Single-mother Ruth (42) and her daughter Catherine (24) have always been a team. They have no contact with Ruth’s ultra-religious family who disowned her when she became pregnant as a teenager or with Catherine’s father. They’ve never even spent more than a few days apart.

Catherine, though, is about to move from their home in Pennsylvania to Baltimore for a nursing position at Johns Hopkins. Just as she is preparing to leave, Ruth is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. She decides to stay and care for her mother.

Shortly, though, Catherine starts to believe her mother’s illness is an act, and she begins to investigate her mother’s past. Catherine’s questions unwitting open her and her mother to a long-simmering danger.

GONE TONIGHT, told in dual points of view, has short chapters that help maintain a fast pace. Still, it took me some time before I really got into the book. Once Ruth’s back story was revealed, though, I was highly invested and thought the plot was cleverly constructed.

In this book, the characters struggled financially, and it seemed a realistic portrayal of poverty and the difficult choices lack of resources require. The mother-daughter relationship between Ruth and Cathrine offers much to unpack: how close is too close? what’s the line between protective and stifling?

Expect a slow-burn with unreliable narrators, an exciting, jaw-dropping second act, and a touch of ambiguity in the ending.

When Ruth Sterling was a teenager, she slipped away one night, desperate to escape an abusive home and a troubling boyfriend. Pregnant, alone, and prepared to do anything to survive, she eventually makes a life for herself—and soon, for her newborn daughter Catherine. For more than twenty years, Ruth has lived quietly and has provided for her daughter. But she is always ready to run at a moment’s notice, and never allows either of them to put down roots too deeply. Now, Catherine is grown and craves a life for herself. This is something her mother will do anything to prevent—but for what reasons? It has always been just the two of them against the world. But how well do they really know each other? When Ruth’s deeply held quest to keep Catherine by her side reveals cracks in her carefully constructed world, both mother and daughter begin a dance of deception. They both have secrets. But which one of them carries the real darkness inside?

I absolutely loved this book. Its unpredictable and unreliable characters. The quick moving plot. The suspense. It was thrilling and everything I could have asked for in a Sarah Pekkanen novel. I liked how the story unfolded and enjoyed the dual POV. This was a 5 star read for me!

I enjoyed this book, but found some of the plot somewhat easy to figure out. The plot kept me engaged and I liked the story.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy to honestly review.

4.5/5 Stars

Ruth Sterling and her daughter Catherine have been inseparable since she was born. Catherine is now 24, and beginning her career as a nurse. She gets a job opportunity in Baltimore, but decides to turn in down when she discovers that her mother is showing early signs of dementia. As Catherine begins trying to look into her mother's past, she starts to uncover some darker secrets she has been keeping hidden.

This is told in dual POV between Catherine and her mother Ruth. Both were unreliable narrators, which I love. It was interesting to see both of their deceptions and lies unfold causing so much distrust between the two. Their relationship dynamic changed so much from the beginning to the end, and I found it so fascinating watching it unravel. I listened to it on audiobook, and I think the narrator did a good job with these characters, but wish there had been a bit of change in the voices between Ruth and Catherine to help differentiate the two. The story is also told in alternating timelines of the past and the present. Learning about Ruth's past was such a roller coaster and I was so invested in her story. The twists and turns were so addicting and well done, I didn't want to put the book down.

Overall, I thought this thriller was a lot of fun.

I was captivated from the first to last page. I found the mother daughter relationship to be authentic. I loved how it ended, enjoyed the writing and the story.

Thank you, Netgalley, the author, and St. Martin's Press for the gifted book! ❤️ #gifted. My review is comprised of my honest thoughts.

Read this book if you like: Dual POV, dark pasts, slow burn

Wow. I could not stop reading this. This was so well-developed, dark, and twisty. I don't want to spoil anything. Amazing. I highly recommend it!

Hot DAMN I enjoyed this! Fast paced thriller following mother and daughter. One is on the run the other completely unaware she is on the run. I couldmt put this down. And then that ending!!! I didn't see anything coming. Really enjoyed

Thank you netgalley for the earc in exchange for an honest review

4.25 stars!!!!

Another hit from one of my favorite authors!!
I read this one awhile ago and can’t believe I haven’t shared it yet- because it was so great!

This book was a slow burn full of secrets & lies between a mother and daughter- I loved following along to see how their relationship would play out. Slow burns can sometimes be a negative for me, but in this case it just made me want to keep on reading👏🏻

I was intrigued from the very beginning and stayed hooked the entire time. The plot had some nice twists and I knew with the amount of secrets there would definitely be some good reveals along the way!

Flipping between Ruth (mother) and Catherine’s (daughter) point big view, I loved hearing from both characters- I thought their development was excellent and the flashbacks thrown in really helped to sell their stories.

Pekkanen is a fantastic writer and the book flowed so well and had a lot of depth.
This is definitely one you should add to your tbr if you haven’t already read it!

I was so excited to receive this book—and I loved it! So many secrets and twists between mother and daughter. I was questioning everything until the very end

I loved how this one pulled together. The intricacy of power pulling between mother and daughter as each wants to be in control. As the past begins to unravel it was exciting following the daughter as she discovered who her mother truly was and everything she was trying to protect. I found this refreshingly different than other thrillers I've read.

A cat-and-mouse, mother-daughter popcorn thriller that’s perfect for the beach or when you want to be entertained

I normally include a synopsis, but I’m encouraging you to go into this one blind (the mood reader index is more than enough).

“Gone Tonight” is a thriller/suspense book that is a pretty safe bet for most readers. It’s violent, but it’s not nearly as dark as a lot of the books I love and recommend. This isn’t “The Push”; it’s not even close to that.

Like the psychological thrillers Pekkanen has written with a coauthor, I found “Gone Tonight” immediately engrossing. The twist reveals were perfectly paced, and the ending was a total adrenaline rush.

A mother and daughter play a subtle game of cat-and-mouse in Gone Tonight, the new thriller by Sarah Pekkanen. Ruth fled her home as a teenager, pregnant and alone, to escape events that occurred that could put her in danger. After she discovers that she's with child, she is determined to protect Catherine with all her might. Years go by, and Catherine starts wondering why they never stay put and why she barely knows anything about her mother's history or childhood. Who will persevere and will they be able to uphold their tight bond in the future?

I was excited to get a copy of this book because I really love Sarah Pekkanen's writing. She wrote a solid bunch of women's fiction and then progressed into thrillers with her co-author Greer Hendricks. I was interested to see how the suspense novels she wrote with her co-author differed from her solo foray into this genre. I felt the same way that I felt when I read her first novel, The Wife Between Us, with Greer Hendricks--disappointed.

The story starts out very promising, and you're slowly informed about why Ruth fled and why she's hiding. This transpires as her daughter Catherine learns some of the same information. At first, it works, then it seems like some pieces of the puzzle may be missing.

One of the antagonists of the book reads one way in the beginning and then morphs into a more threatening character. The change in characteristics seemed abrupt and confusing. Also, I find it hard to believe as I read in another review that a 24-year-old would put up with this constant running and monitoring by her mom. My 18-year-old gives me a hard time if I ask him too many questions, so why would a 24-year-old put up with this? And how did she even go to college with the constant prying of her mom and the lack of money?

Towards the end and the climax, the storylines get incredibly farfetched. There's so much that goes on that I cannot imagine that nothing comes out in the news or no one seems to notice. In this day and age, how can anyone remain off the grid or under the radar when things go awry? And some of the issues brought up by the mother about the daughter's true nature felt too flimsy and almost like an overreaction. I just didn't buy it.

Okay, here's something that I must bring up as a Jersey girl from birth. There is a discussion about how to eat a pizza properly, which killed me. I'm sorry, but some of the methods discussed were cardinal sins if you're from the Garden State. Consult an expert from New Jersey or New York. You pick the pizza up and fold it in half. Who doesn't do that?!

Anyway, I really love how cleanly and smoothly the author writes. It's engaging to read, and I enjoyed all the references to Towson, Maryland. My son went to the university for a semester, so I was somewhat familiar with the area. That made it more interesting to me. And just because I didn't think this book was superb, I still will read any other book that this author writes. Her next one sounds very intriguing!

While I loved the multiple layers of deceit and twists that kept the plot moving, I ultimately didn’t find the book gripping me and keeping me engrossed in the way I am used to for Sarah Pekkanen’s work. The characters were well-developed, and the mother-daughter relationship aspect of the plot added another layer, but ultimately too much of the book felt like waiting for action with too much happening at the very end.

A story about a Mother doing everything in her power to protect her daughter but at the same time destroying her daughter unintentionally.. great read and page turner for a long trip or day at the pool/beach!

I was no stranger to the writing of Sarah Pekkanen and she knocked it out of the park again! The whole book kept me enganged and I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. I will continue to have Sarah on my "instant buy" list in the future!

A thrilling ride full of twists and turns, reveals that I didn’t see coming, and an unexpected ending. Told from both Catherine and Ruth’s POVs, I was left guessing and questioning the reliability of both the women.
Sarah Pekkanen’s GONE TONIGHT is an exhilarating journey through a complex mother-daughter relationship.
Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of the novel. All opinions are my own and freely given.

Wow!! This was not what I expected in all the good ways! The twists were super surprising and I could NOT put this down! I recommend this if you enjoy suspenseful thrillers.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher , St. Martin’s Press, and the author for this e-ARC. All opinions are my own.

This book took a little bit for me to get into. So don't give up after the firsts few chapters because once it takes off, IT TAKES OFF!! I stayed up until 1 am to finish this because there was no way I could sleep without finding out what happened!!!!!!

I loved the premise of this book, the dual timelines, the journal entries, and the dark secrets. I loved the more Ruth told the story of her past, her daughter was also secretly uncovering the truth as well.

Catherine is a nurse at a long term care facility on the memory wing - for dementia patients.. it’s an extremely exhausting job both mentally and physically and she learns that her mother may have the same fate as well - early on set Alzheimer’s. Dropping all of her plans to move to Baltimore Catherine plans to help her mother, Ruth, navigate those new diagnosis but cannot understand why she’s refusing all testing to possibly help her condition. Ruth begins writing down journal entries to talk about her past before it’s too late.

Catherine has been forever trying to learn about her mothers past - she doesn’t even know where she grew up because her mother has told her from the beginning that she got pregnant as a teenager and her parents disowned her. As she starts to unravel the truth she believes her mother has always been feeding her lies and now she’s scared of her. When she meets someone from her mother’s past she quickly realizes why she needed to keep it all a secret.

I loved the dual timelines and dual points of view and at one point I started to side with Ruth as I was nervous of who Catherine really was inside (without giving it away). I loved that I was constantly questioning where it was going the whole time and I wasn’t disappointed with where it ended. I would love a sequel and I almost never say that!

#thriller #psycholgicalthriller #mystery#suspense #newrelease #bookstagram

This story itself was good. I enjoy Sarah's books when she partners with Greer Hendricks and so I very much looked forward to this as well. The story needed a bit of suspended belief for it to work and that was fine by me. I can escape into a book's world with no problem. My one big issue with the book though, is a city where some of the book took place. I live in this city and when the story talked about her walking from one place to another to another, it simply didn't make sense in the order of things and where she went. It was scattered about the city and felt like it was picked randomly. The story read perfectly well and if you were not from here, you would never know. However, being here and reading it made absolutely no sense to me and drove me mad. I just couldn't get passed that.

I received a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.