This book was not what I expected at all somehow, but was a fascinating read nonetheless.

Catherine has always lived with her mother Ruth in a very codependent type of relationship. Now, Ruth is in he 40s and showing signs of early Alzheimer’s….or is she? The more Catherine digs into the past, the more danger she is in.

The story is told in alternating POV between Ruth and Catherine, with much of Ruth’s storytelling told via letters to her daughter describing her past. In this way, we get the backstory that led to the present situation. The backstory was one of a hard youth, leading to some terrible choices that Ruth has been unable to fully move on from. It was crazy for me to think of a teenager doing all the things Ruth did as a teen, with the ingenuity it took to get her current life.

I really didn’t like either character during the story. Their codependency turned me off a bit, and I found it hard to understand why this mother wouldn’t let her daughter spread her wings and have her own life. Ruth doesn’t trust Catherine to make any of the right choices and forces her hand often, and Catherine just lets her do it. I was very frustrated by their relationship initially, but could understand it better once I knew the full backstory.

The story built tension up beautifully, making for a tense and uncomfortable read. I was constantly waiting for the bottom to drop out. The back half becomes a game of cat and mouse and had me flipping through the pages quickly.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you @stmartinspress and @macmillainaudio for my gifted book and audiobook.My thoughts are my own.

Catherine is a nurse at an assisted living facility in Pennsylvania. However she has just accepted a job at the prestigious John Hopkins Hospital and she is ready to go. When her single-mom, Ruth, receives a diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s, Catherine puts her plans on hold. Catherine and Ruth have always enjoyed a close relationship.

What Catherine doesn’t know is Ruth is hiding secrets and will stop at nothing to protect her daughter. As Ruth’s secrets gradually unfold, Catherine starts to lose trust in her mother. The truth will ultimately try their relationship.

MY THOUGHTS:
This slow-burn novel is told through alternating perspectives of mother and daughter, and the truth is gradually revealed. I guessed the ending early on. I enjoyed the print version much more than the audio version. Though I usually enjoy this narrator (Kate Mara), I felt she used a monotone voice and it was difficult to tell the difference between mother and daughter.

Read this if you:
*Have enjoyed this author’s previous work
*Enjoy slow-burn suspense
*Enjoy family drama

Ruth and her daughter Catherine have always been close. It’s always just been the two of them. Now that Catherine is in her twenties, she is starting to explore the world more. She’s ready to leave the nest for a job offer in another city. Ruth is starting to panic. How far will she go to keep her daughter close and the past hidden? The more Ruth clings to Catherine, the more Catherine wonders why.

Sarah Pekkanen tells the story from both Catherine’s and Ruth’s point of view, alternating between the past and the present. Pekkanen develops two very interesting and well-rounded characters. The suspense and wanting to know what will happen next will keep you on the edge of your seat wanting more. The twists are shocking and keep you wanting more. My favorite part was learning all about Ruth’s past leading up to the reason why she feels she has to keep her daughter so close. I highly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys psychological thrillers. I give it 5/5 stars.

3.5 stars
The book to me was ultimately about what lengths a mother will go to to protect her daughter, whether from threats that are real or those that are driven by anxiety.
Ruth does a lot of things and hides a lot of info from Catherine in an attempt to keep her safe. Catherine, in turn, starts to hide things from her mother while she searches for the truth about her mother's past.
There's a good amount of violence in here - a murder is at the center of the backstory, plus abusive relationships.
The books ends up raising a lot of questions as to what characteristics are inherited from parents and what are developed through circumstances and experiences.

Thank you so much to @stmartinspress for sending me an early copy of GONE TONIGHT. This one publishes one August 1.

I devoured this whole book in less than 24 hours. I read it while I cooked, I read it while I did laundry, I honestly couldn’t put it down. This whole book read like a movie in the best way and I can definitely see this becoming a huge hit on the screen. It’s honestly a perfect summer thriller. Go snag yourself a preorder or get your library hold in place because this one is going to be in demand!

Synopsis 👇🏻

Catherine Sterling thinks she knows her mother. Ruth Sterling is quiet, hardworking, and lives for her daughter. All her life, it's been just the two of them against the world. But now, Catherine is ready to spread her wings, move from home, and begin a new career. And Ruth Sterling will do anything to prevent that from happening.

Ruth Sterling thinks she knows her daughter. Catherine would never rebel, would never question anything about her mother's past or background. But when Ruth's desperate quest to keep her daughter by her side begins to reveal cracks in Ruth's carefully-constructed world, both mother and daughter begin a dance of deception.

This is one of the best thrillers I’ve read all year! It had similar vibes to Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter (in the very best way). I loved the mother daughter dual perspectives and there were so many twists!

Oof this was a sobering book about Alzheimer's. A fun, slow-burn, mystery book that is delicious and rewarding. The author has tried something different in each book and it has worked out, for her and her audience. It is definitely a slow start and you have to put in the work because the storyline revs up in the end and is satisfying.

Gone Tonight

Is it ok to tell lies and keep secrets to protect the ones you love?

Gone Tonight by Sarah Pekkanen is a suspense thriller that starts out slow but builds to a final unexpected ending. It is told from the perspectives of Ruth and her daughter Catherine. When Ruth starts showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s, Catherine discovers that a lot of things she thought she knew about her mother are not true. Why has her mother been lying? Will Ruth find out the truth before it is too late?

I really enjoyed this suspense thriller. It was a little slow in the beginning but as secrets get exposed the suspense starts building. Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for this eARC to read and review.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
I loved Sarah Pekkanen’s previous books that she co-wrote with Greer Hendricks: "The Golden Couple" &
"An Anonymous Girl" so I was excited to read her latest solo novel, "Gone Tonight".
Ms. Pekkanen has written something highly addictive, unique & thrilling.
The final ending reveal was a complete surprise to me.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and the author for providing this book for my honest review. This was my first book by Sarah Pekkanen and now I will have to go and read everything she has ever written. I am so in love with this twisty thriller! This will for sure be one of my favorite thrillers this year. I love all the mother/daughter secrets and the mystery surrounding their relationship. This was a completely unique story and I loved every minute of it! Thank you again for such a wonderfully entertaining and suspenseful novel.

The book features two main characters, Ruth and Catherine, mother and daughter and the story alternates between their two perspectives. Catherine is getting ready to move out on her own and Ruth is desperate to keep her close by. Catherine begins to find things out about her mother and that don’t seem to make sense. Why does Catherine know so little about her mother’s past, her family, etc.? It has always been the two of them, is their relationship going to change now that lies and deception come into play? The story moves along at a good pace and the two perspectives give an interesting take on what’s going on in the minds of the characters. It shows an interesting dynamic between mother and daughter and what people will do to protect those they love. I recommend this book, it held my interest and couldn’t wait to see how everything resolved. I give it 4 stars out of 5.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book is to be published August 1, 2023.

I've read previous books by the combo of Sarah Pekkanen and Greer Hendricks, but this is the first one I've read by this author alone. I thought it was a great domestic suspense thriller and took a new twist on an unusual mother-daughter relationship. I liked the back-and-forth POV between Catherine and her mother Ruth. The chapters were short and the suspense really kept me reading.

As Catherine is about to move out of her mother's house and take a new job in Baltimore, Maryland, her mother is suddenly presenting symptoms of Alzheimer's. It's a disease that Catherine knows Ruth won't be able to deal with by herself, so she is contemplating not moving. The two of them have always been best friends and inseparable. But then Catherine starts to discover that Ruth may be lying to her. As we see from Ruth's POV, she has definitely been keeping secrets from Catherine.

There were some good twists in this book that I didn't see coming. A great thriller!

This book follows an extremely close mother and daughter relationship where the daughter is hoping to spread her wings and move away. An unexpected medical emergency for the mom emerges conveniently delaying the daughter's plans and as she starts to seek help for her mother, she begins to uncover secrets and an unknown past. I had high hopes for this book as I have really enjoyed previous work by this author & while the concept of this book had potential, the execution fell flat. The mother and daughter were supposed to be extremely close but yet their relationship was portrayed very surface level with little character development. The plot was fast but felt slow due to its predictability and being very unrealistic in parts. The author used lots of detail in areas where it wasn't need to compensate for some of these flaws, but lacked it in areas where it would've added depth. Someone newer to thrillers may enjoy the dramatics and pace of the plot but there were too many issues to get past for me.

Well, 2.25.
I am really disappointed in how much I did not enjoy this book. There was so much focus on the boyfriends of the main characters instead of the mother and daughter themselves. I honestly wonder if this book, about a mother and daughter, would even pass the Bechdel Test. At no point does the reader get the feeling of a close bond between the two of them. Ruth, the mother, lives in fear and high level stress the entire book. I'm not sure how she actually can survive like that. And not until she is forced to does she tell her daughter, Catherine, what is going on and why she is acting this way. Instead she uses Alzheimer's to trick her daughter into staying with her. Wow! That's not a way to endear a character to the reader. Along with that, Ruth spends a lot of time throughout the story writing down her earlier life to tell Catherine what happened. Again, this was done out of necessity rather than desire to enlighten her daughter. However, most of this could have been skipped. It goes on and on in detail neither Catherine nor the reader need and just takes up space. Meanwhile, Catherine is trying to uncover her mother's past and gets way too many lucky breaks. No way this process would have ever been this smooth in real life. And finally, I just didn't understand some major decisions made by the characters. It felt like the teenagers being chased by the axe murderer who run down into the dark basement with only one exit. Needless to say, this book didn't work for me. I know it will work for many others but I got myself too stuck on the horrible relationship and poor choices to enjoy the story.

The bond between mother and daughter can be unbreakable. But will that be the case as Catherine starts digging into her mother, Ruths, past? They have been extremely close even sharing location with each other at all times, which is odd for a 24 year old daughter but adds depth to their odd relationship. Chapters alternate between their perspectives and part of Ruth’s story is told by diary entries she is writing down for her daughter just in case anything happens to her—I really enjoyed the diary entries and having the past unfold that way. Her level of control over her daughter is over the top. Was a different family drama/mystery/slight thriller—but kept me thoroughly engaged and wanting to know the whole story.

Thanks to Netgalley and St Martins press for my electronic advanced reader copy. All opinions are my own.

Rounding up to 3.5. Sarah Pekkanen is a talented writer. She develops characters that you actually care about and her books are easy to read. That said, I was expecting more of a thriller. I didn't find this very twisty, and there were no real surprises. Still, it was a good read and I would recommend it.

Gone Tonight is a new twist on the domestic drama. Instead of a husband and wife, it focuses on a mother and daughter. They have always been a close mother/daughter duo with no other family in the picture. When Ruth (the mother) begins experiencing symptoms of dementia and keeps it from her daughter Catherine, Catherine begins to wonder what other secrets her mother is keeping. A cat and mouse game begins between mother and daughter with several twists along the way. Fans of Sarah Pekkanen’s previous works should check this one out!

Available August 1, Gone Tonight by @sarahpekkanen is an amazing thriller I could not put down! Sarah co-authored several books with Greer Hendricks that have been very popular and my intro to her writing. I've really enjoyed all of her work.

Gone Tonight is about a mother and daughter, Ruth and Catherine, and Catherine's curiosity about her mother's past and the secrets she is keeping. Catherine's curiosity reveals the cracks in their relationship and uncovers the truth that Ruth has been working to hide all of Catherine's life.

It is so good! I won't give away any spoilers, but the story is fast paced and thrilling. While some of it feels slightly predictable, there are a few twists I didn't see coming. I rated this ⭐⭐⭐⭐!

Thank you @netgalley and @stmartinspress for the advanced copy! This book is available August 1!

The onset of dementia is not an easy thing to read about, but Pekkanen crafts an engrossing suspense tale through a daughter's effort to tease the truth about the past from her mother's failing memory. The more she learns, the more dangerous the situation becomes for both of them. Powerful themes of family and the obligations of both parent and child provide a strong platform for the twisty plot.

This is the first book I have read from this author but I have heard her talked or mentioned often before.

This book did start out kind of slow but it was a slow burn, in a good way. So don’t give up on it. It picks up at about 30% and stays on the up and up after that point.

This is a story of a mother’s love having no limitations but on steroids. The book is told from Ruth (mom) and Catherine’s (daughter) point of views.

How far would you go to protect your child from a life that you ran from?

Ruth Sterling, has constructed the “perfect” safe life for her and her daughter. It’s always been just the two of them and Ruth has worked very hard to give Catherine everything she needed, even if it meant she went without.

Catherine, however has graduated and is ready to take her own step in life and spread her wings for herself. Catherine wants to move away and start her new career but Ruth can not let that happen. How well do these two truly know one another… is everything what Ruth has made it out to be?

I loved how it built up and had you on edge until the last page once you actually got to that point in the story. I will be honest until that moment, it felt like a chore to keep on BUT DO IT.

I like how Ruth had everything so constructed and was a step ahead the whole story, or at-least to her knowledge.

This was one of the better books that I have read year to date, but I gave it four stars because I wish it hadn’t taken so long to pull you in because then it felt kind of rushed to wrap it all together and finish it up. I also did figure out one of the main twist but not the full combination of the whole story.

Overall, it kept me engaged, I did end up LOVING it and it was a unique story from start to finish. The author definitely took her time to plan out this plot, her characters, their motives, the twist and the overall storyline the way that she did. To make it all wrap up the way that she did was really incredible.

These are all my personal opinions and I would like to thank Netgalley and Orion Publishing Group for the ARC in exchange for my own honest feedback.

Gone Tonight is set to release 8/1/23 and is definitely one to have on your TBR for Thrillers of 2023!