This book was full of intrigue and surprise! Ariel is hiding her past but why? Do others know? Does her husband’s disappearance while visiting Lisbon have something to do with it? So many secrets that kept me on the edge of my seat. The mystery of this couple takes a while to unravel but is never dull! 4.5 stars

“But that’s true of everyone, isn’t it? Pasts can be reinvented.”

Ariel Pryce accompanies her new husband John Wright on a business trip to Portugal. When John suddenly disappears, Ariel finds herself in over her head. In a foreign country alone, the US embassy, Portuguese police, and reporters begin to get involved. Then when a three million euro ransom is demanded for John, Ariel decides that she will stop at nothing to get her husband back.

Two Nights in Lisbon is an intriguing, complex, slow burn thriller. Easily the best part is the writing, Chris Pavone’s writing is beyond compelling. I found myself engaged from the get go. There’s just something about writing thrillers in intense detail that just pulls me in. The colour of the alarm clock numbers, what the front page news is, the smell of the street. Building the scene so you’re immersed in the mystery, involved in in the disappearance of John. The story itself is a close second. I live for a mystery complex enough that I’m left in awe. Where you figure out parts of it but not everything. Where you get the gist, but the full twist is still engaging.

Two Nights in Lisbon is a stunning read, so in depth that you might think it a little too long, twisty enough to leave you satisfied but with enough foreshadowing that you can deduce the idea. A slow burn but fast paced enough to keep you turning the pages to solve the mystery.

Thank you to NetGalley, Farrah, Straus and Giroux, and Chris Pavone for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A page-turner with a couple of interesting twists set over a few days in Lisbon, Portugal. Ariel Pryce is a recently married American woman in her '40s who has accompanied her husband, John Wright, on a short business trip to Lisbon. Ariel wakes up on the second day of their trip and her husband has disappeared. She knows immediately that something is wrong and contacts the local police and the American embassy for help in finding him. The CIA becomes involved in an attempt to rule out any political motive for John's disappearnce and flashbacks slowly reveal that there is a connection between Ariel's past and her current situation in Europe. An interesting premise but the novel is quite long and drags a bit during the middle which detracts from the suspense of the story. Overall it was an okay read for me but I didn't love it.

Thank you to NetGalley for a digital ARC (Advance Review Copy).

WOW! What a tale! Two nights in Lisbon is an intriguing, exciting adventure story about a newlywed couple who go to Lisbon - he for work, and she to have some time with him. After an intimate night, Ariel wakes up alone in their hotel room -without John. He was there for work and had begged her to go along, but leaving without a note or message as to when he would return, was strange. As Ariel goes through hotel security, the Lisbon Police, and the American Embassy, she is generally regarded as a little hysterical as each agency tries to tell her to calm down, he is probably working (although she doesn't really know too much about him or his business).
The story shifts between Ariel's time in Lisbon and her life in NY from her mid 20s until the present day (she's 40ish).
I loved the way her backstory was woven into the plot although I did figure out the twist pretty early on....it was a well developed plot and kept me reading - just a few more pages, and just a few more, etc. Ariel's history and victimization made me cringe - unfortunately, there seemed to be a large amount of truth to the scenarios that she endured. I loved the way the author incorporated some of the unique facets of Lisbon into the story. Nonetheless, the book was just a little too long, and I got a little tired of the way the officials were portrayed - the good cop/bad cop, the embassy officials and the CIA.
I received an advance review copy of Two Nights in Lisbon for free from Netgalley and the publisher and an leaving this review voluntarily.

This book lives up to the hype. It took me by surprise, and I just loved it and raced through it - in less than two nights because I couldn't put it down. Highly recommend.

I took this digital review copy with me to Lisbon, thinking I would read it there. Instead I DNFd it in Lisbon. Yes, it had lots of great details about the city it was set in, just like a previous Pavone book I had read (I read The Expats shortly after visiting Luxembourg.) Some readers might like novels that purposely hold back information for suspense purposes, but I just find it annoying. I can just feel the author writing in a vague prose so that the reader doesn't get too much info at once. I really enjoyed The Expats, but I can't get into Two Nights in Lisbon, even while visiting Lisbon.

Two Nights in Lisbon was my first Pavone book. It had a lot to live up to- I've heard his writing is snappy and suspenseful, with lots of spies and intrigue. This didn't disappoint! I found the heroine to be appealing and a continuous source of surprises, and the plot similarly kept me guessing right up until the end. Even though I guessed some of the plot points, plenty of the beats surprised me- and I do love a surprise! More importantly, this book takes on real-world issues in a way that never felt smarmy. There' are some big trigger warnings for this, but I do think that even the crummiest aspects of the characters' pasts were handled well. Bonus points for the Lisbon police officers and the embassy agents (and CIA agents) who provided a lot of humor as well as insight. The settings were great- Lisbon felt very real to me though I've never had the chance to visit, and the Hamptons and upstate NY were nearly as well painted. And I liked the use of old-school reporting to tackle modern issues. Overall a solid summer read- 4 stars!

The second half of this book is really good. Fast plot with twists and turns. Getting to the second half was a struggle. The first half of the book, you know the main character is playing hide the ball, but it's too much for too long. She seems completely unbelievable in every way. Ultimately, I enjoyed the book but I almost put it down before I got to the second half.

I always enjoy the international setting in a Chris Pavone thriller. The latest book is set in Lisbon, Portugal and both the main plot and subplot held my interest throughout. Great, fast read for summer!

This book was a miss for me. The author is incredibly descriptive and at almost 450 pages, some of the descriptions could have been cut to shorten the text..

I DNF'd this book at page 109. I honestly could not deal with the MC and how it was portrayed that every man was out to rape her. I also felt that this book did a ton of telling but not showing. I am not sure that I could have kept reading through almost 500 pages of this thriller.

I may try to pick this up again one day but now it just did not motivate me to keep reading on.

This was a fun fast paced read. I’m not sure it’s something that will stick with me but could make for a run road trip listen. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance reading copy.

I loved Chris Pavone’s thriller, The Expats, so I was eager to read this book. Once again he does not disappoint. This is a quick read, spy thriller set in Lisbon. Lots of twists and turns and you can almost picture it as a movie in your head. This book will surely be a summer reading favorite for many. The character development is well done and I really liked and cared about Ariel.

I will be adding Chris Pavone to my must read authors list and will recommend this book to thriller readers. Thank you to NetGalley, Author Chris Pavone and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I enjoyed this suspenseful spy like thriller by Chris Pavone. Ariel is newly married and on a trip to Lisbon when she wakes up and finds her new husband, John missing. She goes to extreme lengths to find him and who is “behind” his disappearance. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC.

“Two Nights in Lisbon” was an interesting read. Ariel Pryce wakes up in her Lisbon hotel to find her husband missing. What follows are more than two days of working to get the ransom money to get John back. (I’m not sure how the title fits in with the story, because it took place over more than two days.)
The storyline was good, but there were so many woke undertones, that I found it off putting. For example, Ariel meets a man at the embassy who is from the South. She accuses him of being proud of sweet tea and slavery. It did nothing to add to the storyline, except to portray Ariel as a psycho, so I don't know why he included it in the story. There were other examples, that are too many to mention.
Please read other reviews, because I am one person, and there are many other people who did enjoy this story. I want to thank the author, publisher and NetGalley for a complimentary copy of the book. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

Two nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone 4

A riveting thriller about a woman under pressure, and how far she will go when everything is on the line.

Two Nights in Lisbon is a well developed political suspense set in the backdrop of Lisbon. The pacing is erratic, frequently and abruptly jumping between characters and timelines, laying the groundwork for a layered story you aren’t quite sure where it’s going. Little by little more is revealed that makes you question everyone's motives.

This book reminded me of Bourne - one of my all time favorite movie series - but with a little less action and a little more social commentary.

Buckle up for a long read, this one clocks in at over 400 pages which was probably around 100 more than it needed to be. The story starts with such a bang then lags a little but a satisfying ending where all the breadcrumbs sprinkled throughout come together makes up for it.

There were so many different elements to this plot but everything came together SO well. Every piece of the puzzle is carefully arranged to create a stunning final picture. The tempo and twists were all perfectly timed —- a great book from beginning to end.

Ariel is a newly-wed forty-something spending time in Lisbon with her husband, when he disappears. She follows all the right avenues when trying to find him, police, embassy, resulting in dead-ends. I was intrigued by this story and asked myself what I would do in this position, Frightening. Ultimately, this is a story about woman empowerment, rather timely I would say. While I did think the story ran long, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to my friends who like mystery stories with a female main character.

Thank you to Netgalley and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for the ebook of this story.

An interesting read, not an absolute favorite, was not an “I can’t put this down” but drawn in enough to finish. I’ll have to read more of this author. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for this ARC opportunity!

This thriller from Chris Pavone tells the story of John and Ariel, two newlyweds that are on a vacation in Lisbon, when John is suddenly kidnapped. While Ariel desperately tries to figure out what happened and why, we start to learn more about their individual pasts, and suddenly everyone's motivations become a bit more murky.

This one is full of twists and surprises. Pavone constantly subverts expectations; setting up situations that lead the reader in one direction and then dropping a twist that changes everything. It becomes a fun game of guessing what will happen next, and enjoying when you are completely wrong. There were a few parts that I didn't love; and sometimes it seemed like Pavone was focusing on social commentary instead of sticking to a more believable plot, but this didn't really prevent me from wanting to read on. The pacing is good, and even through the strange or less realistic parts I had a hard time putting the book down. The ending was decent, although it wasn't exactly what I had hoped for. Overall, if you like a thriller with twists that keeps you guessing, and you don't mind a little social commentary thrown in, you might want to give this one a try. It certainly has enough action and suspense to keep you turning the pages to find out what will happen next.