From the bestselling authors of The Good Widow comes a chilling novel of psychological suspense that will make you think twice about what your best friend may be hiding… Mexico? But even after they’re reunited, no one is being completely honest about the past or the secrets they’re hiding. When Ashley disappears on their girls’ night out, Natalie and Lauren have to try to piece together their hazy memories to figure out what could have happened to her, while also reconciling their feelings of guilt over their last moments together.
Was Ashley with the man she’d met only days before? Did she pack up and leave? Was she kidnapped? Or worse—could Natalie or Lauren have snapped under the weight of her own lies?
As the clock ticks, hour by hour, Natalie and Lauren’s search rushes headlong into growing suspicion and dread. Maybe their secrets run deeper and more dangerous than one of them is willing—or too afraid—to admit.
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This was actually pretty good and kept me engaged. 4 stars vs 5 as I hated the ending. But it was well written.
Three friends who are trying to mend relationships go on a trip to Tallum, Mexico. Ashley and Natalie co-own a company and Lauren and Ashley have some past fences to mend. Loved the beginning of the book. Natalie wakes up on a beach chair and her dress is soaked. She does not remember what happened the night before. Ashley has disappeared. The story moves before the disappearance, after the disappearance, and before they went to Mexico. I enjoyed this story. It is a good summer read. Not sure about the ending.
Lauren, Ashley, and Natalie are headed to Talum, Mexico for a girls trip in hopes of repairing their long-standing but fracturing friendship. Things don’t go as they all hoped and a girls’ night out turns to tragedy when Ashley goes missing. The book has an alternating timeline to the days before, the night out, and the days after. It’s also told from the viewpoint of all three friends. This is a wonderful suspense filled novel! Was thrilled to win this copy from the authors and it did not disappoint!
Three friends on a trip to Mexico, two are partners in business together, the other a close friend of twenty years. This is a trip of reconciliation but soon turns into a drama with lies of omission and admission, resentment, regrets, intrigue with sad consequences. The last chapter will blow you away.
Well written book about 3 friends some college who have grown farther and farther apart say go on a trip to rekindle their relationship and a man gets in between them and tears them apart further
Entirely too long because of constant repetition in the chapters as they are told from each of the 3 female leads points of view.
I was really looking forward to reading this book because I had heard so much about it. However, I thought it dragged along. I didn’t really like any of the 3 main characters, 3 women who had been friends for 20 years, yet were currently all at odds with each other.
The 3 women went on vacation to Tulum, Mexico to work on their friendship. The last night of their vacation was to be a girls’ night out, yet Ashley allowed Marco, a man they met in Mexico, to tag along. The 3 never really got over their strained relationship, and continued to argue up until the last day.
When one of them goes missing, the other 2 wonder if they were too harsh, if they should have let bygones be bygones. They struggle to find their friend, while examining their lives and their friendships.
I was a little disappointed in this book, I thought it could have moved more quickly, and given me a character to cheer, but neither of those things happened for me.
#GirlsNightOut #LizFentonandLisaSteinke
Audiobook Review.
Girls Night Out by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke I found to be a good book, however I had to have plenty of patience while listening to it as it at times in the beginning was hard to follow but as you go on with the story it picks up into a nice listen.
The story is of three women who are the best of friends that decide to go on a trip to Mexico to rekindle their friendship when one goes missing. The only drawback I had with the story was that it got a bit repetitive and a bit catty with the women of the story. I found myself wanting to skip parts that I believe had no relevance because of the numerous repeats.
All in all, the suspense was good and I eventually enjoyed the outcome in the end.
This book kept me guessing until the very end! Best kind of book ever! Great book! I love the kind of thriller that keeps me wondering until the very end! I almost didn’t want the book to end! I stalled several times during the last few chapters! If you love a good psychological thriller, this is the book for you! I loved the acknowledgements at the end, it’s fun to know the story of the authors experiences while writing the book!
Read in one sitting! Many layers of relationships and twists. A true osychiological thriller.
I was so excited for this book, and bought it the day it came out. A travel adventure gone awry? I absolutely love that stuff!
And then once I dove in, I was like “ehh, this isn’t all that”.
Truthfully, the girl drama was a bit over-the-top for me. It was MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. I get that people develop resentments, and I can accept how a long history can inspire some strong feelings, but the angst driving the plot here seemed so very contrived. If I personally knew women who were this dramatic and resentful, I’d have closed them out of my inner circle long ago. Life is too short for such exasperating entanglements.
So a whole book about three drama queens, without much going on besides their constant arguments, secrets and back-biting, didn’t add up to anything compelling for me. Was it interesting? For the most part, kind of. Mostly I just grew to dislike each of them and their pettiness, and I don’t think that was really the authors’ point.
The litmus test: Was I dying to get back to the book, to find out what happened to Ashley? What would happen with the Revlon deal? Whether or not Marco was a bad guy? Nope, nope, and nope.
And a couple questions about the men were never answered, things that could have spiced up the story a bit. Were the women honest about them? We’ll never know.
And there you have it. Three stars, because while it was well written, there just wasn’t enough meat to it for me to state “yeah, that made for a good story”.
Authors Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke relate that writing a follow-up to their best-selling The Good Widow wasn’t just challenging. Penning Girls’ Night Out “broke us open, hard and wide, before putting us back together again. Our friendship and our partnership were put to the test in a way we’d never experienced before. . . . We argued. We cried.” Even though they have been friends for thirty years, during the year they worked on Girls’ Night Out, they wondered if the book would ever be completed and published. The premise mirrors their own relationship: Two longtime best friends find their relationship disintegrating when the business they founded together becomes wildly successful. For the authors, life was imitating art but, eventually, as Girls’ Night Out came together, so did their friendship. As a result of their experience, they dedicated the book to friendship.
Friendship is the theme of Girls’ Night Out, the story of three women who have stood by each other for two decades, but find themselves unable to continue doing so. When Natalie invented the BloBrush, a combination blow dryer and hair brush, she and Ashley founded BloMe. Eight years later, and after their appearance on Shark Tank (they didn’t make a deal with a shark because Ashley refused the offer from Lori Greiner), they have a pending buy-out offer from Revlon about which they cannot agree. While Natalie is desperate to convince Ashley to agree to sell in order to solve her family’s financial crisis created by her husband, Ben, Ashley cannot bring herself to give up the company they have worked so hard to establish. Ashley has her own marital troubles and confesses on their first night in Mexico that she is considering leaving her husband, Jason. Natalie and Ashley each have two young daughters. Lauren was suddenly widowed a year ago, and Fenton and Steinke reveal early on that the breakdown of her relationship with Ashley was related to that event. In the year since her husband’s death, Lauren has established a close friendship with another widow that she met in a support group, but drinking too much and engaging in other reckless behavior.
Their friendship has always revolved around Ashley, the undisputed leader and spark of the trio. Female friendships are complicated, often difficult, and frequently steeped in competition. In female friendships, three is a particularly difficult number. Lauren and Natalie have spent their lives vying for Ashley’s attention, competing for her attention, wanting her to like each of them better. As Lauren puts it, “[l]ike two puppies wanting to be adopted by the same person.” Despite the problems in their relationships, during a trip designed by Ashley to help them find redemption, forgiveness, and renewal, nothing has changed. Natalie and Lauren are so self-involved that they continue competing for Ashley’s favor, not recognizing that Ashley is lost and confused, and seeking peace and clarity.
After a night of drinking, Natalie wakes up on the beach alone, rather than in the hotel room she shares with Ashley . . . and with no memory of how she got there. Worse, when she goes to their room, Ashley is not there and is not answering her cell phone or responding to text messages. Together with Lauren, Natalie commences a frantic search to find Ashley — and regain her memory of exactly what happened the prior night.
In order to enjoy Girls’ Night Out, readers must suspend their disbelief to accept that educated, successful women are capable of making very bad choices. And in Ashley’s case, her first bad choice is taking up with Marco, a charming and handsome local she meets in a yoga class, who claims to own a smoothie stand. He talks about spirituality, capitalizing on Ashley’s evident vulnerability, convincing her to engage in outrageously risky behaviors designed to help her let go and find peace, clarity, and contentment. Concerned that Marco is a skilled conman, Natalie and Lauren end up going along in order to protect Ashley, as well as gain her favor, but not without rancor. After all, the three of them came to Mexico to spend time together in an attempt to heal their relationship and Ashley seems to them to be more interested in wasting time with Marco.
Additionally, readers must establish an emotional connection to three deeply flawed characters. Ashley, Natalie, and Lauren are all women who, at forty years of age, don’t yet understand the depth of their own resilience and power, much less how to wield that power. They have all experienced great successes and failures — the latter in their marriages and other personal relationships — but are teetering on the edge of survival. And for the past year, instead of leaning on each other and their shared histories, they have all been turning inward for answers. The status of their relationships demonstrate that they are much poorer for having done so. The dramatic tension in the story is focused upon whether they can re-establish their bond while there is still time to do so.
Fenton and Steinke explore the friendships of Ashley, Natalie, and Lauren in a surprisingly satisfying manner, despite the patently ridiculous backdrop for the tale. The story is told from the perspective of each woman, detailing her struggle over the course of the previous year that has led her to the Mexican reunion and examining her feelings about reconciliation — her anger, resentment, and grief about the various aspects of her life that have proven disappointing and heartbreaking. As the search for Ashley continues and Natalie’s memories come flooding back, horrible, unchangeable truths are revealed. Readers will likely question the manner in which Fenton and Steinke opt to resolve the mystery of Ashley’s disappearance and the story’s conclusion long after they read the last page. And perhaps that’s their intent because despite its imperfections, Girls’ Night Out delivers an emotional impact and the characters’ relationships and journeys provide plenty of material for vigorous discussion.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Readers’ Copy of the book.
I really really liked this book even though the characters were so annoying and I wanted to yell grow up at them so many times. (Which like good acting on TV where you hate the actress in a part, it makes for good writing). So much drama to unravel as to why one blames another for her husband’s death, what secrets they are keeping from each other and if this character they met in Mexico is a con artist. I enjoyed the location and history in Mexico. The ending was perfect!!
Wow! This was an innocent girls’ night out that went totally wrong! Three good friends take a trip to get away and reconnect with each other again. Things have not been good between the three for awhile. A trip to a beautiful place in Mexico will fix all that, right? Wrong!
Ashley disappears during their girls’ night out and Natalie or Lauren have no idea where she might be, or who she might be with. As they try to put the pieces together, we learn about the rifts between the three friends as they start uncovering the lies of their lives. They realize they have to put their difference aside to make sure Ashley is safe.
Girls’ Night Out was a story that grabbed me from the start, because the reader knows from the get-go that something has happened to one of the girls. That was a good ploy on the authors’parts—so many questions needed to be answered right from the start. The story then goes from the present to the past, alternating between the two, as parts of the story are revealed like clues to solve the mystery and to explain the women’s past relationships.
This book was a pager-turner that kept me guessing until the very end. I was as concerned about Ashley as her two friends were. Liz and Lisa definitely have another hit on their hands.
I’m continually amazed at the ability of two people to write such fascinating novels together so seamlessly that the reader doesn’t realize that there are two ‘voices’ contributing to the story. Great job, gals!!
How well do you know your closest friends? This book explores that and more! When three friends go on a Mexican vacation and one is missing after a girls night out, what happened? This book is told by the perspective of the three friends before and after one goes missing. How much of your life do you share with your friends? Secrets and more secrets make this book a wild ride and absolutely one you must read quickly to find out what happened. I love the real relationships between the friends and the descriptions in the book are so real you feel as if you are on vacation with the girls. I received an advanced readers copy from NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing. All opinions are my own.
Three friends, two of which are business partners have been close friends for many, many years. Their friendship has fallen on hard times. They decide to go to Tulum, Mexico to revive their friendship. We’ve all heard harrowing stories of things that can happen in Mexico, kidnappings, murders and missing individuals. This is one of those harrowing stories. Sometimes slow it does keep you wondering what if anything will happen to these woman and if they can put their friendships back together.
My first reaction when I finished this was WOW. This was a roller coaster ride of a story, with three friends who are hoping to repair a friendship that has splintered over the years. Unfortunately, things don’t go anywhere near as planned, as so many secrets and resentments have built up over the years. And, just when they thought things couldn’t get worse, they do. Ashley disappears and memories are fuzzy. The twists and turns, told from each characters point of view, combined with the alternating timeline, kept me on my toes.
When three get together, it seems someone is always left out or unsure of their place, and that is definitely true in this book. There is so much here to like, and, even more, to make you think. When and author (or authors) write characters that evoke strong emotions, you know they and their stories are well-written.
The authors are new to me, and I am anxious to read more!
(4.5) Holy margaritas, Batman! Taco ’bout a great book! The setting takes place in Tulum, Mexico, and, yes, there are tacos and lots of margaritas involved as well as some suspense, complex characters, friend drama, and twists and surprises that will keep you reading all night long. I loved how the story flipped back and forth from the night of the mysterious disappearance of Ashley, to the days before it happened with alternating point of views from each of the characters. I could not put this book down, and that ending absolutely blew my away. I think this is Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke’s best book yet. Well done, ladies!
Women need their friends to help them through the problems in their lives and to be there to celebrate the good times. Sometimes over time these friendships fracture and can’t be put back together no matter how hard we try.
Ashley, Natalie and Lauren became friends in college. Now at nearly 40, their friendship is in bad shape. To try to recover their feelings towards each other, they plan a girls weekend in Mexico. The three of them go there with high hopes of resurrecting their friendship but they are all hiding secrets from each other that makes that very difficult. When one of them goes missing, its unsure whether she ran off on her own or whether the secrets that they have from each other caused someone to snap and do her harm. Trying to find her causes guilt and growing suspicion between the two survivors. It’s a real page turning story with an ending that I didn’t see coming.
Liz and Lisa have once again written a thrilling book with very real characters in a nail biting story. The setting in Mexico is beautiful and at odds with the turmoil going on between the three friends – or are they former friends?
Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.
Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke never disappoint. Girls’ Night Out is beyond fantastic. The story revolves around three longtime friends who have struggled with their friendships for the previous. A trip to Mexico is planned to try to reconnect them. I absolutely loved the characters. Their different points of view made me really connect and understand all of their positions. The descriptions of Tulum are so vivid that I could clearly picture everything in my head. The twists and turns – wow. I don’t have adequate words describe the rollercoaster that this book is.
A million stars for Girls’ Night Out!