TEST
Authors Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke have teamed up to write Girls’ Night Out, their second novel of psychological suspense. I was drawn to it at first because of its Mexican setting, but the twisty plot hooked me in pretty early on, and I had trouble putting it down until I reached the end.
Natalie, Ashley, and Lauren have been best friends since their college days, but things have become strained between them in recent years. Natalie and Ashley run a successful cosmetic business together, but Natalie is ready to accept the lucrative offer made by a rival firm to buy the company while Ashely is determined not to let the business go. Lauren and Ashley have been estranged for some time due to the terrible argument they had shortly after Lauren’s husband died unexpectedly from a heart attack. Ashley wants desperately to reconnect with Lauren and Natalie, and so she invites them to accompany her to a beautiful resort located in Tulum, Mexico. Hopefully, time spent together in the sun and sand of Tulum will help mend their fraying relationships.
It soon becomes apparent that clearing the air won’t be nearly as simple as Ashley had hoped. Both Natalie and Lauren seem to be holding serious grudges against her, grudges Ashley claims not to understand. The reader knows almost immediately that all three women are keeping big secrets from one another, but the women themselves don’t realize this right away, and the authors do a great job ramping up the suspense in tiny increments by only revealing bits and pieces of what’s really going on.
Soon, what was supposed to be a relaxing, healing getaway turns tense and sinister. Ashley meets a mysterious man who seems able to fix all her problems with very little effort at all; Natalie and Lauren resent his intrusion into their vacation and beg Ashley to get rid of him, but Ashley seems to be completely under his spell. And then, Natalie wakes up on their last morning in Tulum to find that Ashley has disappeared, and things get a whole lot messier than any of them were expecting.
With no trace of Ashley to be found, Natalie and Lauren join forces to find their missing friend. The only problem is, neither woman is sure she can completely trust the other. Is it possible one of them gave into their anger and harmed Ashley somehow, or does Ashley’s new gentleman friend have something to do with her disappearance? Lauren and Natalie have a ton of questions and very few answers, but they’re determined not to leave Tulum until they learn the truth about what happened to Ashley. Of course, if they aren’t careful, the truth could end up putting them in a great deal of danger.
It’s important for potential readers to know that this novel doesn’t follow a linear timeline, and that it jumps around a lot, filling in details of the investigation into Ashley’s disappearance as well as showing the events that led up to it. It’s easy to keep track of the order of things though, due to the time stamp that starts off each and every chapter. Still, I know some readers are turned off by this particular writing style, so I thought it worth pointing out.
The dynamics between the friends are pretty complicated, but the authors do a great job of showing readers how they came to be that way. Each woman is distinctly drawn with a personality that sets her apart from the others. It’s easy to see that these three really do care deeply for one another, but it’s also pretty obvious that jealousy and resentment have gotten in the way. This is not a particularly warm, fuzzy look at female friendship, but everything about the ways the women relate to one another feels totally real.
A lot of thrillers are set in places like London or New York City, and I’ve honestly grown a little tired of those, so the fact that this one was set in Mexico was a refreshing change. The authors are able to paint a very detailed word picture of Tulum, and there were times I felt like I was actually there. It’s not all that common for the setting of a book to almost feel like a character in the story, but Tulum came alive for me in exactly that way.
My one quibble with the book has to do with its ending. Obviously, I’m not going to tell you what happened to Ashley, but I will say that it didn’t ring completely true. Parts of the lead-up felt a little too convenient, as though the authors knew what they wanted to happen and tried too hard to force events to fit into that preconceived idea. There aren’t any glaring inconsistencies in the plot or the actions of the characters that I can point to, but I can say that something about the neatness of the conclusion came off a little forced.
All in all, Girls’ Night Out is a wonderful summer thriller that has gotten me interested in picking up a copy of the first book Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke co-wrote, and has put their names firmly on my list of authors to watch. I’m eager for them to come out with another book either together or separately.
Buy it at: Amazon
Grade: B+
Book Type: Suspense
Sensuality: N/A
Review Date: 29/07/18
Publication Date: 07/2018
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.