for all intents and purposes, should be a happy man.

Except he isn't. He hates to fly - popping anxiety pills before every one of his frequent flights. He knows he should be grateful that he's got a steady job with a future, a parent who loves him and a somewhat satisfactory love life. But in fact, he sees his life as hum-drum at best; he's just going through motions that he really doesn't much enjoy.

All that changes when he meets a beautiful but mysterious woman named Morgan during a layover at the Atlanta airport while on his way to shore up a real estate deal in Tampa, Fla. When she tells him little more about her life except that she's on the run, he's fascinated. And when she gives him a big kiss before flying down the concourse to catch her plane, fascination turns into infatuation. On a spur-of-the-moment whim, Josh decides to throw caution to the wind, cancel his trip to Tampa and set out to find her again. Perhaps, he seems to think, he can save her and his boring life in one fell swoop.

But you know what they say about good intentions and best-laid plans; finding Morgan isn't quite as simple as Josh thinks. And, he learns, she may not be all that happy to be found. Although she reveals a few more details about her dire situation, she leaves out enough to make Josh even more curious.

Meanwhile, a detective named Kimberly Givens is working on the case of the missing Giles Caldwell - the head honcho of a successful company that develops apps. It appears his home was broken into, but the only thing missing is a very expensive woman's ring. Giles's brother is pestering the police to get on with the investigation, but for the most part Kimberly's leads aren't going anywhere. She sticks with it, of course, eventually unearthing clues that point in the missing Morgan's direction (no big surprise there).

It's fast-paced, with short chapters shifting to different characters' points of views. It didn't end the way I would have expected, although upon reflection it was a good fit (see the first sentence in my review). All in all, a very enjoyable read - thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to review an advance copy.

This was a quick and suspenseful read… definitely a plot-driven thriller. I was a little annoyed that the male protagonist could not take NO for an answer from a woman. There were no unrealistic twists trying to trick the reader, which thrillers tend to do lately. It used the typical thriller formula: mysterious woman, missing man, and amateur detective… perfect for fans of “light” thrillers.

Thanks to Berkeley Publishing Group and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

David Bell's Layover was an interesting book. A layover in the Atlanta airport leads to life-changing decisions for the Joshua Fields. He is a successful commercial sales exec that has become bored with his driven professional life. Little does he know when he meets Morgan Reynolds that his life is about to change forever. The storyline was intriguing but seemed to drag in places. Would recommend for those looking for an escape into suspense, mystery, and whodunits.

WOW! David Bell, Author of “Layover” Berkley Publishing, July 2019, has written an intense, intriguing, captivating, suspenseful, unpredictable thriller and mystery. The Genres for this book are Suspense and Mystery, Psychological Thriller and Fiction. This story takes place in many airports. The author describes his characters as complex, complicated, confused, and ambivalent.

I enjoy the edgy feel and thought-provoking appeal of David Bell’s novels and find that once I start reading I have trouble stopping. That means I continue reading through the night and wake up irritable and tired. “Layover” is the type of book where I want my questions answered! There are twists and turns, excitement and adventure. There are a few surprises in store for the reader.

Joshua Fields is an ordinary, wishy-washy type of a guy, with a good family job that involves spending a lot of time on airplanes. Joshua is an anxious flyer and seems to feel like his life is in a rut. During a layover, Joshua meets a mysterious woman in a hat with sunglasses, who says that her name is Morgan. She kisses him and tells him that she will never see him again.

Joshua notices on the television a picture of the same woman mentioning that she is a missing person. Joshua wants to take the appropriate action. Little does Joshua know how his life will never be the same. There is an adventure, the chase, intrigue suspense, murder, and danger. I highly recommend “Layover” for those readers who enjoy a great psychological suspense novel.

DNF - a collage of other published storylines. Not enough original content. It too closely mirrors other novels.