If you enjoyed the concept for Laura Dave’s “the last thing he told me”, yet want to dive deeper into more suspenseful, thrilling and surprising waters, definitely give this book a try!

“The day he never came home” begins with the expected, but then takes you on a detour, throws you off course and leaves you questioning your own moral compass.

Read if you enjoy: twists, deceptions, the unexpected

What worked for me:
Deep diving into John’s life, seeing how events came to be by going through his past and present.

I enjoyed Reagan’s character and watching her step up to be the bad ass wife and come into her new strengths.

Thank you to Poisened pen press, Andrew DeYoung and Netgalley for the EARC

Publish date; July 9th

In this complex, thrilling domestic thriller, ideal for lovers of Laura Dave's, a woman lies to protect her family, and one deception leads to another.

What a fantastic book! At first, this book seemed predictable; the reader got the impression that they understood the structure of a traditional thriller and could guess where the story would go. I was mistaken in this assumption! The divergent viewpoints present various angles on the same issue. John's character is developed well. Is he a jerk or a family man supporting his spouse? There were moments in the novel when I felt like my moral compass changed—after all, don't you do what you have to if a mafia boss is after you? I had a great time reading this book. and cherished following John's journey, reflecting on his past, and witnessing his wife Reagan rule the suspenseful sequence. Because a male character assumes the position of narrator and does it brilliantly, the story is unusual.

While this book started off strong and promising I quickly found myself a bit bored. I did not think there was anything new or unique about this novel. I didn't dislike it. The book itself just didn't deliver. It was predictable and fell flat for me.

What a great twisty read!!! 👏 Some twists were a little predictable, but I still enjoyed them!! I have some thoughts about one of the main characters but I will keep them to myself so I don’t spoil anything 🤔 Curious to hear others’ thoughts as they read this one!!

Definitely recommend this one to thriller lovers!! 🙌

Thank you to NetGalley, Poisoned Pen Press and Andrew DeYoung for the opportunity to read the eARC in exchange for my honest review!! ❤️

There are two sides to every story.

Do we ever really, truly know the people around us, even family? What would you do in order to keep your family safe? To provide for them? What lengths would you take to ensure their future? This book will leave you thinking that there’s a little bit of good in everyone and that we’re all just a bad decision one or two away from becoming someone we never thought we’d ever become.

Told in third person, the narrative switched perspectives halfway through which brought a whole other layer of nuance and background to the story. Both Reagan and John are likeable, complex, intriguing, perhaps a little bit devious, and artistically subtle in their manipulations as they work to achieve their own end game. Both characters take a whole lot of intrigue and calculated risks on the slippery slope to provide for and protect their family despite the odds stacked against them. Because of this, they are, ultimately characters that you will root for by novel’s end even as you wonder what could have been had things been even just a little bit different. I can’t say too much more without spoilers, so I’ll simply say that if you like fast-paced suspense novels that you’ll read in a sitting or two, this just might be the perfect book for you.

Available July 9, 2024 (or preorder now!). Thank you @netgalley and @poisonedpenpress for this advance copy of “The Day He Never Came Home!”

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Give me a domestic suspense where a spouse has hidden things from their partner and I’m always interested but I’m even more invested if the author can put their own unique spin on things and I think the author managed to do that here. This is character driven, and as much as there is a solid plot it really is more about Regan and John and it dives deep into who they truly are at their core. I really relayed to Regan as a mother who will do anything for their kids. People say this all the time as a type of throwaway comment but she really proved it here. There were some really solid reveals and one in particular was unexpected for me but I don’t want to say much more to keep things a surprise. Overall I have no major complaints, this was an engaging mystery.

This book started off really strong, it had me engaged and not wanting to put it down......until the other characters POV's came into play. When there were more POV's in play, is when it got confusing. I had a hard time keeping track of who's story line belonged to who.

Aside from that, it was a great read. I don't know for sure if I would classify this book as a thriller as there weren't that many twists and turns, but I would still recommend it to people who like to read thrillers.

I did expect the outcomes that this book had, it was set up to easily guess. The writing is great, but the plot line was predictable.

The Day He Never Came Home by Andrew DeYoung is a highly recommended domestic mystery.

Regan Peters' husband John may not talk about his past, but Regan knows he loves her and their two children, after all he just bought her a lake house. John is a financial advisor who works long hours to provide for them, so it is a shocking surprise when the FBI shows up at their home and Regan learns he has been running a Ponzi scheme. Then the real dilemma begins. Does Regan tell the FBI everything or would it be more prudent to hold back some information to protect her and the children since she may have a clue or two about what is happening, especially after she discovers the money and then receives a threat.

The Day He Never Came Home is a well-written novel that does hold your attention throughout while the plot moves along at a good pace. The narrative is broken into three parts. Part one is from Regan's point-of-view, part two is from John's perspective, and part three joins the two narratives. Regan's perspective is perhaps the most compelling of the two, although John's does provide background information for his character before it covers some of the same ground as Regan's point-of-view. There are a few interesting twists along the way.

Both Regan and John are interesting characters. Neither one is completely virtuous as they are both are guilty in various degrees of morally ambiguous actions. Regan will obviously act to protect her children. They can both con and both have reasons they would do so. This makes the novel more compelling than one that follows a standard story arc. Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

The review will be published on Edelweiss, X, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

The Day He Never Came Home by Andrew DeYoung starts out with John taking his wife Regan on date to a house by the lake. When he and Regan were dating, they used to go to open houses in rich neighborhoods, knowing they could never afford this type of lifestyle. When they show up at the lake house, Regan is aggravated, thinking not this again. John proceeds to tell her that he has purchased this lake house for her. It will be in her name and everything! Regan is shocked to say the least. Where did her husband get the money for such an extravagant gift? John assures her that they can afford it because he's doing so good at work. Speaking of work, John tells Regan that he has to go into work for a little while that night. On the inside, Regan is furious. She is once again struck with the children (Philip and Etta) by herself. She doesn't say anything cross because after all, her husband has just given her the lake house of her dreams.

When Regan wakes up the next morning, John is nowhere to be found. She messages him and gets no response. Regan figures that he's just busy at work and will respond when he has time. She goes on about her day taking care of the children. All is typical until there is a knock at the door. It's the FBI looking for John. He is wanted for fraud. Regan and the children end up going to her parent's house while the FBI do their search. Regan's mother isn't the least bit surprised by this developing FBI interest in John.

Where is John?
Is John really who he says he is?
Does Regan know more than she lets on?

Lies
Betrayal
Deceit
Murder
Fraud

If you like any of the above in your books, definitely give The Day He Never Came Home by Andrew DeYoung a read. This was a middle of the road book for me. I feel there was unnecessary language within the pages of this one.

Thank you Bookouture and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review The Day He Never Came Home by Andrew DeYoung.

3.5

The plot was great.
Found a lot of it very wordy. That here was more than there needed to be.
But story is good, kept me guessing and wanting to know where it was going.

Regan misses her husband, John, who works all the time to provide for their family. When he surprised her with a lake house, she starts thinking maybe it’s worth it. John goes into the office to work late that night, but doesn’t return the next morning. Regan is slightly concerned, but it doesn’t become fully realized until the FBI show up at her door, sharing that John is wanted for fraud and nowhere to be found. Regan begins to learn more about John and his business, while trying to figure out where he is and what’s going on. Her priority is to save her family.

This was a fun read. I was instantly hooked and didn’t even get car sick reading this on my road trip - that’s how focused I was haha. I found it hard to predict the twists in advance, only realizing them just as they were happening which I appreciated. The middle got slightly repetitive with the dual POV, but I like how it depicted their different perspectives on the same events. The end rounded out with a good resolution, I was pleased reading this one.

John and Regan have their own issues from their childhoods. Regan, now a stay at home mom and John, a "successful" financial advisor seem to have it all. The next thing Regan knows is the FBI is knocking on her door with an arrest warrant for her missing husband who it seems like she doesn't know at all.

This was a fantastic fast paced read! The timeline and writing style flowed really well and I found myself not wanting to put this one down. I can't wait to see what Andrew DeYoung does next!

Thank you NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this advanced reader’s copy.

The Day He Never Came Home is a domestic thriller that follows Regan (Ree-gan) and her search for the truth. After an extravagant gift from her husband, John, Regan finds herself rekindling her mundane and repetitive marriage. After two kids and walking away from her own business, Regan has grown resentful as John spends more and more late nights at work. But just hours after receiving the unexpected birthday gift, John walks out the front door and never comes home.

The storyline of part one is very well put together, having me wanting more. The suspense to get to the end and find out what happened was enough that I read this book, start to finish, in less than 24hours. I found part one written so well, in fact, that I tried rushing through part two to resume that side of the story!

One of the aspects of this book I thoroughly enjoyed, was the visual concept of two sides to every story. While reading a key section in part two, I was sure it was a misprint or error. Later, that “error” was addressed and was actually intentionally written that way. It personified the idea that every perspective and memory/recollection of a story or event is different from person to person. The author expertly describes that concept and definitely had me recalling some of my own personal arguments. And that was just one key take away from the entire book!

The story (probably) unintentionally gives a nod to women and their struggle with the juggle of everyday things like kids, work, chores, etc. Don’t read too much into that, this isn’t a book on feminism. The happy/not happy ending was just enough to wrap the storyline together and leave it open for another book to follow, or as is completed.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story and look forward to reading more from this author. I would recommend this to other readers, especially those (like me) who are strong into psychological thrillers- as this is a lighter read, a nice change of pace, and still killing it with the suspense and mystery!

Review: Thank you to @netgalley and @poisonedpenpress for my advanced copy of this book. I will admit, I picked this book up at a bad time as I had a bunch of things going on in my life and it took me almost a month to read it. But I did have a hard time getting into it. I REALLY didn’t like John and Regan seemed like a liar from the get go, so I don’t know if her story is true or not. I did want to know what happened next which is why I kept reading. But this book was definitely just meh for me. I think if it focused more on the Ponzi scheme and the money laundering, I would have enjoyed it more, but there were some parts of the book that I just didn’t understand why they were added, like the love scene between the wife and the FBI agent. Just didn’t care for it as much as I thought I would.

“The Day He Never Came Home” is a crime mystery, that kept me turning page after page until I had devoured it in a mere number of hours.

Regan- a loving mother to two, caring wife and partner, and daughter to a wealthy family- finds herself in what most would think as their worst situation imaginable: her husband never comes home from work one night. Throughout the novel, we as the reader are left to put the pieces back together and figure out what happened.

Overall Thoughts:
Rating 4/5

I like to go into books blind- I don’t want to know what they’re about before I start to read them, and in most cases I find this to be exhilarating. In this case, I felt a little blindsided- to no fault of the author. When I cracked open the first page of this book, I was expecting a thriller due to the cover and the title. In a way, this book had “thriller” aspects, but rather I felt that I was never guessing the end, just being led to it. Plot points along the way kept me JUST hooked enough to keep going, though I will say I think it could have been a little shorter.

All this being said, I loved the writing style of the book because it had me feeling like I was crawling into the skin of these characters. A mother- a caring person who has lost everything- like Regan, was one of the easiest characters to root for and relate to. She’s exhausted from everything expected of her- start a business, make money, take care of the kids, do all the cooking, cleaning. It reminded me of myself and feeling little support when the list is never-ending. The author did a beautiful job sucking us in through her relatable point of view.

What I was not expecting was to be then led through the second half o the book getting the SAME story from her husband, John’s, point of view. For someone that had committed so many fraudulent crimes, according the the police, I could not BELIEVE how effective DeYoung was in getting me to feel like rooting for this character. Even though the book is entirely written from the third person (an effective choice to create a narration that the reader can follow from a bird’s eye view) it felt as if I was inside the thoughts of the protagonists.

All this to say, this is not a book I typically would have picked up from the shelf as money crimes aren’t really my things- but boy am I glad I did. I look forward to the release of this book, and to see others’ thoughts on this lovely novel. I would absolutely LOVE to own a copy of this book to promote it on my social medias.

I was really excited to get a digital ARC of this book from Sourcebooks. This book was a suspenseful story of a husband, his indiscretions and a lifetime of secrets kept from an unsuspecting wife, who one day, when he has no alternative, disappears. But it goes even further. The unsuspecting wife, Regan, is not as innocent and helpless as we would think. The minute she finds she had been betrayed, she stops being the victim and gets involved in both solving the mystery of where her husband is and why he disappeared, she also promises to care for herself and her family in a way she had not before her husband's disappearance.

What interested me was that this book was written from a number of different perspectives and voices. I often like this style, because it gives the reader a multi-dimensional depth. But this is not always well done if the author does not immerse themselves in the character. In this book, it was extremely well done - so much so, that I had to remind myself that the author is a man. Some of Regan's reflections come from the perspective of a woman that were so spot on. Well done.

A fast moving story that I found quite compelling.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Press for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

This book started off at a good pace for me, but then when it got to another point of view, the book became repetitive and I just found myself really bored with it because I felt like I was reading the same story again. I wouldn't necessarily count this book as a thriller but more of a domestic read.

3.5 stars

Domestic thrillers are fun. Perhaps not for the characters, but for me it is. While this book was enjoyable I can't say it was gripping me...until the POV switch. That definitely upped it for me.
I'm all for a woman doing whatever she has to do to protect herself and/or her children....but what if she's not as innocent as it seems? Heavier on the domestic than the thriller, I'd say this is a good, easy summer read.

I found this a very engaging page turner. It tells the story from the perspective of John and his wife Regan in two different parts. I thought this was a great way to tell the story. I was compelled to keep reading to find out how it would evolve and resolve. John was a quiet kid who loved to read at the libraries but an event sent his life on a different trajectory. He did not make great life choices but he often felt he had no other choice. I would recommend this book to everyone.