I wasn't overly impressed with this book. It was obvious from page one that she was lying about being sick. The first half of the book was just slow and boring. It did pick up in the second half, but overall, was just ok. I ended up skimming more than anything. I was disappointed. Her books are usually really good.

I love a good psychological thriller that is fast paced and twisty, is filled with lies, secrets and deceit, has heart stopping moments and wow, did this story perfectly deliver!

Ruth Sterling has always been an overly protective mother to her daughter Catherine. Now that Catherine is an adult and trying to forge a life of her own, Ruth still goes to far lengths to keep tabs on and protect her. What has happened in Ruth’s past to cause her to behave this way and will Catherine’s growing suspicions about her mother wreak havoc on their lives?

I have loved every book that Sarah Pekkannen has written with her writing partner Greer Hendricks and this one may well be the best she’s written as a solo author. It will keep you turning pages late into the night to get to the truth of Ruth’s dark past.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s press for sending me a digital copy of this fabulous book in exchange for my honest opinion.

The story was good just an extremely slow pace. I didn't feel as if the book got interesting until the last 100 pages. Overall the book just made me sad for what Ruth went through as a child. I also felt bad for Catherine as she needs some sort of help to connect with other people. The seen with the squirrel was just freaky! The one thing that rang true as a mother you will do anything to protect your child.

I requested this book because the author is the co author of one of my favorite thrillers. This book did not disappoint and I found myself unable to put it down. Loved the build up and character development

Bring your toolbelt.

There's a lot of loose screws in this one.

Gone Tonight is a good read. 3 Stars is still a worthy read. In the range of reviews out there, I'm living on Planet Outlier. Gone Tonight starts out strong, slips into a Black Hole for a while, and then pushes with all engines full steam into a grande finale.

Ruth Sterling is a 42year old mother who's had a very difficult life. As the story unfolds, we'll come to find bits and pieces of that former life as secrets begin to float to the surface. Also floating to the surface is an obvious forgetfulness on Ruth's part. She can't find her keys and loses things on a daily basis. She doesn't seem to recall recent incidents. Ruth worries that she may lose her waitress job because of this and things are already tight.

Catherine, Ruth's adult daughter, notices instantly that something is very wrong with her mother. She lives with Ruth and notices right away that Ruth is slipping. On top of that, Catherine has been accepted as a nursing student at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. She's also worked at Sunrise Senior Living which deals with patients with dementia and Alzheimer's. Catherine is about to give up her dream so that she can remain with her mother.

As readers, we're sitting comfortably as the story begins to roll out. Ruth has the enormous weight of the secrets of her past. She and Catherine continue to move from apartment to apartment over the years. And always in a rush. Catherine admits that she knows nothing about Ruth's family or her younger past. She doesn't even know who her father is. Ruth is more than tight lipped. We'll get snippets through chapters which are headed in the voice of each of these characters.

Sarah Pekkanen is a well known author and for good reason. But I found Gone Tonight was so intricately detailed by Ruth's past life that we know exactly what bubble gum she chewed, what dialogue was stated by the mean girls, what snacks were taken at Target and so on. What we didn't know was more about a crucial character so important to this storyline. What made this person tick? Realistically, and I do mean realistically, how did Ruth survive after sixteen? The emphasis was on the deep dark secret. And meanwhile, we were losing all those nuts, bolts, and screws meant to hold this one together. Get behind the wheel and see what you think.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to St. Martin's Press and to Sarah Pekkanen for the opportunity.

Since I devoured The Wife Between Us, I will read anything these talented authors write and look forward to every new thriller they put out. This book was no exception - I read it in a couple of days because I could not put it down! I was rooting for both mom and daughter, and the dual timelines kept me guessing the whole time. These two authors are masters of suspense and twists!

Catherine Sterling and her mother Ruth have a super close relationship. They are best friends, close confidants and keep no secrets from each other. At least, as far as Catherine knows. But her mother refuses to speak about her past and her upbringing, never going into detail about why they moved around so much. Catherine has accepted this and stayed by her mother’s side, but now she has landed her dream job at a hospital. With Catherine on the verge of leaving, Ruth begins to crack and will do anything to keep her daughter close. But what is she scared of? Or is she herself the one Catherine should be afraid of?

This was a slow burn thriller, told in alternating viewpoints of Catherine and Ruth. Ruth begins to detail her past, explaining what led her to be in the place she is in today. And it was twisty, disturbing and unexpected. It was unique from other thrillers that I have read (and I read a lot of them!), in the way that it unfolded. Catherine was trying desperately to understand her mother and figure out what she was hiding, meanwhile Ruth was trying to keep it from coming to surface. It was a very character-driven story and I found myself loving both Catherine and Ruth by the end. The final twist was jaw-dropping, in that I thought I had seen everything!

Thank you to Netgalley, Sarah Pekkanen and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC! “Gone Tonight” releases August 1st.

This review will be shared to my instagram blog (@books_by_the_bottle) shortly :)

I appreciated that this focused on an interdependent mother daughter relationship, which is a nice change from the thrillers I usually read. The writing gets the job done, but the two POVs are definitely not equally interesting and it moves at a slower pace than I expected.

“How far would you go to protect the person you love most in the world?”
Ruth and Catherine have always only had each other. Ruth had Catherine at nineteen, and her family basically wanted nothing to do with her after that. Ruth is starting to forget things, and Catherine, who is a nurse working in elderly care, wants to get her the help she knows she needs. Catherine will stay with her and give up her job at Johns Hopkins.
But before Ruth ends up like her mother did at the age of fifty with early-onset Alzheimer’s, Ruth wants to write down her life story to share with Catherine. And it is a doozy!
The chapters between Ruth and Catherine alternate – Ruth telling her life story and Catherine trying to find out anything she can about Ruth’s upbringing and teenage years.
I devoured this book in one day with all its twists and turns! It will definitely not be my last Sarah Pekkanen book!

Gone Tonight by Sarah Pekkanen
I kind of fell across this book on NetGalley. I really liked the cover and the synopsis peaked my interest yet I’d never read anything by this author. It was a ‘Read Now’ so I thought why not? Well it was the best decision I made that day! I was hooked within the first paragraph, THE FIRST PARAGRAPH! I love the author’s writing style. This book is about a mother, Ruth and her grown daughter, Catherine. Ruth became pregnant at 16 and was kicked out of her home by her very religious parents. She eventually made a quiet and simple life for herself and her daughter although they moved quite often. Fast forward and Catherine is now a grown woman. Her mother has always been very evasive about her past, telling her absolutely nothing and with Ruth’s recent Alzheimer’s diagnosis it makes Catherine even more hungry for answers. She starts digging but the answers she finds are are not at all what she expected.
I loved this book and give it 5⭐️

I would like to start by thanking St. Martin's Press for providing me with an ARC of Gone Tonight 🙌🏼

3.5 stars. I enjoyed this read, as it focused on the relationship between a mother and her daughter, filled with secrets and shady stuff. My main problem with this book is that it wasn't very surprising and the twist comes too soon. I expected there to be an incredible plot twist toward the end that would blow my mind, but there wasn't 😔
On another note, this story is told in dual POV, but I did not care for the daughter's POV very much – I found the mother's perspective way more interesting and enthralling. However, I do agree that both POVs are necessary in order to give us the overall view of the story and how their actions and decisions intertwine. In conclusion, I wish this was a more twisted and surprising read, as it totally had the potential to be just that.

I could not put this book down. Sarah Pekkanen scores big again. I found myself totally enraptured by Ruth and Catherine. I loved the dual POVs. It was the perfect way to tell this story. I think I would’ve liked a chapter from James’s POV to see what was really going on in his head. But I thought this was a great book and would give it 4.5 stars.

Gone Tonight is another great book by one of my favorite authors. I was excited to see this as available to request. This is the story of a mother and daughter and how far each will go to protect the other. There are secrets and more secrets from both Ruth and Catherine. I enjoyed the journal entries as they provided the depth of the story and why Ruth is hiding. All in all, a great read. Thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for the ARC.

It is really hard to find a thriller that seems totally unique. While I loved a lot of aspects of this book, I don’t feel it was a stand out, edge of your seat Thriller for me.
I enjoyed having both Catherine and Ruth’s viewpoints and I enjoyed Ruth’s journal writing and getting to see her last from her point of view.

At seventeen Ruth left home. At the time she wasn’t aware she was pregnant. As time wore on she found ways to survive. Ruth has been on the run for twenty-four years. Her daughter Catherine had no idea, until recently, that her mother has been lying to her. Ruth lied to protect them. Ruth’s one lie leads Catherine down a path of discovery and danger.
…
Gone Tonight is about the relationship between a mother and daughter. Ruth devoted her life to raising Catherine after getting pregnant in high school. It’s been the two of them ever since.
…
Catherine is excited to start her new job out-of-state. She’s been planning this move for the last five months. This will be the first time Catherine will be away from her mother. It’s not an easy decision to leave her mother, but she’s worked hard to earn this position.
…
Sarah Pekkanen tells the story between mother and daughter with alternating points of view. This is truly my favorite way to deliver information about two characters. As Sarah Pekkanen navigates between these two different perspectives readers gains a better understanding of how each character’s thought process was at the time. It’s the best execution in my opinion.
The story is divided into three parts starting from the point when Ruth tells Catherine one more lie which leads down a path into the past. The second part is Catherine hiding secrets of her own. The final part is the past colliding with the present.
…
As thrillers go this one was slow going in the beginning. I find the secret storyline doesn’t come alive until that secret is exposed. Then all the excitement is unlocked. It’s at this point where the story thrives.

Ruth and her daughter Catherine have lived a very insular life, with Ruth willing to give up everything for her daughter. But now Catherine is ready to venture out on he own and Ruth is having none of it. Ruth has carefully constructed a perfect background for herself, and no one has any idea of her real past. But Catherine’s desire to be free of her controlling mother threatens to unearth Ruth’s real past and Ruth just cannot allow that to happen. A creepy story about a mother who will go to any lengths to keep her daughter under her thumb

This is a fabulous novel about a mother, Ruth and her daughter Catherine. As the book opens, we see Catherine planning to move to a new town to pursue her nursing career until she suspects Ruth may be experiencing dementia. Of course she stays and as the events unfold--through alternating voices of the two women, we see that there are SO many secrets to be revealed in Ruth's life that will drastically impact the relationship between mother and daughter as they attempt to find peace and happiness. Fast-paced and filled with tension, this book kept me up late at night as I couldn't put it down!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

Can you imagine what your life would be if everything about it was a lie?

Neither can Catherine. And when her mother, Ruth, is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s (although she refuses MRI or other diagnostic tests), Catherine has a niggling feeling that something is a little fishy. So she sets off on a long quest to discover the truth, unwittingly putting herself in grave danger.

I’m still not sure how plausible I found this story, but hey, I lead a quiet life and I suppose anything can happen. This book unravels the truth like a ball of twine at the end of which … I won’t tell.

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley.

Review: Gone Tonight by Sarah Pekkanen
Rating: 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Disclaimer: I received a gifted copy of this book from netgalley, and I'm in exchange leaving my honest review.
Girl what the FUCK did I just read
Ive read one of Sarah's works before--the golden couple, which she co-wrote, was a really good book. This was too.
But this book mind-fucked me
Around 30% I was just like ok, her mom's crazy. She basically didn't tell her daughter anything about her past or about her dad
70% I think, oh, it runs in the family because she's crazy too.
Then I find out her DAD is crazy too.
Whole lot of crazy going on
I've since concluded all three of them are crazy but Catherine at least seems to be getting it together.

How well do we really know our parents? Catherine always wondered about the secrets that her mother kept hidden and the real reason for why they had to move so often. As Catherine got older she discovered just how many lies her mom has told her and she is determined to learn the truth. The chapters fillip between Catherine and Ruth, telling the story of how Catherine learns about her moms past and how Ruth ended up needing to hid her identity.

While I enjoyed the two perspectives there were components that made it a slower read. I did like how the ending tied everything together and how imperfect the characters were.

Thank you to Netgalley and to the publishers for allowing me to read this advanced copy.