Thank you to Simon and Schuster and Simon audio for the ARC/ALC!

When Nora learns of her estranged father’s accidental death, a lot of feelings are brought to the surface. On one hand, she is grieving the father she lost but she also felt that her father kept at arm’s length when he moved on with his new wife and family. Her brother, Sam, doesn’t think their father’s death was an accident. Even though they are even more estranged than Nora was with her father, she and her brother work together to try to figure out what happened.

Laura Dave’s books are often marketed as “a different kind of thriller” and they truly are. Far from your typical scary read, she writes stories of complex characters and intricate mysteries that unravel piece by piece. Even though both of them had different experiences with their father, it’s clear neither Nora nor Sam knew everything about him. Their father kept certain parts of himself hidden and his children each had a different experience with him. Interspersed with flashbacks, their father’s story was revealed. I really enjoyed this way of the story being told - with each flashback I was eager to see how things were going to tie together. With flawed, relatable characters and the kind of emotion that only Laura Dave can evoke, “The Night We Lost Him” captivated me from the beginning, and thankfully I also had the audio so I could keep listening. With Julia Whelen as narrator, the audio was perfect as well.

“The Night We Lost Him” releases September 17, 2024. This review will be shared to my instagram blog (@books_by_the_bottle) shortly :)

I liked Dave's last book, The Last Thing He Told Me. It was a tightly plotted suspense thriller that kept me turning pages. I expected more of the same with The Night We Lost Him, but while it is a good story, it isn't nearly as suspenseful nor a thriller. It's more of a family drama.

We know that Liam Noone was thrown off a cliff, but the police ruled it an accidental death. His son Sam and Sam's step-sister Nora decide to look into the death - what they find are family secrets and lies spanning decades. The more they dig, the more they discover that they never really knew their father, and they even begin to question past and present relationships.

I was expecting a different book - something more suspenseful than what I got. Dave does an excellent job of slowly revealing Liam's secrets. Unfortunately, it is a little too slow, and the action sometimes dragged. I was surprised at the ending and thought it was a good twist. I recommend this book; just be aware that, in my opinion, it is not a thriller.

3.5/5 stars.

Thank you, NetGalley and S&S/Marysue Rucci Books, for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. The publication date is September 17, 2024.

I finished this book in less than 24 hours. When a thrice-married billionaire falls off the cliff at his beloved cottage, it's deemed an accident. But some things just aren't adding up. As one of the twin boys from marriage #2 reaches out to the daughter from marriage #1, they team up to solve the mystery of what really happened that night. And, as they'll find, the mystery starts with family secrets kept for decades. This book kept me guessing until the very end, and really made me feel like I was right there beside the half-siblings, searching for answers.

I was absolutely gripped by Laura Dave’s previous book, The Last Thing He Told Me. I was very excited to receive this ARC. Other than involving family secrets, this book is not like The Last Thing He Told Me. I did not find the mystery all that compelling. The brother Sam was annoying. The protagonist Nora wasn’t all that likeable. The deceased Liam Noone (kind of obvious there will be a play on the word no one later) was odd, not eccentric. Some details were just too convenient and yet didn’t actually help build the story or the tension in the plot. The twists didn’t feel twisty (save for one - but then it made the killer obvious). It just wasn’t for me, especially since I was expecting more thrill/danger/suspense than this book had. Nonetheless, I think many other readers will enjoy Laura Dave’s prose and detailed visuals.

Nora and Sam's father dies unexpectedly in a tragic accident, falling from a cliff at his treasured home on the California coast. However, Sam comes to Nora telling her he doesn't believe it was an accident. Sam convinces her to help him look into his death, and the 2 of them head to California and discover several things that don't make sense, making them determined to uncover the mystery of what happened the night he died.

The story is told mostly from Nora's POV with several chapters in the past from her father's POV (Liam). I enjoyed Nora's story much more than Liam's -- it slowed down the pace and I think it was meant to throw out some red herrings to the readers trying to 'solve' the mystery. Everything definitely came together at the end though.

The story isn't a page-turner or thriller as advertised, but it does give us a great deal of family drama with an air of mystery surrounding Liam's death. I found it an enjoyable read overall!

This book will tear your heart apart and piece it back together. Top 5 read of the year. I wish I could read it all over again for the first time. So many thoughts and feelings. A true love story you will never see coming. TBR it right now. You do not want to miss this as your next year. You will want to own a copy to live forever on your bookshelf.


Thank you thank you Netgalley & Simon Element at Simon & Schuster for this Advanced readers Copy. I can’t wait till this book hits the shelf to recommend it to so many readers and buy one for my own bookshelf.

The Night We Lost Him is a beautifully written story about siblings grieving the loss of their father’s sudden passing. While Laura Dave’s newest novel is categorized as a mystery/ suspenseful story, I would be hesitant to classify it as such. There are elements of unknown and investigation woven through the plot, but the overall story mostly focuses on a brother and sister navigating the uncharted territory that is their father’s death and how he had secretly lived his life.
The unfinished character development of one brother and a fiancé left me curious as to what their role might have been in earlier versions of the story.

I feel like I can’t avoid my honest opinion about this one without a few minor spoilers so watch out ahead y’all 🛑✋🏼

after being the only person in the world who enjoyed THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME, I was super invested in this story from the first chapter. it started out more of the same concept, marketed as a mystery but involved more family drama and lit fic elements more than anything.

after the death of their father (#1 trigger for us in the dead dad club heyyy), liam’s children are out to discover the truth behind who their dad was and what happened to him the night of his death. and while I loved the mystery air surrounding it, it was truly the bonding moments between nora and sam that made the story as raw and real as it was!!

what didn’t work for me were the flashbacks of liam growing up and his unique friendship with cory. it gave all of the emotional cheating vibes, and even a little bit of unrequited love, and that’s not the move for me 😅 I just didn’t understand the reasoning why these two, if they were so truly in love with one another, couldn’t be together? like genuinely besties I have no clue

and I’m also a firm believer that choosing to replace someone or something in your heart when you’re not ready to move on is never the solution and only hurts everyone in the process (and that’s the tea 🍵)

I really do love laura dave’s writing style, and I flew through this one in a day to find out how the conflict resolved! thank you to netgalley and simon & schuster for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

rating: 3.5 stars
wine pairing: napa valley chardonnay

Very good read. Kept me guessing how things were going to wind up. So interesting the depth of the relationships in this book.

I loved The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave when I read it in 2001. So I was excited to see she had another book coming out this year. While The Night We Lost Him is a good book, it definitely didn’t live up to the suspense I was expecting. I liked the book, but I think I would have enjoyed it more had it been described as a family drama rather than a thriller. And maybe it was my own assumption that led me astray. While I appreciated the character development as the story progressed, it was too slow for my liking. I wouldn’t recommend this to friends as a thriller, but I would definitely recommend it to someone looking for a good family drama.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon Element for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

This novel reads more as a love story with a mystery focusing on a mysterious girl. Liam Noone has fallen off the cliff at Windbreak, his beloved getaway home. Nora, who recently lost her mother, is now almost running on empty as she goes about her day. Her fiancé and those around her can tell she is going through a lot of pain. Sam, her half-brother, calls and tells her he believes someone pushed their father off the cliff. He wants her to join him at the ‘scene of the crime’ to help determine if he’s right and to get answers from everyone, including the inept sheriff and Uncle Joe.
As they speak to various people, they discover their father holds many secrets. The question arises, ‘How well did we know him?”



I love the intricate layers of Liam’s character. It pains me to see Nora grappling with the realization that she never truly knew her father. Since her mother’s death, she has distanced herself even further from him. The story can be slow at times, but the ending was a complete surprise—I genuinely didn’t see it coming. The narrative is captivating, especially as I was eager to uncover the mysterious woman’s identity. However, I found Nora’s interactions with Jack quite irritating and couldn’t bring myself to care for her character. I loved that the author went back in time in chronological order as we were able to see the real Liam and how he grew up to be the hotel motel he was before his fall.



I wish to thank NetGalley and Simon Element (an imprint of Simon & Schuster) for an e-copy for an honest review.

I hate that I didn’t love this, but I honestly had to really push myself not to give it up.

There were so many different characters and stories that I don’t feel like we really were able to connect with any of them. Then it became difficult to keep track. Nothing truly grabbed me in and made me curious like her other book.

2.5 stars rounded up. The plot was painfully slow moving and the characters not especially likable. I wanted to like it but the whole thing felt overwrought. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Liam Noone is a hotel magnate, who fell to his death off a cliff near his California home. Two of his children don’t think it is an accident and they start to investigate, only to discover Liam’s life has many stories they did not know about.

I didn’t want to out this book down, and read past my bed time a couple nights because of it! Thank you Netgalley and Simon Element (an imprint of Simon & Schuster) for an advanced copy!

Thank you to Simon Element and Simon Audio for the review copies, and a special shoutout to the indomitable Julia Whelan, who was a delight once again on the audiobook.

I’m of two minds about this book, so this is a complicated “I liked it, but it wasn’t what I expected” kind of review:

As a Family Drama: I enjoyed this as a family drama—a story rich with family lore, the complexities of grief, and the struggle to understand a father’s life and legacy. It had all the elements of a strong family drama, akin to Hello Beautiful, but fell short of fully delivering on that promise. The potential was overshadowed by the focus on the mystery surrounding the father’s death. Had the book centered more on the half-siblings, each at a crossroads in their adult lives and grappling with their father’s will, it could have been a much stronger novel.

As a Mystery: The mystery aspect never quite took off for me. It didn’t have the suspense, tension, or twists I expect from a thriller—or even a true mystery. The plot lacked the intrigue of the author’s previous works, and the reveal was unsurprising, making it hard to engage with the story on that level.

Overall, while the book had some bright spots as a family drama, the mystery element felt underwhelming and ultimately detracted from the narrative's potential.

The Night We Lost Him, by Laura Dave, is a round-about family saga, with a few twists and turns, but very little mystery. In my opinion, central to the story are two step-siblings who previously didn’t know each other very well, working together to solve the whodunnit of their father’s death, and consequently discovering a mutual respect and relationship as brother and sister. Paramount to the story are relationships; inconsequential to this reader seemed to be solving the mystery. Regardless, the story is fresh and quick-moving and will definitely be enjoyed by Ms. Dave’s many fans.

Families are messy. When step siblings lose touch, it's hard to regain the sense of family when the common parent is gone.

As Sam and Nora begin to unravel what really happened the night of their father's tragic death, they discover each other again, as well as themselves. But they also unwind all the mystery and intrigue around their father and his life.

Liam Noone was a successful hotel magnate who was also very successful in compartmentalizing his various families. Sam and Nora dig into it all to find the truth.

I recommend this book for the mystery, for the relationships and the characters.

I was given this book by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own,

I enjoyed this thriller/suspense novel about Nora trying to learn more about her father after his mysterious passing. The book includes flash backs to Liam's (Nora's father) POV throughout this novel as Nora gets closer and closer to discovering the truth. I wish the chapters were more clearly labeled when they were Nora vs. Liam but maybe that is fixed in the finished copy. This is a slower thriller/suspense pace, which I found very enjoyable. If goodreads allowed me half stars this would be a 3.5 ⭐️rating and perfect for a fall thriller read.

I think this was a really well done domestic thriller. I’m not always a fan of this category but this one did pull me in quickly. It’s twisty and turny and I could not figure out who the mystery person was (which hey I pride myself on figuring these things out early). I recommend this one if you are a fan of this category!

Thank you to Netgalley & Simon & Schuster for approving me for this ARC. The Last Thing He Told Me was one of my favorite books of 2023, so I immediately requested The Night We Lost Him. I sped through the book, just like her previous thriller book, even though many people will find it a slow-paced read. It hooked me from the very first page to the very last. The story follows Nora and her estranged brother, Sam, whose father, Liam, just fell to his death. The police rule it as accidental, but to Nora and Sam, something feels off. Nora and Sam form an unlikely alliance to figure out the mysteries about their father's past, and what happened during that fateful night. Even though this book is advertised as a thriller novel, it is so much more than that. Liam Noone is friendly with all three of his ex-wives, and is still involved with all three of his children, but makes sure to keep everyone carefully separated. He spent most of his time at Windbreak, where he would go to spend some time alone, and with the mysterious woman in his life. Sam convinces Nora to fly from New York to Windbreak to start finding out some secrets their father is hiding. The story jumps between Nora & Sam, and Liam Noone's character with the mysterious woman of his past and it was my favorite part of the book. I loved the romance aspect of the book. Even though their father was having an affair, it felt like the meaning behind all of it was that your true love will always find a way to come back to you, and you should embrace it. Also, the family drama was just right for a Laura Dave book. I thought I had it figured out in the end, but I ended up being very shocked by the true ending, but it was perfect so I was very pleased. I love not guessing the true end of a thriller book. Overall, I loved it. I can't wait to see what Laura Dave is going to come up with next.