Winner of the Agatha Award, Macavity Award, and Anthony AwardFinalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, Left Coast Crime Award, Strand Critics Award, and Library of Virginia Literary Award“A subtly but relentlessly unsettling novel.” —TANA FRENCH, author of The Witch ElmIt was the perfect place to disappear…One sultry summer, Maureen Haddaway arrives in the wealthy town of Opal Beach to start … sultry summer, Maureen Haddaway arrives in the wealthy town of Opal Beach to start her life anew—to achieve her destiny. There, she finds herself lured by the promise of friendship, love, starry skies, and wild parties. But Maureen’s new life just might be too good to be true, and before the summer is up, she vanishes.
Decades later, when Allison Simpson is offered the opportunity to house-sit in Opal Beach during the off-season, it seems like the perfect chance to begin fresh after a messy divorce. But when she becomes drawn into the mysterious disappearance of a girl thirty years before, Allison realizes the gorgeous homes of Opal Beach hide dark secrets. And the truth of that long-ago summer is not even the most shocking part of all…
“A heart-wrenching and suspenseful novel of betrayal and revenge. Stunning!” —Carol Goodman, award-winning author of The Night Visitors
“Featuring a brilliantly executed dual timeline with two unforgettable narrators, One Night Gone is a timely and timeless mystery that will keep you obsessively reading well past your bedtime.” —Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World
*Don’t miss The Mother Next Door, Tara Laskowski’s next novel of suspense. On sale October 12, 2021 and available to preorder now!
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One Night Gone is about two women separated by three decades. In the summer of 1985, Maureen was working with a traveling carnival group, C&D Amusements, grifting when necessary to survive. Everyone with C&D was running away from something. In Maureen’s case, her grandfather cared for her, ensuring that she did her homework and got to school. Clinical depression was not yet understood. Five years ago, after her grandfather died, Maureen’s mother began keeping the “clouds” away with pills and needles, thrusting them into a “nightmare that no one who lives in a giant beach mansion . . . would ever understand.” To Maureen, the kids who live in Opal Beach are just like those in the other beach towns the carnival has taken her to. “They have it easy and they don’t even know it.” But she keeps her “Sad Story” to herself.
But Maureen is drawn to handsome, popular Clay Bishop, whose family owns area seafood restaurants and the biggest, most ornate home in Opal Beach. And wields the most power in town. She dreams about a real relationship rather than just a summer fling, even though Clay will soon be going away to college. And she is sure that her other new friend, Tammy, also has feelings for Clay.
In October 2015, Allison arrives to commence a stint as the housesitter for the Bishops’ next-door neighbors. Allison enjoyed a career as a meteorologist until she learned about her husband’s affair. Now she is known as the Weather Girl, the star of a viral video of the newscast during which, instead of just forecasting the weather, she suggested that her husband bring along his umbrella when slipping off with his girlfriend to their beach house getaway. “And a tip to all you adulterers out there — if you like treating your umbrellas like you treat women, then you can toss out your old one and head over to Macy’s this weekend where they’re having a sale. Women aren’t disposable, Duke.” Her on-air meltdown cost Allison her job, dignity, and home. She’s been crashing in her sister’s apartment. But the housesitting job represents a chance for rejuvenation, emotional recovery, and contemplation of how to get her life back on track.
Shortly after Allison arrives in Opal Beach, she meets Tammy, who runs the local coffee house. Tammy confides in Allison that she still feels guilty about her inability to save Maureen. She insists that she knows “something bad happened to Maureen. I just know it,” even though the local authorities concluded all those years ago that Maureen probably just left town on her own. There was no evidence of foul play. Nonetheless, Tammy insists she thinks Maureen was murdered.
Lawkowski employs two first-person narratives to relate the stories of the two women. Maureen details the events of the summer of 1985 — her friendship with Tammy, blossoming romance with Clay, and the resentment and distrust Tammy’s roommate, Mabel, displays when Tammy comes to Maureen’s aid. Maureen is naive, an idealistic dreamer, despite everything she has endured. Her mother used to refer to Maureen as “my little mermaid” and she still fancies herself “a damaged mermaid. Sprouting my tail. Claiming the ocean. Saving myself.” But Lawkowski describes Maureen’s descent into dangerous, reckless behavior in heartbreaking fashion.
Allison is lonely, but feels a kinship with the young woman whose whereabouts were never discovered. Maureen, like Allison, was viewed by society as disposable. That fact, coupled with Tammy’s ongoing pain and regret, spurs Allison to assist her by searching for clues about Maureen’s fate. Allison is befriended by Dolores, who runs her father’s art gallery, and encounters the gossipy Mabel, now a real estate agent. And she is encouraged when she discovers clues to what might have happened to Maureen. Like Maureen, Lawkowski deftly makes Allison an empathetic character — a woman who is intelligent and accomplished, but has lost her way temporarily.
One Night Gone is a cleverly-plotted mystery. Lawkowski manages to make virtually every character a suspect, injecting red herrings amid actual clues and surprising plot twists that relentlessly compel the story forward. As Maureen makes a series of bad decisions and Allison gets closer to the truth about what happened to her, the story’s pace accelerates toward more than one shocking revelation and, ultimately, a jaw-dropping conclusion.
But One Night Gone is much more than an engrossing mystery. It is also a character study. The tales of Maureen and Allison unfold three decades apart but there are engrossing parallels that elevate the story. Both women have encountered challenges that have tested their strength and resolve, but neither has given up. Maureen’s unrealistic attempts to find quick but lasting solutions to her problems stand in stark contrast to Allison’s realistic assessment of the extent of the damage she did to her career and the embarrassment she brought upon herself with every event archived on the internet in perpetuity. Both women are guilelessly taken in by the unscrupulous persons they let into their lives, and both find themselves in danger as a result. Allison becomes determined to secure justice for Maureen and, in the process, redemption for herself.
Betrayal, deception, and danger are at the heart of Lawkowski’s plot, but empowerment, self-reliance, and second chances are the theme of One Night Gone. It is an eloquent, evocative, and impressive debut thriller.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader’s Copy of the book.
A slightly spooky and mysteriously suspenseful thriller!
I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this book when I saw the cover! The author does a great job of describing the setting of Opal Beach. A small town filled with excitement, beach parties and fun during the summer months. But all good things come to an end. It’s cold, dreary, and lonely when summer ends. I could feel the eerie chill in the air! Inhabited by the rich, also known as “yacht squats”, abandoning their summer homes at the end of each peak season. And the “townies”, the year-around inhabitants, who make their living catering to the summer crowd.
This was a quick read…well would have been if we weren’t on vacation. My husband’s idea of vacation doesn’t include as much reading time as mine does. He wanted to act like tourists.
Tara Laskowski’s debut novel and she did a great job! She captured my attention from the start, with the way she centered the story around two women, in Opal Beach 30 years apart. Randomly linked by mutual acquaintances, with deep dark, buried secrets.
Maureen was my favorite character and the chapters narrated by her were the ones that kept me flipping the pages. She’s a carnival worker with big dreams. And she believes Opal Beach might be the place to make those dreams come true. My own childhood memories of carnival rides, games and food came flooding back! Pretty rough around the edges, Maureen had a big heart.
Allison narrates the chapters that are told in the present. Although they weren’t quite as interesting, they were a necessary part of piecing the story together. Like Maureen, Allison has a past that she wants to keep hidden.
I had my suspicions early on, and they were fairly close. There were still enough hidden twists to keep me engaged until the final reveal and I still enjoyed it.
Thank you NetGalley, Graydon House and Tara Laskowski for this digital ARC, in exchange for my honest opinion!
@TaraLWrites @HarlequinBooks
#OneNightGone #NetGalley #GraydonHouse
My Rating: 4 ’s
Published: October 1st 2019 by Graydon House
Pages: 352
Recommended: Yes. If you like whodunnits, with a bit of creepiness, you should enjoy this one!
Thank to Netgalley and Graydon House for the ARC of this E book in exchange for an honest review.
I loved everything about this book! The characters meshed together but they didn’t.
It as a fast paced, exciting read. A definite cat and mouse game with an ending I didn’t expect/see coming. I definitely will be following and reading more from this author.
One Night Gone: a Novel by Tara LaskowskI
October 1, 2019
Harlequin Books
Fiction
348 pages
Rating: 4/5
I received a digital ARC of this book from NetGalley and Harlequin in exchange for an unbiased review.
The story is told through alternating timelines at Opal Beach, about 2 hours from Philadelphia, PA.
It all begins back in the summer of 1986 at a party on the beach where flyers are posted regarding a missing woman. Fast forward to September 2015 in Manayunk where Allison has been living with her sister Annie, a nurse, after a tumultuous divorce from Dennis “Duke” Shetland. Allison had a great career as an on-air meteorologist in her local town until she gets fired for an angry outburst during her forecast.
In October 2015, with the help of her sister, Allison moves to the affluent Opal Beach where she will house sit for Patty and John Worthington on Piper Sand Road. Sisters, Delores and Sharon, as different as night from day, help Allison settle into life on Opal Beach. It isn’t long before she meets a lot of the locals who live there after the tourist season is over. She is befriended by Tammy, owner of the local coffee shop Sweet Spot, who draws her into trying to solve a 30 year old mystery regarding a missing girl.
The mystery unfolds as it goes back to June 1985 where Maureen is working for a traveling carnival in Opal Beach for the summer. Maureen is a street smart girl running from a dysfunctional family like most of the carnival workers. She usually enjoys scamming the local rich guys without getting emotionally involved. That changes one night when Tammy and Clay come to her rescue from Desmond, her sleazy boss. Tammy has Maureen live with her and roommate, Mabel Haberlin, who is less than thrilled with the intrusion.
Allison’s peaceful time on the beach becomes complicated after getting involved with helping Tammy. It seems the missing girl from the past was Tammy’s friend who she fears was murdered. The lives of many people will soon be disturbed once questions of the past resurface. When truths and lies are revealed everyone’s life is altered in ways no one was expecting.
An engaging story from beginning to end, although I figured out part of the mystery half way through, there were more that weren’t obvious until the end.
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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2772640282
The premise sounded good as did the blurb, so I snatch a copy while the book was on sale. Glad I didn’t pay full price.
I had a hard time getting into this one, but I stuck with it to the end.
Issues: Too many improbable things in the storyline. The blurb was a bit misleading.
The main characters—Maureen from the 1980s and Allison from the present day—weren’t likable.
Maureen wasn’t above stealing to get what she wanted, and she made a lot of poor choices. At the risk of sounding like I’m stereotyping, I found it difficult that Clay who comes from a wealthy family would get involved with a girl with a carnival troupe.
Allison was wrapped up in her own pity party, and it was almost halfway through the book when we learn the reason she lost her job. And do we really think that many people would harass her because of one on the air mistake? It wasn’t even on nationwide television.
The book had promise but it didn’t deliver.
There is so much to love in Tara Laskowski’s One Night Gone. At its core, it’s a mystery, and a perfectly paced, well-plotted one at that. But it’s also a beautifully lyrical coming-of-age story that depicts the socioeconomic divide of small beach town life, with all the 1980s flavor to go with it. Laskowski is a truly gifted storyteller with that ‘X-factor’ you look for — but rarely find — in a debut author. Spectacular.
A heart-wrenching and suspenseful novel of betrayal and revenge. A stunning debut!
I can’t stop thinking about this book! It’s been over two weeks since I finished this book, and I wish I could erase it from my memory so I could read it for the first time again. Such a thought-provoking and suspenseful story that will keep you guessing until the end.
Turned out to be a rather boring and predictable book. I kept thinking it would get better, but now that I’ve finished I feel like it was a huge waste of time.
This is a solid thriller with many twists and turns – I enjoyed the book and would read this author again
/ 5
Wow you guys, Tara Laskowski has delivered a wonderfully atmospheric and suspenseful novel with her debut One Night Gone!
I loved that the weather and Opal Beach were practically characters themselves in this book. Everything seemed to revolve around both the weather and the beach which is what made it so atmospheric for me. One Night Gone was not only suspenseful but enjoyable to read as well. I really liked Maureen and Allison, and for the entire book I was dreading finding out what happened to Maureen.
The ending was basically a complete surprise to me, even though I did have my suspicions about a certain someone who I can’t name for spoiler reasons. The full extent of everything came as a surprise though, and I really liked that. Even though One Night Gone is a slow burn, it does pick up towards the end and becomes pretty much nonstop action until the very end. The novel is told in dual timelines (which I love) between Maureen and Allison, and I really liked this as it helped with the pacing and mystery of what actually happened to Maureen that summer in 1985.
One Night Gone is relatively short as well, coming in at under 350 pages and I was so involved in what I was reading that life just seemed to fade away around me. I really lost myself in both Maureen and Allison’s stories, and was able to finish this book in just about 4.5 hours which is pretty decent for me.
Final Thought: There was also a slight paranormal aspect to One Night Gone although it is very minimal. I really liked this addition, and between the weather and that it had me on edge during some parts of the book. I highly recommend this to lovers of atmospheric, slow burns and really, who can go wrong buying a book which such a great cover? I can’t wait to see what Laskowski comes out with next and I think she is going to be an author to watch!
Thank you to the publisher for my advanced review copy via NetGalley. All opinions and thoughts are my own.
A summer of house-sitting in a small beach town, starting fresh after a divorce, discovering a dark secret that happened decades earlier… This story keeps the intrigue level high from start to finish, through two narratives, until the final mystery is resolved.
One Night Gone is told through dual timelines. We get Maureen, a girl who went missing in the mid-80s and Allison some thirty years later trying to figure out what happened. There is a decent mystery here, but it’s completely predictable, and if I was supposed to get some thriller-like vibes, I missed them. I just didn’t feel that tension that should come with a thriller. What it all really boils down to is the haves and the have nots and those who dare to cross that line between them. For a storyline that has been done so many times in various forms, I would’ve really liked a little less predictability to make it stand out. In the end, this one was just an okay read for me.
One Night Gone by Tara Laskowski is a story told dual timelines. It is a story of murder, betrayal, and redemption. It takes place in the 1980s in a small beachside town, Opal Beach. Maureen is a young woman finds herself joining a traveling carnival. She spends her time working and partying. She meets a young man who is way out of her league, rich and coming from influential parents. We get to know her dreams and inspirations. Then one night she disappears.
Thirty years later in 2015, Allison is fired from her job as a weather girl, she found that her husband cheated on her and she calls him out on air. Not the thing to do. As a result, Allison takes on a job that has her house watching in Opal Beach. She learns about Maureen and becomes embroiled in a closed case of Maureen’s disappearance, but it also puts her in danger. Many characters, who can be trusted and what happened to Maureen? Everyone thinks that she just moved on…or did she?
The author has written a great thriller of the two women and did it in such a way that certainly had me wanting to keep reading. I actually read it in two sittings. I love a story that has dual storylines. The author shared with the reader the coming of age story of Maureen and the redemption of Allison as she searches into the disappearance of Maureen. This is a story that keeps the reader wanting more.
I loved the book and would certainly recommend it if you like a good mystery/thriller!
5 out of 5 stars
Thank you to Netgalley and Graydon House for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
It’s the 198o’s and Maureen is working at a carnival in the wealthy community of Opal Beach. Into Maureen’s wife come Tammy, local townie girl and Clay a “Yachter” who is wealthy. A fast friendship grows between Tammy and Maureen while she and Clay fall in love. First the first time in ages she feels that she isn’t alone. She has a best friend and a boyfriend that care for her. Opal Beach seems like the perfect town and just maybe Maureen’s life is going to be good. Then she disappears…..
In the present Allyson who is recovering from a nasty divorce and recently lost her job as a TV meteorologist is desperate to start life anew. Her sister gets her a job house/cat sitting in Opal Beach for a a few months. There she meets Tammy and gets wrapped up in the long ago disappearance of Maureen. As Allyson helps Tammy find out what happened to Maureen she discovers the ugly truth hidden behind the lux lives of the residents of Opal Beach,
The story goes back and forth from Maureen in the past and Allyson in the present. Maureen’s story is haunting and heartbreaking. Her desire to belong and her strength of character will move you. Allyson is a fantastic character who you will root for. I loved this book and I can only hope that Tara Laskowski will write another novel featuring Allyson. This truly felt like a start of a new series. This was a great psychological thriller/ mystery that will keep you guessing.