Ooh, this one was twisty. I liked the alternating points of view of the two main characters. Catherine and Ruth have a messed up relationship, as the reader you vacillate between liking and not liking Ruth as more is revealed about her past. I loved that the ending leaves you wondering if you could see these characters again in a future novel or maybe you won't.

Kata Mara did a good job narrating the novel, I will look for more books narrated by Kate in the future.

This was quite the suspenseful ride! I really enjoy the way that the story unraveled at a steady pace. The lies and drama that surround our main character are pretty crazy and the trip to the climax is great. Once I started, I didn’t stop and listened to this audiobook in one day.

I received the audio through NetGalley and I really enjoyed the narrator as well. I do wish that since we had POVs from both the mother and daughter that we would have gotten two narrators to go along with it, but that’s really my only audiobook complaint. I definitely prefer the POVs to have their own narrator.

As for the story, I did find it to be well paced and included plenty of drama and suspense to keep the readers attention. On top of that, it’s a different and interesting story and I wanted to know what happened next. I didn’t even try to predict anything - I found myself just wanting to enjoy the ride. I love that.

Thank you to #stmartinspress for my #gifted copy! This book was published August 1. The audiobook is narrated by a single narrator, Kate Mara, and is fine as far as audiobooks go but I think it would have benefited having a second narrator to differentiate the two women.

The story is told from the POVs of daughter Catherine and her mother Ruth in the present day along with journal entries from Ruth's past. Catherine is finishing up nursing school and looking to move away to her new job. Ruth starts exhibiting signs of early Alzheimer's and Catherine feels she must change her plans to take care of her mom.

There are some interesting twists in here and some parts of the story feel predictable but this is a solid mystery! The pacing is a slow burn - the first half feels more like contemporary fiction and the second half builds up the suspense. Recommend if you enjoy mother / daughter stories and want to untangle both of their secrets and lies. I was quite invested in both women and both timelines but you do have to suspend reality to make some of the jumps that happen in here.

I generally shy away from novels that revolve around Alzheimer's, but I'm glad I didn't skip this one. Kate Mara's narration was excellent and I couldn't wait to find out what all the secrets were. Thank you so much to Macmillan Audio for the ALC.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!
So this one brought me to tears multiple times…
If you know someone with Alzheimer’s or Dementia…this will probably hit home for you too! ( Not to mention that I’m also a nurse…)

Catherine Sterling is a 24 year old who recently graduated at the top of her Nursing Class. She applied to and was accepted for a position at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the Geriatrics Unit…this is her dream come true!
She currently works for Sunrise Assisted Living in the Memory Care Unit…and her patients, staff and bosses all love her and will be sad to see her go.

Ruth Sterling is Catherine’s mother. She and Catherine have been together since the beginning. Ruth has and always will protect her daughter. She raised her as a single mother when she got pregnant as a teenager and was thrown out of her home. She is very protective of Catherine.

In the last month or so, Catherine notices that Ruth is starting to forget things…misplace things…and she even got lost coming home from a local store. Catherine is worried and starts a journal documenting what’s going on with her Mom. They go to see a specialist and her worst fears come true. It looks like Ruth has the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s Disease. But she doesn’t want anyone to know…and she doesn’t want any treatment.

This. Changes. Everything!!!

How can Catherine leave to take this new job hundreds of miles away?

Told from two (or more) different POV’s…the story unfolds (unravels) in a way that I never expected…
Secrets were kept. Promises made. A sketchy past is revealed…and nothing seems to be what it is supposed to be!!
Some amazing twists and turns reveal totally unexpected things that will have you hanging on to every word.
Beautifully done!
5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for me!
Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an ARC of the audiobook!

Nice to see Sarah Pekkanen do her own book again after co-writing with another author.

One thing that was quite different was, there are no “rich people and opulent things” around going on in this book. If you have read any of the GH/SP co writing, their books are full of rich people sh!t that seems too pretentious sounding sometimes.

Anyhow…….
The story is about a mother (Ruth) and daughter (Catherine) who are always on the run. Now that Catherine is older, she wants to put pieces together why she and her mother always change their places to live. Her unfolding of secrets are going to cost them their safety.

Multiple POVs
- Quite slow at first but kept up with the pacing almost at the end.

not really thrilling but thrilling enough to keep me intrigued.

Bring on all the feelings - heartbroken, shattered, stunned, disbelief, confusion and more - all before I had listened to the first third of the book. Oh my! This story is told in alternating POV between Ruth and her daughter Catherine. The plot twist is quite creative and I did not see it coming. After this revelation both characters behave and move in surprising ways, which kept me on my toes and I was unable to predict how the story would progress. At times I was team Catherine, other times I was team Ruth, while simultaneously wanting them to work as a team and be strong together. The ending of the book left me with questions to ponder, which in this case worked. I have a feeling I will be thinking about this book for a while.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the audio book in exchange for my honest review.

While I appreciated the development of the characters in the storyline, it was really had to fathom the skill set required for the 17 year old pregnant girl depicted here. There were numerous gaps that I wanted filled to explain the progress of her life.
The story is delivered by two voices: a mother and daughter with flashbacks that provides the reader with how their two lives have unraveled.
A mother’s love is the emotion that this book evolves around, and what she will do to keep her daughter safe and invisible. As in real life, the past is ultimately revealed and in this case with events that worry both parties and their future relationship.
If the reader hadn’t announced who the main speaker was in each chapter I would not have known, as I didn’t hear an audible alteration of her voice.
The reader will appreciate the continued theme of the story even though there’s a new beginning for both parties that should set their orbits in different directions.

"My mother seems to have materialized at 18 when she had me. It's as if we were both born at the same time."

Whew! Gone Tonight by psychological thriller author Sarah Pekkanen is at times an exhausting mother daughter trauma...I mean drama fueled dual first person POV where no one is telling the truth to each other.

Luckily Ruth, the mother, and Catherine, her daughter, tell us what is really going on, at least in their own minds. To Catherine her mom is a hardworking single mom who only wants the best for her. To Ruth her daughter is a good girl who would never leave her...right? She can't leave! There's real danger out there; in fact it's getting close to them everyday!

Just as Catherine is leaving the state to advance her career Ruth shows signs of dementia and reveals that her own mother died from early on set Alzheimer's Disease. Catherine can't leave now.

You think you know what's going on and you're probably right BUT the reasons are very different than you might think; at least for me. I had a different scenario of where things were heading and was surprised by the turn it took and how much it changed my feelings about the very complicated Ruth.

Another pleasant surprise was the incomparable actress Kate Mara narrating with such gravitas that it forces you to pay serious attention to Ruth's motives. After all, anyone who plays Springsteen's Thunder Road to relax and says, "What kind of monster doesn't like Springsteen?" can't be all bad.

There's also an important message about how easy it is for girls to disappear. We learn quickly to make ourselves small to avoid sexual and familial abusers but sadly it's usually after the abuse that we are not seen and can be gone tonight.

I received a free copy of this book/ audiobook from the publishers via #NetGalley for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

Really good!!! I love how the mystery slowly unfolded and throughout the book you learned more of the truth. The ending was great as well. Kate Mara was an excellent narrator; however, I think it would have been easier to follow along with the audiobook if there had been different narrators for Ruth and Catherine.

I wanted to like this one more, but I never fully got into this book. It was too much of a slow burn for what I needed. The relationship between Catherine and her mother Ruth, who has Alzheimer’s, was an odd dysfunctional relationship to say the least. Ruth has secrets that she wants to be kept hidden from her daughter. In listening to the audiobook, I became confused if I was in the present time or the past. I did enjoy both POVs. This story was about deception, betrayal, relationships, love and how well do you really know someone.

I started this on audio but had to set it aside to wait for my physical copy to arrive. While I think Kate Mara is an excellent actress, as a narrator she didn’t work for me at all. Her performance was very monotone with no differentiation between the two POV’s, and I found myself zoning out and having to re-listen to sections. The physical book was much easier to get into, but it is a very slow burn plot for the first half of the book. The first major reveal definitely took me by surprise, but once you get some of the background it is fairly easy to predict where the story will go. I didn’t love either character but was still invested in finding out how it would end. I did like this one, but it isn’t my favorite by the author.

Thanks to Macmillan Audio and St. Martin’s Press for the ALC and finished copy!

This is my favorite by this author(s) so far. I loved the way the story was presented, slowly doling out clues as it went on and building tension in the process. The book kept me guessing the whole time and I could not put it down. It also had my mouth watering for lasagna pizza. Highly recommended for those who enjoy books that make you question who to trust, even family, and those who want to stay up all night reading.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

This book was amazing and I was not anticipating what happened in this book. I loved the mother daughter relationship throughout the book. The whole story was a thrilling and exhilarating ride where I could not get enough. I wanted to devour this book because the premise was so interesting and was well executed.

I’ve enjoyed everything I have read by this author, and this book is no exception. The story shows the lengths a mother will go to in order to protect her child. I thought parts of this were a little unrelatable, but overall, I enjoyed the story.

Gone Tonight by Sarah Pekkanen
Narrator Kate Mara
I am the outlier here and I did try, but for a domestic thriller this book just didn’t grab me. I did not get to 30% when I had to DNF. Maybe it’s a a case of it’s me, not you and I just don’t like this type of book as much as I used to.
The narrator was new to me and her work was good but not enough to keep me going.

I know it makes for a compelling story if characters are covering up important things while others spin out of control based upon their lies and omissions. But then you spend the whole book screaming in your head, "Just freaking explain yourself and all this will stop being such a clusterf*ck."

Do people lie and omit like this in real life? It seems all so unnecessary. I'm not a fan of books with lots of unlikable characters, and liars are certainly at the top of the list, even if they believe their motivations are noble.

One of my favorite authors ever. She never disappoints. She keeps you guessing till the very end. Highly recommend all of this authors books.

A mother/daughter mystery filled with secrets and lies!

I listened to this one on audio and was hooked. As a mom I am always intrigued by mother/daughter relationships that seem tense and loaded with deception. That was certainly the case with Ruth Sterling and her 24 yr. old daughter, Catherine.

When we meet the pair, Catherine is working as a nurse for people with Alzheimer’s, Dementia and similar brain issues. Ruth has started showing signs of Alzheimer’s and Catherine is worried, especially when her mother reveals a history if the disease runs in their family. The more Catherine tries to uncover her family history to try to help her mom, the more she realizes that she knows nothing about her mother’s past or her family. Ruth has worked hard to keep Catherine in the dark and will stop at nothing to keep her daughter safe and oblivious.

As Catherine’s secrets begin to unfurl, things really get interesting & twisty. I loved how both women were on their own journey, each with their own secrets and twists. Yet, in the end things intertwined and combusted together. Overall, this was pretty fast paced, the dual timeline reveals kept my attention and I enjoyed how it all came together in the end.

#gonetonight:⁣
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Thank you @macmillan.audio partner for the gifted copy! ⁣
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If you’re going to pick this book up, (which you should) it’s a no-brainer to grab the audio. Sarah Pekkanen weaves a tangled web of lies in a masterful way, and Kate Mara brings it to life with her audiobook narration. ⁣
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Hands down, this is my favorite Sarah Pekkanen novel. I, at first just listened along, minding my business, thinking it was a nice little story about a mom/daughter combo. Daughter trying to really understand her mom when mom won’t talk about the past.. Queue the oohs and aahs of little secrets, then dang. We got slapped upside the head when we weren’t looking y’all. This book was so worth the slow burn, and we know I’m impatient. ⁣
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Overall, a very satisfying book that takes the time to slowly untwine every loose thread. This includes even the ones you didn’t even knew about. I loved Gone Tonight and as always, so excited for what Pekkanen has in store next! More secrets and lies than thrills and chills, but I loved every second. ⁣
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Out today!