Thank you Harlequin Trade Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC.

This was a dark and twisty psychological thriller, that was all over the place, unpredictable, and. creepy! It got a little off the rails 3/4 through, but wrapped up nicely.

3.5/5 ⭐️ rounded up.

When I first requested this one it sounded AMAZING! However I don't know what it was about this book but I just didn't enjoy it as much as I thought it would. I felt like parts were really good, but then there's parts that really didn't make sense to me. Especially the ending, it was just pretty far fetched and is an ending that's been done before (you'll see what I mean when you read or if you have).
Or at least for me it similar to other endings l've read in books. Overall it was good, I just think there's things that could have been done better, but it's definitely one I wouldn't say don't read, because it was decent!

Tarryn Fisher's Good Half Gone is the story of Iris trying to solve the murder of her rwin sister Piper. The majority of the story takes place in a psychiatric facility for murderers. There are some helpful backflashes, but the end of the story will make your jaw drop. 3.5 stars.

am a huge Tarryn Fisher fan. The Opportunist is still one of my favorite series.

Irish and Piper are twins in looks but different in personality and in perception of life. Piper glows and shines and flits through the day. Iris follows her sister and is alright with being in the background.

Their mother is a drug addict and not in the picture so the maternal grandmother is their guardian. They all mutually adore each other. She's successfully raising these girls but THEN Piper gets kidnapped and EVERYTHING is in question.

I was on pins and needles! Then the middle was an exercise in frustration. Those idiot cops? Wow I hated them and their biased modus operandi. Also, what happened to Piper? Is she really dead?
How has Iris carried on? We are given information little by little. The years play out like bricks being laid out for a foundation.

Good Half Gone is told in a dual time line. Iris is now an adult and is somehow convinced that the person responsible for Piper's death is a patient at a state hospital on a remote island. Say what now?! So why not get a job there and extract sweet sweet revenge from this monster. Leave her elderly grandmother with her young son to live/work at this "hospital" which is more an insane asylum. Yup! That was her big plan because her entire life has been about that day when Piper was kidnapped. Her spirit is frozen, like a fly in amber, on that day.

The other characters in this book like the hospital employees were very quirky and richly filled out. The details of The Shoal so eerily vivid. Tarryn has been building this slow burn AND then here comes the twists!

The ending was satisfying but honestly left me a little wanting. No surprise because that's very Tarryn. I went back and re-read parts looking for hints of what was to come. Spoil it for you I will not. If you're looking to be spoon fed with a tidy ending then you won't find that here. What you will find is a multi-layered story that will have you thinking about it long after you've finished reading it. You'll probably go back and re-read like I did.

That's a win win in my "book".

I am a fan of Tarryn Fishers thrillers because she normally weaves together the perfect tale of deception. This book drew me in, and did keep me engaged while reading; however the entire ending felt rushed, unrealistic, and extremely impossible.
The premise of this book is absolutely promising. The execution was a let down. There is nothing likeable about Iris, and her decision-making skills are so questionable as to be ridiculous. The outcome is completely implausible, although at least that part was interesting. The moodiness that one would expect from the remote island insane asylum never develops, and neither do any of the relationships between Iris and the other characters. If you are looking for a quick and original thriller this could be the one, because the plot was quite unique. I personally wasn’t a fan of the very unlikely twists the book ended with.

I'm a huge fan of Taryn Fisher, particularly Hinest Lie and The Wives. So, my expectations were rather high for this book.

From the first page, Fisher masterfully emerses the reader into chaos. Iris Walsh's twin sister has been abducted, and her grief is all consuming and raw. I found myself rooting for her as she tried to uncover the truth of what happened to her sister.
Years later, Iris works at an institute for the criminally insane chasing down a lead.
The institute's isolated island setting is forboding, and I was all in for this atmospheric and creepy storyline.

But I found myself disappointed and wanting more as this potentially epic thriller lost focus and fell apart
The plot went in all directions, creating subplots that made no sense. It became confusing. I wanted a brain teaser and a wtf ending that was indirectly promised from the beginning, but it never actually got there, and I was disappointed.

I still love Taryn Fisher and her previous books, but unfortunately, this one wasn't for me.

Thank you Netgally and Halequin Trade Publishing

If you’ve read Tarryn Fisher you know that you never know what awaits you on the pages of her novels. Good Half Gone is a well developed plot with many twists and turns that kept me on my toes. The vast personalities in this story bring it to life. I was captivated with the first three quarters of the storyline until I hit a wall with the final quarter. This wasn’t my favorite ending. Personally, I could have done with less over the top drama and more confrontation and a deeper dive into the issues of why the characters did what they did. Nevertheless, a great story I wouldn’t pass up.

Iris and Piper are twins who are faced with a difficult live which is made even worse when Piper is kidnapped. Iris remembers calling the police and the event has left a traumatic mark on her life. The case has gone cold and the police are not that interested in the case. Iris takes it into her own hands to find out what really happened on that night.

Talk about a slow burn. I was about 40% in and told my husband nothing has happened yet, like nothing. So I started to describe the story and he said "sounds like there's a big build up and they'll be an explosion of information"....

I Think he may be psychic (IYKYK)

So much happened, yet so little. It's subtle and it's builds and builds.

I honestly saw the twist coming, but it was still satisfying the way everything panned out, wrapped up nicely.

Thank you for netgalley for letting me read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Piper has been kidnapped and Iris has witnessed her twin be taken. She can’t convince the police that it really happened. Their ineptitude leads Iris to start her own decade long search for her sister.

As if the investigators disbelief isn’t enough, Iris’ grandmothers health begins a downward spiral and her mother ends up in prison. But not before she becomes a mother herself.

This was a wild ride with an ending I didn’t see coming.

Thank you for the ARC #netgalley , #TarrynFisher and #graydonhouse !

I reached the ending of Good Half Gone by Tarryn Fisher, and all I could picture was Tarryn laughing, knowing that she 'got us' with that clever ending. The story unravels slowly as we get to know Iris, her kidnapped twin sister Piper, and their grandmother. Iris is desperate for answers about her sister and will stop at nothing to get the answers and proof she needs about her missing half. This suspense thriller is going to suck you in and spit you out. When I hit the last page, I found myself thinking WTH and reread the ending twice. Then I went back to look for little breadcrumbs that Tarryn artfully sprinkled throughout this twisted and dark story. I told you she's clever. Nothing is what it seems. Go in blind and wait for the story to unfold. Bravo Tarryn!

Right from the start I could tell this was not a win for me. I was not terrible, just seemed a bit choppy and could not keep my interest. I was intrigued by the premise and did push through. Some things just seemed a bit far fetched for my liking. Always thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the opportunity to read. I will check out this authors other books.
2.5 star

Let’s get into it, if you’re looking for suspense this may be the book for you! The only down fall is that it comes in the last 20% of the book. The beginning was a wonderful start…

15 year old twin girls Iris & Piper went to the movies with a group of young men, the opening pages are of a 911 call of Piper saying she witnessed 3 men put her sister in a car in front the the theater. She assumed the worst that she was trafficked.

I enjoyed this book and would recommend this book if you like thrillers

I’d like to thank NetGalley, Tarryn Fisher for the ACR. All opinions are my own! Publish date March 19,2024

A thrilling book that keeps you turning the pages until the shocking ending. Full of twists and turns and shocks. Brilliant!

This book sounded so intriguing to me. Iris's twin sister was kidnapped as a teen and the police have no answers. As an adult Iris, hasn't forgotten and seeks to find answers for herself by interning at a remote hospital for the criminally insane.

The setting was super creepy with a cast of characters that made my skin crawl. With that being said, I had a difficult time getting into the book. Maybe it was me and I wasn't in the right headspace for this thriller. The book moves between a past and present timeline and for me, that slowed down the pacing of the book. I will say that the last 30% of the book really flew because it was straight chaos.

I would recommend this to readers that love a good thriller!

Thank you to Netgalley for this eArc

🩵𝙶𝙾𝙾𝙳 𝙷𝙰𝙻𝙵 𝙶𝙾𝙽𝙴🩵
𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: 𝚙𝚜𝚢𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚛
𝙿𝚞𝚋 𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚎: 𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑 𝟷𝟿, 𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟺
𝙼𝚢 𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐: 𝟹.𝟽𝟻 ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨(𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚞𝚙 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝙶𝚁 & 𝙽𝙶)

🤏𝚃𝚎𝚎𝚗𝚢 𝚝𝚒𝚍𝚋𝚒𝚝...Iris escapes her pretty, popular twin sisters fate as a teen: kidnapped, trafficked & long gone before the cops can investigate. The case goes cold. Iris now as an adult wants answers even if that means getting a job on the island at a hospital for the criminally insane.

👯🩵👯🩵👯🩵👯🩵👯🩵

💭𝙼𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜...I am a bit torn on this one. On one hand..omg, so good. The eerie, isolated setting of this hospital on an island by itself housing the criminally insane was wicked cool. The premise, too was great. I mean you are rooting for Iris to find answers of her twin sister so much. On the other hand, it’s all over the place at times. Details are thrown in that aren’t needed nor get talked about later. What makes it work is if you suspend all your disbelief & just go in for a wild ride. It did keep my attention the whole way & for that I am gonna round up to 4 stars! ⭐️ Go in knowing it’s a bit crazed, but the ending & that setting is super fab! 🥳
Xo to @netgalley @graydonhousebooks for my advanced copy. Also, the cover is gorge! 🙌🩵👯

⭐️: 2/5

When Iris Walsh was a teenager, she saw her twin sister Piper get kidnapped, but the police didn’t believe her, and the case quickly went cold. Now as an adult, Iris is still looking for proof of what happened to her sister, and to do so, she takes matters into her own hands and applies for a job at the Shoal Island Hospital for the criminally insane, in the hopes that it will bring her closer to the man who she believes is at the center of solving her sister’s case once and for all.

Right off the bat, I could tell this book would just not do it for me. Since I received it as an ARC, and since it’s a relatively short book, I pushed through and forced myself not to DNF, but it was really touch and go there for a while. The set up of the book was really just…not good. The storyline, once you get into it, is so convoluted and full of extraneous details, but then skips details and chunks of time that it feels like it shouldn’t, which results in a really choppy read. I don’t like Iris’s narrative voice either, since she seems to constantly contradict herself with how she says she is, versus the way the story has her behave. I am admittedly pretty picky about thrillers, but in this case, I don’t think it’s just my high expectations. It needed a lot more editing to make it more cohesive and less jumpy, and the characters just needed a lot of work to make them believable. The result is a highly unfocused story that is disappointing and hard to follow in equal measure. With better execution, this could have been better, since the bones of an interesting story were there, but ultimately, I don’t recommend this one at all.

Thank you to @netgalley and @htpbooks for this free eARC!

Thank you to Harlequin Trade Publishing & NetGalley for an ARC of this book, in exchange for my honest opinion.

I am a fan of Tarryn Fishers thrillers because she usually weaves together the perfect tale of deception. This book drew me in, and did keep me engaged while reading; however the entire ending felt rushed, unrealistic, and so impossible. If you are looking for a quick and original thriller this could be the one, because the plot was quite unique. I just personally wasn’t a fan of the very unlikely twists the book ended with.

Piper and Iris are twins who are being raised by their Gran, after their drug addict mother loses custody. One terrible afternoon when they’re 15, Iris watches as 2 men kidnap her sister, never to be seen again. What entails is a journey of Iris never giving up hope to find her sister, even when the police are less than helpful.

Years after the kidnapping Iris takes a job at a remote hospital for the criminally insane, which is on an island near Seattle. Through alternating time lines we read about what happened after Piper was kidnapped, and all that Iris has learned about her disappearance since, and what ultimately leads her to this job. Because Iris isn’t just there for the job, she is there to finally get answers about what happened to her twin sister.

Trigger warnings include:
-human trafficking and sexual assault
-some violence, and gore details
-addiction
-foster care and child abuse

Thank you to NetGalley & Graydon House for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Truthfully, I had never read a Tarryn Fisher novel before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I think her writing style is strong, which makes me want to try another one of her books in the future. She’s definitely a good author.

That being said, this book was a bit of a let-down. The pacing was super off in the present chapters- not much happened for most of the book until the climax was approaching. I was hoping for a couple of bombshells here and there before the climax happened, but…nothing. I preferred the past chapters far more, as I enjoyed seeing how Iris and her grandmother tried their hardest to find out what happened to Iris’s twin sister, Piper. There was great pacing in those chapters while the pacing in the present chapters was really slow.

I didn’t love Iris as a main character. I get that she desperately wants to know what happened to Piper and where she is, but I wish we could’ve seen other aspects of her personality here and there. Also, there were a couple of decisions Iris made that made me really uncomfortable and didn’t sit well with me, given her ultimate goal.

I thought the climax was excellent and the final revelations definitely left me stunned. However, I felt like the book ended right after the climax happened, which kind of caught me off guard. I would’ve loved for there to have been one more chapter after that to see how Iris and her grandmother reacted to the fallout of the climax.

While I did get through this book fairly quickly, I didn’t love it. It’s not the worst thriller I’ve read- it just wasn’t for me, and that’s okay. I still want to read another Tarryn Fisher book, though!

I’m all for a good thriller, and often find myself drawn to their titles, covers and/or premises. That’s what happened with Good Half Gone by Taryn Fisher — an author whose books I’d seen at the library, but had never read. I saw this latest effort on NetGalley, and all three of the facets mentioned above caught my interest, causing me to become intrigued and request a review copy.

Well, I’ve just finished Good Half Gone, after devouring it in about two days. I’m left trying to put words to my thoughts regarding this strange book.

Let’s start from the beginning…

Good Half Gone begins as two twin girls leave school. The fifteen year olds are just about to walk out the door when they’re called by a friend who wants to set the more outgoing one (Piper) up with a guy she likes. They agree to meet at the mall the next day.

After a change of plans, the girls go to the movies with a couple of guys they’d never met before. Afterwards, Piper ends up being kidnapped by said men, and Iris’ phone is stolen. She doesn’t get a good look at the car, and the following investigation has a lot of issues, including cops who don’t take things seriously.

The story is, as you guessed, told from Iris’ first-person perspective, but not linearly. It follows two different timelines, including the past (the mall, the kidnapping and what happened afterwards) and the present, where a now 23 year old Iris is interning at a hospital for the criminally insane, which just so happens to be located on an island off the coast of Seattle, Washington. The main players are Iris, her son, her grandma, the cops and the people she works with, not to mention the inmates; some of which roam free throughout the ward.

This is a novel that starts off pretty strongly, then gets too comfortable for the next 60% of its length, which mostly centres on Iris’ life, the investigation and her time at the hospital. It jumps right into the hospital scenes, too, without telling the reader why she’s there, or who is to blame. There’s a lot of reaching at times, and the reader is just expected to go along with it and say “Ok.”

The middling, ‘fine’ and mostly unexciting middle of Good Half Gone abruptly stops at a sudden climax, which begins due to nonsensical happenings. The event that triggers it didn’t need to happen, given the twists and reveals that follow. Looking back, it makes little sense.

The final twist is also so predictable that it would be part of a class called Thrillers 101. In fact, the last 20% is kind of silly, unrealistic and lacking.

There were other issues that I hope they’ll iron out before the first edition is released. For instance, the math relating to Iris’ son’s age doesn’t compute, with him being listed as 9 at first and then 8 later on. Iris’ age and situation also made me question how realistic it would actually be, and took me out of the book a bit.

I also didn’t appreciate the inference that people who take antipsychotics must be violent in order to need them. I’ve taken two, and I’m not violent at all. They sometimes assist antidepressants.

Then again, there was also an inference that Christian people don’t own TVs.

As a character, Iris was fine. I didn’t mind reading her perspective or her narration, but she didn’t seem all that smart.

I don’t hate this book. I don’t even dislike it. I’m just kind of ho-hum about it. Good Half Gone is a decently written novel, and it kind of hooked me, but the last 20% really hurt my opinion of it, as did the issues mentioned above.

There’s an ok, but somewhat silly and plodding book to be found here.

This review is based on a digital advance reader copy, which we were provided. Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for providing us with it. Receiving a free copy did not affect our review or overall opinion.