Girls' Night Out: A Novel

Ashley, Natalie and Lauren have had a strained relationship for about a year. They make a decision to go to Mexico, hoping the relaxed atmosphere will help them heal old wounds. From the very beginning of the trip the ladies still have a hard time letting go of their anger. When Angela turns up missing after a night of too much partying, Natalie and Lauren are left to try and find her.

This is told in alternating chapters of before and after Angela went missing. In both timeframes, we learn of the many things that have caused the relationships to struggle.

This is the first book I've read by Liz Fenton. I can't really say there was one character that I liked, but I'm ok with that. For this story, that concept worked. I was interested in finding out what happened to Angela and what caused the riff between the three. Towards the end, I did find myself skimming through some chapters. All in all, it was an enjoyable read.

I received this from Lake Union publishing via Netgalley.

WOW. Just WOW.
The follow up thriller to their debut of The Good Widow did not disappoint! Girl's Night Out managed to find the perfect balance between the practical and emotional sides of real-life friendships. Probably because both Liz and Lisa have lived it! I loved that each character was flawed and yet still relatable - aren't we all just striving to be the us we put in our highlight reel? And yet we fall short in so many ways. The girls in the book (Ashley, Natalie and Lauren) were no exception and the layout read like two trains on the same track, each speeding toward the other all while the reader is tormented waiting for the collision! The intense anxiety I had to know what happened has super-ceded the last few thrillers I've read - I LOVED it! And just when I thought it was done, BAM! Another crash waiting for me at the very end. WOW. Bravo ladies! You're killing it in this genre and GNO delivers it all! (& yes, my corny pun was intended!)

For any woman who has ever had a girlfriend. . .
Three long-time girlfriends embark on a "girls trip" to Mexico. They get together the last night for a girls' night Out--only something goes horribly wrong. Lauren carries guilt over leaving the party early, Natalie can't remember what happened, and Ashley is missing! Lauren and Natalie embark on a quest to discover what happened to Ashley while re-examining their feelings about what it means to be a friend. When does disagreeing go too far. This book is for any woman who has ever had a love/hate relationship with a girlfriend. As I read it I thought about the petty argument I had last week with my girlfriend. I felt myself laughing, crying, and feeling the same remorse and regret that Natalie and Lauren share over words that should have never been spoken. What happens to Ashley leaves the reader on a journey to discover not only what happened to Ashley; but what will happen to the two remaining friends. Thought provoking, very real, a great summer read.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

"Girls Night Out" by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke was an intense, heart pounding novel that really made you think! This was my first read by these authors but definitely will not be my last! These ladies definitely know how to set up an amazing setting as well as in-depth characters.

I absolutely loved how the story alternated between the character's POVs and also the days surrounding Ashley's disappearance. I won't give a lot away storywise in this review but I will say, definitely check this book out! 4.5 stars

This is another excellent book by the writing team of Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke. They have their writing fingers on the pulse of what makes a great thriller and this did not disappoint.
This is the story of three women who have been friends for 20 years. They decide to have a girls get a way with drinks and lots of catching up. As the margaritas flow some tempers ignite but overall they feel their strong friendships remain. They all fall asleep and wake with massive hangovers to one missing friend. What proceeds through the disappearance is told through all three of their perspectives.
I found this a riveting read that I could not part with until the last page ! The writing is so excellent and fast paced I enjoyed it from beginning to end. A excellent thriller. Well done to the authors !
I highly recommend this book to all readers who enjoy strong female friendship stories, a good thriller and a mystery.
I loved it !

I don't think I can rave about this psychological thriller enough! Not only was it un-put-down-able but brilliant writing, unique and intriguing story of a group of girlfriends take a trip to Mexico and one goes missing. I don't know how this dynamic duo of magical writing unicorns does it! Liz and Lisa are my thriller writing heroines and if you want a book where you don't want anyone to bother you for one second because it is so damn good, this is the book. I absolutely did not figure it out and when a story and the writing does this then I'm so in and invested! This is a perfect book to share with girlfriends a book club or hole up in your favorite reading spot and have it all to yourself. This is something magically special. The brilliance in the story, the characters, the emotions, the setting. It's all here. Get . this. book. 5 stars that blast about like beautiful fireworks. Loved it.

I was attracted to the premise of this book: three women, friends for twenty-five years, go to Mexico to try to repair their rocky friendship. After a night of partying, one of them has disappeared.
The story is told in an interesting way. The chapters are divided among the three women and also flash back and forth in time from their arrival in Tulum to the days after Ashley's disappearance. I liked this because I got a more well-rounded viewpoint of the story from three of them, not just one. I think the time jumps were a good device to use too because it built suspense. The characters were definitely realistic. I cringed at times at the things they thought or said because I would remember having felt or said similar things in my life. The descriptions of the setting made me want to book a trip to Mexico. I thought the book was very good, with a satisfying ending.
I received an Advance Review Copy of this book. All options are my own.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing, and Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke for an advanced copy of this chilling and suspenseful novel.

When Ashley disappears on the girls' trip she organized in the hopes of repairing estranged relationships with her oldest friends, secrets, blame, and self doubt arise.

For Natalie, who runs a mega successful company with Ashley but ultimately wants different things for said company, the timing of Ash's disappearance leaves her thinking of one two things - could she have run off to avoid decisions regarding their work, or has something truly sinsiter happened?

Lauren often felt like the odd woman out for many years in the trio's friendship. Feeling discouraged after not making headway with Ash regarding the issues that plague them, Lauren lashes out in what may be the final blow up between them, for Ash is missing by the next morning.

Add in a handsome and charismatic stranger who worms his way in between the women, and who was one of the last people to have seen Ash, and you have the recipe for an intriguing page turner.

Told from the POV of all three women, in the days leading up to and after Ash's disappearance, Girls' Night Out is full of tension and explores the intricacies of female friendship in a gripping and memorable fashion.

I loved ‘The Good Widow’ by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke so I was really looking forward to their next book, ‘Girls Night Out’. It certainly did not disappoint.
Ashley, Natalie and Lauren head to Mexico for a trip to mend the rifts in their friendship. After a girls night out they awake to a chilling discovery.
The story is told in flashbacks to a year ago as well as to several days before the girls night out. These flashbacks keep the reader quickly turning the pages to find out what happened to cause the rift in their friendship as well as what occurred during the girls night out.
I loved how the author used flashbacks to build up the suspense in the novel. This book is an adrenaline rush that will keep you guessing until the end.
I received an Advance Review Copy. All opinions are my own.

Girls' Night Out by authors Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke is a book I could not put down or stop reading from the beginning until the end! Oh. My. Goodness! As I write this review I am suffering a book withdrawal or psychological hangover and I feel sad for the characters.
I will just post an overview without spoilers, but this book conveys the loving ties between friends and also the searing conflicts which can tear the friendship apart. In the story of best friends Ashley, Natalie, and Lauren, life has taken them in an unexpected direction. Is there a point when the friends you have loved as sisters become too close and more of a burden to sustain than you can manage?
This story is written in segments of the past and present among the three girls. Secrets which they kept from each other will be the underlying cause of misunderstandings and bitterness. Lauren has been estranged from Ashley and Natalie since the death of her husband, Geoff. There is a little mystery there. Ashley and Natalie have become successful in a business venture together with the original design and marketing of a cordless blow dryer named, BloMe! Recently Natalie's circumstances have changed and her secret is crushing her and she needs money immediately. Ashley is thrilled to have an offer from Revlon to purchase their product and the patent to be included and marketed in the Revlon name, but she does not want to give up the thriving energy of running her own company. This causes tension between Ashley and Natalie. So, Ashley decides to plan a girls vacation to Mexico in order to reconnect the friendship with Lauren and to resolve the decision with Natalie about refusing to accept the Revlon offer.
In beautiful Tulum, Mexico each of the girls have to face their hidden waves of anger, jealousies, and unsettled feelings which have built up over the years. What should have been a healing and wonderful retreat, becomes a place of misery and death to one of the friends because of a mysterious man, Marcos who forms an attachment to Ashley and sends the whole plan way off track!

It continues to amaze me how two authors can work together to produce a book that is so seamless, you'd never guess that it wasn't written by one talented person. Girls' Night Out is a good example of that!

Three women, Ashley, Natalie, and Lauren, have been friends since college. Now twenty years later as they approach their 40th birthdays, Ashley decides to schedule a girls' getaway to Tulum, Mexico hoping to rekindle the closeness they once shared and which time and difficulties have frayed. The trip doesn't quite have the effect she hoped, and it seems, may have made their differences more acute than ever. On their last night together, Ashley disappears. Did she do so willingly, or has she met with foul-play? Did Natalie and/or Lauren play a part?

The story is told from the POVs of the three women throughout the book. This is great, because the reader gets to see the situations as each of them experiences it. The book also varies in time throughout the book (i.e. one day before the disappearance, two days after the disappearance etc.) for each of the characters, which makes for an intriguing read. Layer by layer, more is disclosed about each of the women as they share bits and pieces of themselves (and their secrets) with one or both of the others.

Ashley, is a beautiful, smart woman who is an executive in a company that she and Natalie created. She lives the good life, has a 7,000 square foot home, two beautiful children, and a handsome husband, Jason. She is used to getting what she wants and seems at a loss to understand how anyone could hold any hard feelings towards her. She really wants to get these friendships back on track, because her life is emptier than she wants to admit.

Natalie, partner of Ashley in the company which sells the hair-grooming product which she invented, has been ground down over the years by the day to day details and long hours that making the company what it is entails. Revlon has offered to buy their company. She is all for it, but Ashley is just as staunchly opposed. She's hoping that getting away will give her a chance to press her desire to sell the company and change Ashley's mind.

Lauren, has always supported Natalie and Ashley in their company, but is automatically a third wheel, not having the daily interactions that the other two do. A recent widow, she holds a lot of grief and anger, and is none too sure that things among the three can ever be what they once were. Nevertheless, she's willing to try.

It is interesting to watch the dynamics between the three women, and the dialog is quite spot on. Each of the three has played a part in why the relationships are where they are. While there may be a time or two (or more) that you wish you could smack each of them upside the head and say "what are you thinking?!?" you will be invested enough in the story to keep turning pages to find out what really happened to Ashley.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for allowing me to read an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased opinion. All opinions expressed are strictly my own.

4 Stars and A Margarita? ????

First of all where can I get me one of these BLOWN brush things? Seriously the curly hair struggle is real!!!

My daughter and I were out to dinner tonight and we were talking about things and it came up that I am a girls girl, her... not so much... i’ve always had strong female friendships, and I’ve been beyond blessed to have had the amazing friends that I have had throughout my entire life.... yes even in high school! However even the strongest of friendships can be complex... and the more friends you add to the group the more challenging it can become, it’s hard to maintain a balance... sometimes even the most innocent of actions can cause a great deal of hurt... The fact that the authors of this book are friends added so much authenticity to the book, their friendship poured through the pages...

Ashley, Natalie, and Lauren have been the best of friends for decades... and even though they have been estrange from Lauren for the past year, Ashley is convinced she can rectify this with a fabulous girls getaway to Mexico... some sun, some sand, some tequila, and things will be as good as they used to be, right? Wrong! There are a lot of secrets and hurt between these girls, and even the best of margaritas cannot quickly fix this...

This really was a book about secrets and forgiveness... now I am a true oversharer so I wasn’t always sure why they didn’t share some of this information with one another? especially if they are friends? Just seems like a lot of problems could have been solved if everyone knew what was going on... but this seems to be very common in books and in life... seriously these girls knew how to keep a secret after three margaritas I’d be spilling my secrets to whoever would listen, LOL.... The forgiveness in this book was interesting, I felt some things were more forgivable than others.... how far can you push someone before they’ve had enough?

I liked how we got all three of the girls perspectives... Ashley was a hard character to have much sympathy for... she kept saying how much she wanted to repair their friendship, and then she had a guy spend most of their vacation with them? I would have found this so annoying! A girls vacation should be just that... a GIRLS vacation! Natalie and Lauren were much more likable and relatable, there were times in this book I thought they should just be BFFs and forget about Ashley!

This book really had a bit of everything friendship, secrets, forgiveness and a mystery... where is Ashley? And will Natalie recover her memory? This was just such a good story that truly explored the complexities of female friendship.... the good, the bad, and the ugly.... cannot wait to see what these authors have in store for us next!

Absolutely recommend to everyone who loves a book filled with secrets, mystery, and complicated female relationships...

*** Many thanks to Lake Union for my copy of this book ***

In a desperate attempt to rekindle their dying friendship, Natalie, Lauren and Ashley take a vacation to Tulum, Mexico, a resort town known for its restorative properties. When Ashley goes missing after a girl’s night out, Lauren and Natalie must try and recover their foggy, alcohol-infused memories, as well as come to terms with their own secrets and feelings, and try to discover what happened to Ashley. Did she run away from her life, as she often talked about? Was she kidnapped by the handsome tour guide, Marco? Or, what’s worse, could Lauren or Natalie have been responsible? Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke, authors of “The Good Widow”, return with “Girls’ Night Out”. The novel, identified as psychological suspense, starts off very slow. In fact, I almost DNF’ed it before I reached the halfway point. Lauren, Natalie and Ashley are grown women who abandon their husbands and families to travel to a resort in Mexico to try and rekindle a friendship that should have been dissolved years ago. Ashley is a completely unlikable character, she is completely selfish, shallow and self-centred and without Lauren and Natalie, she has absolutely no appealing characteristics. The story is told from all three of the characters’ perspectives, both before Ashley disappears and after. The alternating timelines help build up the plot, and are relatively easy to follow. It wasn’t until more than halfway through this novel when I actually became engaged in it. The shallow drama between the three women was boring and pedantic, and it wasn’t until Ashley went missing that the story began to draw me in. After the halfway point, I found this novel difficult to put down. I wonder how the authors “co-wrote”. Did one author write the first half and the other the second? Or did they alternate chapters? The novel seemed to be written in two completely separate writing styles. The ending was satisfying and, although not entirely unpredictable, it brought the novel to a just conclusion. Initially, I would have given this novel a high three-star rating, but due to the fast-paced, entertaining ending, “Girls’ Night Out” gets a four-star. That being said, I am absolutely desperate for a really good, five-star, pulse-pounding, thought-provoking read. Let’s hope my next read brings me what I seek.

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.

Thank you to the authors, Lisa & Liz for providing me a free review copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

'...friendship-- something that isn't always easy.  That is both delicate and strong.  That is worth fighting for.  Go hug your best friend.  Or give her a call.  (Maybe not a text this time!) Remind her why she's important to you-- even if you think she already knows' - Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke

Girls' Night Out by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke was gripping from start to finish.  This is a tale of three best friends that gives a deeper meaning to the saying 'three's a crowd'.  Natalie, Lauren and Ashley have been friends for two decades and as time has passed, the girls have understandably changed and their individual  circumstances have hit them all hard.  They decide to take a girls trip to Tulum, Mexico in an effort to get back the friendships they used to share.  I truly enjoyed the mystery and suspense in this story as it unfolded in multiple POV's and past and present time lines.  This is a story that was easy to follow, but difficult to figure out.  The evolution of friendship between women is a tricky relationship to describe.  I think this author duo depicted it perfectly.  Friendships aren't always easy, they require effort and work, forgiveness and understanding-- especially when they span decades.  I found the challenges among the friends and the struggles each woman faced with their family lives completely believable.  My heart went out to these women's and I held out hope that they would be able to repair their relationships.  I'm not going to say anymore, because you'll need to read the story to find out for yourself, but I will say this... THAT ENDING.  Oh. My. Gosh.  

If you like detailed mysteries with shocking endings, this one has your name all over it!

I give Girls' Night Out 4 solid stars out of 5.

If you enjoyed their previous suspense novel, The Good Widow, you'll love this one even more!

I cannot stress enough the value in reading the Acknowledgements and Author's Notes.  I often times find these just as vital to the story as the book itself.  Do you read them or do you tend to skip over them?

I happened to spot this novel on Social Media and I was attracted by the wonderful and exotic Mexican setting.

Three women pushing forty have been friends for over 20 years, but in recent times there have been significant fall-outs and stresses. Three friends from way back. Ashley, Lauren and Natalie are gathered together in Tulum for just a few days to try and rekindle and rework their deep sisterhood amidst the beautiful and tropical setting. Three, of course, is a difficult number, with spiky comments, insecurities and anger easily fired by the dynamics that are now entrenched. After a few days – many an alcoholic drink along the way and just before they are due to leave – Ashley goes missing. “Girls’ Night Out” is the story of the build up to her disappearance and the subsequent days as they unfold and clues appear for everyone to unpick and examine.

One major issue between two members of the group is the company “BloBrush” (or BlowMe, no, I didn’t snicker), which they run together: their product a rather ingenious brush and hairdryer in one, which sounds a like a perfect invention for the hair culture of today. Ashley and Natalie have been in partnership for quite some time and Revlon has just approached them to buy them out. Ashley doesn’t want to sell, Natalie does, as she has personal circumstances that make a purchase vital to the survival of her family. These two, then, are already at loggerheads, and Lauren is the outsider. Lines are already drawn…

However there is a further ‘significant event’ which becomes clearer as the story unfolds and keeps blowing up in the group, a further festering theme.

Marco, a local, soon insinuates himself into the group, offering to show the women around, taking more than a passing fancy to one of them. His presence causes further division. He does however try and introduce them to the spiritual nature of the Mayan people, still evident all around, and he organises an out-of-hours trip for them to Chichén Itzá. Of Tulum, Marco says: “It is believed that sixty-sixmillion years ago, an asteroid struck right here in Tulum. It produced an intense energy that is still here and has created a magical aura.” This, then, is definitely the place to go for spiritual edification, when searching for answers in life and looking to unravel tricky situations..

The women settle into their luxury accommodation, already touchy, irascible and irritable with each other, and this continues throughout the novel. Their dynamics can get a little wearisome. Their friendships now are very brittle and it is very hard to get a sense of the great closeness these three are said to have enjoyed in the past; rekindling their old friendship dynamics is the basis for this holiday. There is telling that they have been a close knit group but there is no real showing, and thus it is a little difficult to give credence to the foundation on which this trip – and the story – relies.

The structure of the novel flips back and forth, each character comes under the spotlight, and the days before, the time leading up to and the period after Ashley’s disappearance are brought into the frame. It can be a slightly confusing construct, making the reading experience feel fractured.

Mexico doesn’t get a very positive rating in the novel, it’s dangerous (reiterated several times) for women travelling on their own, the hospital is dirty, the taxi has used and empty drink cans rattling around in the back. The police are corrupt. But the women are where they are and they just have to bite the bullet of their situation.

If you are heading to Tulum, or Mexico, then this will be an evocative beach read.

Girls’ Night Out by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke is a psychological thriller that has multiple points of view along with alternating timelines. The story begins at the end of a week long vacation between three very good friends but then goes back to the days leading up to that morning while also following what happens from that morning onward.

All three ladies in this book are given a voice to show how each is dealing with each event as the book goes along. Ashley, Natalie, and Lauren have all been good friends for years but at this point in their lives all the relationships have gotten pretty rocky so Ashley had planned the week in Tulum, Mexico in an attempt to mend their friendship.

As the story begins Natalie wakes up on the beach the morning after what should have been their last night together with no memory of how she got there. As Natalie returns to the room she shares with Ashley she finds her friends hasn’t returned and gets worried something happened that Natalie isn’t remembering.

I have to say having read The Good Widow and now Girls’ Night Out what I find Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke absolutely excel at is getting their settings across in their stories. It really felt as if I’d stepped into Tulum right from the moment I began to read and this made following the story as the secrets and lies were unraveled all the more fun to me. To be honest these ladies were a hot mess but it was a compelling mess as I waited to see just what had happened that fateful night.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

This is the story of friendship. It discusses what happens overtime to long term friends; petty arguments, jealousies, and resentment. Will these friends ever repair the damage that exists between each of them? Can a trip to Mexico save them? I enjoyed the overall message of this book, but the delivery was long winded. Towards the ending I just stopped caring about these girls and didn’t care if they reached a resolution. I wanted to love this book, but I just couldn’t. There were some parts I liked but not enough to keep me interested. Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

I received Girls' Night Out by Lake Union Publishing in exchange for a honest review.
This book is really tense really looking into 20 plus year friendships and what can drive them apart. The mystery is compelling as we find out the secrets kept among friends, and each suspect has a reason to profit from their best friend or want to be lover missing. It takes place in Mexico where bodies can sometimes stay missing which adds to the mystery.

The plot: Ashley buys her friends a four day trip to Mexico. She invites Lauren, who she has not spoken to since her husband's death a year ago, and Natalie, her business parter for the last ten years who is butting heads with over a possible sale of their company. Three friends all met in college twenty years ago and have been friends since, Ashley bought the tickets to save her friendships and also to escape marital problems at home and to contemplate leaving her husband. The girls get together is spoiled when when Ashley ends up missing and Natalie wakes up wet on the beach with no memory of the last night. The girls have motive, Lauren a year ago blamed Ashley for her husband's death, Natalie has fell on hard times and needs Ashley to agree to sell the company they started for millions, and there is Marco a man that Ashley has been spending a lot of time with, taking her mind off the problems with her husband.

What I liked: The tension was really good, you could feel trough out the novel. The character's were written believable, except Marco. I didn't like hardly any of Ashley's choices as a character, but she was not written bad. The history of Chichen Itza was really interesting and the scene was really well written and how it eventually connects with the novel. The ending I was not impressed with at first I was waiting for a final twist, and thankfully I got it, because I moved my rating up a point because of it.

What I disliked: Marco and his dialogue, it didn't fit with someone they had just met and that felt really false to me. The authors should have used dates and maybe times at their chapters, it's listed like three days after, or how many days before, then the more complex morning of the night, still feel like she could have used the titles but also had a date.

I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars I would recommend this to mystery and thriller loves. If you're looking for a good fun escapist read with hardly any gore it is a good one to check out.

Natalie, Ashley, and Lauren have been friends since college, but lately their friendship has been showing a lot of strain. In fact, the trio has been estranged from Lauren for a year. So Ashley gets the idea for a girls' trip to Tulum, Mexico to help repair their friendship and mend fences. But once there, they find that fixing things isn't so easy. Each woman brings so much baggage and anger to the friendship. Natalie is angry at Ashley regarding the beauty business, BloMe, that they founded together. Lauren holds a grudge with Ashley relating to the death of her husband, Geoff. Both Natalie and Lauren are angry at themselves for letting their worlds revolve around Ashley. And their anger simmers even more when Ashley starts spending more time with Marco, a man she meets in Mexico, then with them. Suddenly, Ashley disappears. Did she run away with Marco? Was she kidnapped? Or--Natalie and Lauren fear--did they snap in anger at Ashley and harm her?

I had never read anything by the Fenton and Steinke writing team but had heard good things, so decided to try this one out. Its format takes a little getting used to: it switches in both time and narration, so you'll get Ashley, three days before the disappearance, and then the next chapter could be Lauren, two days after the disappearance. Once you get in the groove, it works pretty well, and builds suspense fairly effectively. Pieces of the story are slowly revealed, as we both don't know what happened to divide the friends in their friendship and, of course, don't know what happened to make Ashley disappear.

Honestly, I had just enough curiosity to find out what happened to Ashley that kept me reading. This was an interesting novel and certainly tense and intriguing, but I couldn't muster much interest or sympathy in these characters. Man, these women were just awful! I would not want a single one of them as my friend, that's for sure. Their friendship problems seemed petty, overblown, and childish, and I lost patience and interest with their myriad issues. There was just so much constant bickering. Bickering, drinking, more fighting, drinking, some more fighting. Ugh. They were so overly dramatic and even worse, most of the chapters would end with a sentence that had such an overblown "dramatic flair" to it that I found myself rolling my eyes at times.

A lot of the book just felt hokey, and I found myself wanting them to just go home and get their own lives (although their husbands didn't seem much better, honestly). Still, as mentioned, the reveals are interesting, and there is enough interest in what happened to Ashley to keep you reading. If you can get past the irritating characters, you'll be intrigued, albeit potentially annoyed.

Thank You to Netgalley, Lake Union Publishing and the authors Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke for an ARC in exchange for an hones review. All opinions are my own and independent of receiving and advanced copy.

Three girls, who were at one time best friends, had a falling out and decide to go to Mexico to see if they can mend their relationships. Ashley, Natalie and Lauren soon discover that friendships are not so easily put back together, even if they miss each other and want to try to mend fences. What was supposed to be a week of reconnecting and reaffirming their love for each other, ended up being filled with harsh words and hurt feelings. Then, tragedy strikes when Ashley goes missing and Natalie wakes up disoriented, on the beach, with no memory of what happened. The story is told in alternating chapters, through all three of the girls’ perspectives and jumps back and forth in time from the days leading up to Ashley’s disappearance to the days after.

Ashley and Natalie are co-owners of a very successful business with a product called “Blo-Me”, a hair brush that blow dries your hair. I know right! The authors do have fun with it and those tongue in cheek moments are only part of the charm of this book. The novel could have an identity crisis - am I a thriller?, am I chick lit?, am I about friendship?, but it does such a great job of combining all these different aspects into one really enjoyable read. I was reading something else and someone’s review of this book caught my eye. I didn’t read the review because I didn’t want it to influence (or ruin) the book for me, but I thought I would just see what the first few pages were like. I was hooked. It was such easy reading that I flew through the book in about a day. It did a great balancing act between these different genres that it’s parts ended up becoming greater than the whole.

So Ashley and Natalie are at odds because a huge offer from Revlon has come in to buy their company. Natalie wants to, well needs to sell and Ashley refuses. They each have their reasons but has caused a rift in their very strong bond. This tension between them has also caused them to stop confiding in each other, which further creates distance. Then there is Lauren, who lost her husband a year ago. Ashley and Lauren had a huge fight at the funeral and both said horrible things that has led them to not speaking for the past year. Ashley’s marriage is falling apart and she needs her best friends. She invites them both to go on this trip to Mexico and hopes that by extending the olive branch they can all make their way back to each other.

Fenton and Steinke get so many things right about friendships, which I found to be the most enjoyable part of this book. Ashley is a force of nature. Beautiful and outgoing, she is someone who is used to getting her way. Confident and sexy, she can manipulate anyone to give her anything and is used to flying by the seat of her pants leaving someone else to clean up her mess. But everyone is drawn to her, including both her best friends. As can happen in threesomes, both Natalie and Lauren are jealous of the other person’s relationship with Ashley and they each want Ashley to choose them first. They fight for her attention. The dynamics of their relationship along with their personalities impacts on whether or not they will be able to reconcile on this trip. As the book develops and more facts become clear, you really understand how this plays out in their friendship. Who hasn’t had these relationships in their life? You can relate to each of these women because we have all been them at one point or another in our lives.

The thriller part of the novel was enough to keep me intrigued. There is a mysterious man, Marcos, who enchants Ashley. The girls know that he has lied about who he is. Natalie wakes up all wet after having slept on the beach with no memory of the night before. Was she drugged or is her mind protecting her from something worse. Lauren had a terrible fight with Ashley and left them to return to the hotel. Her words were so awful, if only she could have forgiven Ashley. Everything gets answered, if in an ambiguous sort of way. The only weak part of the book for me was the role of mother. Both Ashley and Natalie are mothers and neither of the depictions rang true. It could be that it would have been too much to add something else in the mix but I didn’t buy it. There was a lot of time and effort put into each of the ladies’ husbands but the kids part seemed off. I didn’t need them to be mother of the year, but I didn’t buy these women who were so invested in their relationships with each other, their husbands and their business to then be so flat with their kids.

You should also check out the story behind the authors. I read the afterwords and was so intrigued I went to their website. Their story was so cute and exciting that I am interested in reading (and have purchased) their other novels. I can see why they write about friendship so clearly!

Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke are lifelong best friends who co-author books. I read and enjoyed two of them, and I have anticipated Girls’ Night Out since they posted on Facebook about their girls’ trip to Tulum, Mexico when they were in the writing process. Follow them on Facebook if you have not already. They are so fun! The setting in Tulum piqued my interest because I traveled there years ago, and I remember its immense beauty well.

Ashley, Natalie, and Lauren were best friends for over twenty years, but lately they have not spoken. They determine it is time to mend fences and, to do that, they travel to Tulum, Mexico. When one friend (Ashley) disappears on the trip, Natalie and Lauren try to figure out where she is, but their memories are not clear because there was plenty of drinking on girls’ night. They are not sure if she left, or if she could have been kidnapped. They really have no idea. Natalie and Lauren search for Ashley, but as they do, dangerous secrets come to a head.

Liz and Lisa are skilled in writing about friendship. I think their own friendship adds to the authenticity in their writing. Each of the friends has a role to play in the triad. With a group of three, someone is always left out, and my mom has always said a group of three friends would never get along. (She was always right about that by the way).

While Girls’ Night Out is most definitely an intriguing, twisty thriller and kept me guessing, there are also themes of friendship and forgiveness and the secrets we hold back from the ones we love and trust most. Will these friends and their friendship survive the trip to Tulum?

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Three friends with issues to resolve take a trip to Mexico to try to reconnect.

The issues seemed to compound rather than lessen. When one of the friends is missing the morning after a wild night of drinking, the tension between the two remaining friends continues and worsens as their fears mount.

GIRLS’ NIGHT OUT goes back and forth from past to present bringing with it a bit of confusion as to what is going on for the reader, but revealing that the friends have a lot of secrets they never told each other.

The book actually dragged on for me even though the secrets were interesting, but they were a bit too vague to bring anything to the story for me until around half way through the book when the reasons for the fights and the estrangements started to emerge.

The tension mounted even more when the police arrived, but up until that point, I didn’t think there was that much suspense.

GIRLS’ NIGHT OUT gives wonderful reasons for friendships to repair themselves and for women to support each other.

GIRLS’ NIGHT OUT was suspenseful because of the missing friend, but the majority of the book was about repairing friendships and revealing secrets.

Most of the secrets dealt with domestic abuse which is an excellent topic to get out in the open.

Another issue about being safe and making smart decisions when you are in a foreign country and with strangers was addressed. That is great advice and very frightening.

The tension in the last 20% of the book definitely picked up my interest and my opinion despite the slow read until then. So instead of a 3/5, I am changing my rating to a 4/5.

I received an Advanced Reader copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Girls Night Out by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke is a well written and fast paced mystery. The basic premise is that there are three old friends, Ashley, Natalie and Lauren, who venture to Mexico on a girls' trip in an effort to repair their long-time friendship. When one of them disappears after a night of partying the page turning begins.

The story is suspenseful and compelling. I have seen others describe this book as such as they are exactly right in their description. I personally found myself flipping the pages, wanting to find out all of the hidden secrets of these three women with the hopes that it would answer the question of what had happened to their friendship.

The trip is meant to fix relationships but in truth, the secrets they have and the pain they've caused each other may be too far gone to repair.

Overall, this book was an interesting read that provided some really good twists and turns. It also provided very engaging and believable characters, along with an intriguing plot. It served as a perfect end-of-summer read! This was my first read from Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke. I’m looking forward to reading more from this talented duo in the future!

I received an advanced readers digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to provide a positive review and this affected neither my opinion of the book, nor the content of my review!! Thank you NetGalley!

Three friends. They have been having some problems, so they take a trip to Mexico in hopes to bring them back together. However, one of the friends goes missing, and due to a night of drinking, nobody can remember the evening before. This story goes back and forth between the night in question and shares the issues that the girls have been going through and after that night and what they’re trying to do to find their missing friend.

Girls Night Out by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke was such a haunting, moving story about friendship, love, life, and what happens when you put those things to the test. At first getting into the story was a little difficult because you are questioning so many things and wondering what had happened to each of them before going on vacation. The storyline is a little choppy at times jumping from present to past to future between three different girls. But the further you read the more that is revealed and what you are left with is a moving story. A story that has you questioning what is truth and what is a lie. The book truly had me guessing up until the very end. Every twist and turn that is revealed in this book makes your thoughts go a completely different direction. I enjoyed the book but the ending was a little sad and the authors took the story in a way I didn’t see coming. A way that was a little disturbing to me. While it was a great book to read, and a quick read at that, I think one should know that it is not a “happily-ever after” type of ending. The only complaint I have with this book is that they left you wondering about Marco. (Well at least me) I feel they should have had one more chapter sharing his side and thoughts on everything and maybe telling how he moved on afterwards. Besides that little complaint it was a great read. It was also packed with history about the Mayans which was very interesting.

I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

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.

This is a solid, fast paced book that questions what you really know about your close friends. In this twisty story we follow three point of views that travel in time to slowly reveal the past, present and possibly future of these three best friends. Ashley, Lauren and Natalie have shared most of their adults lives together but when an incident in the past and a present struggle throws their balance off, Ashley seeks to put them back together with a trip to Mexico. When Ashley goes missing after a Girl's Night Out they begin to question if her intentions were really pure and who is Marco, the local who has befriended Ashley?I thought one of the strong elements in this story was the aspect of out growing friendships. Can you remain friends with everyone for 20+ and even if you do should you? I thought the complex nature of women friendships was a strong part of the story that really added depth, emotion and drama. There are always those people in your lives who you can't see befriending as an adult but remain friends because it's second nature. I would recommend this book and really enjoyed reading it. It kept me guessing up until the final chapter.
Thank you Lake Union Publishing and Liz and Lisa for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Girls’ Night Out is a clever book about friendship with an extra dose of intrigue. Three women journey to Tulum, Mexico to reunite and repair their friendship. But once together, each woman holds back, and during what was supposed to be a fun night out, one of the women disappears. In the aftermath, the remaining two women try to figure out what happens.
The story moves from the point of view of each of the women while also moving back and forth through time. In a less skilled writer’s hands, this could result in a very confusing plot, but I liked how secrets were revealed slowly versus waiting until the end of the novel find out everything.
For fans of Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke, I highly recommend this book. I'd like to thank NetGalley for providing me an advanced copy.

**Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for a free e-copy of Girls' Night Out in exchange for an honest review.**

Having been friends for 20 years, Ashley, Natalie and Lauren have had their ups and downs. The three estranged friends decide to go on a girls only trip to Tulum, Mexico and attempt to mend their relationships with one another. However, on the last night of their trip, Ashley goes missing. From a tequila haze, Natalie and Lauren try to piece together the details of their night. What happened to Ashley? Did she leave on her own with the mysterious man she met at a yoga class a few days prior? Did he take her against her will? Or was it something else entirely?

This was a 3.5 star read for me. While I enjoyed it, at times it seemed a bit slow paced and the ending was anti-climatic for me. However it made me want to go on another vacation to Mexico. The authors did a wonderful job describing the beauty of that country! This would make a great beach read.

3.5 stars rounded up. Thank you to Netgalley & Lake Union Publishing for the ARC. I was very much looking forward to this book because I enjoyed The Good Widow - and it was written by friends! There is something empowering about that alone, that two women who have been friends for a lifetime can co-write successfully without ripping each other's hair out (maybe??), but it also explains why the dialogue between the two business partner friends in the story was so plausible and real, as the authors have probably experienced disagreements together in regards to the direction of their brand (holy run-on sentence!!). But anyway! This book wasn't anything earth shattering; the pace was perfect, not too fast, not too slow, and it gently guided you down different avenues of theory. I don't know if everyone else is like me and is constantly guessing which way the book is headed, trying to find out whodunit before the end of the book so I can shout, I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT ALL ALONG, even if to myself...in an empty room... But this one definitely proved me wrong, even to the last page. The one thing I took from this book, though, was Tulum. The beautiful written imagery prompted me to google all of the landmarks mentioned and it is now my future vacation destination with my sister and brother in law. I seriously hope the authors were able to explore Tulum and write it off on their taxes as a business expense! Overall, would definitely recommend if you don't want anything TOO deep to read, but still would like a reliable, enjoyable thriller.

Girls Night Out – Fenton/Steinke (7/24)
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!

Natalie, Ashley, and Lauren have been friends since college, but lately their friendship has been showing a lot of strain. In fact, the trio has been estranged from Lauren for a year. So Ashley gets the idea for a girls' trip to Tulum, Mexico to help repair their friendship and mend fences. But once there, they find that fixing things isn't so easy. Each woman brings so much baggage and anger to the friendship. Natalie is angry at Ashley regarding the beauty business, BloMe, that they founded together. Lauren holds a grudge with Ashley relating to the death of her husband, Geoff. Both Natalie and Lauren are angry at themselves for letting their worlds revolve around Ashley. And their anger simmers even more when Ashley starts spending more time with Marco, a man she meets in Mexico, then with them. Suddenly, Ashley disappears. Did she run away with Marco? Was she kidnapped? Or--Natalie and Lauren fear--did they snap in anger at Ashley and harm her?

I had never read anything by the Fenton and Steinke writing team but had heard good things, so decided to try this one out. Its format takes a little getting used to: it switches in both time and narration, so you'll get Ashley, three days before the disappearance, and then the next chapter could be Lauren, two days after the disappearance. Once you get in the groove, it works pretty well, and builds suspense fairly effectively. Pieces of the story are slowly revealed, as we both don't know what happened to divide the friends in their friendship and, of course, don't know what happened to make Ashley disappear.

Honestly, I had just enough curiosity to find out what happened to Ashley that kept me reading. This was an interesting novel and certainly tense and intriguing, but I couldn't muster much interest or sympathy in these characters. Man, these women were just awful! I would not want a single one of them as my friend, that's for sure. Their friendship problems seemed petty, overblown, and childish, and I lost patience and interest with their myriad issues. There was just so much constant bickering. Bickering, drinking, more fighting, drinking, some more fighting. Ugh. They were so overly dramatic and even worse, most of the chapters would end with a sentence that had such an overblown "dramatic flair" to it that I found myself rolling my eyes at times.

A lot of the book just felt hokey, and I found myself wanting them to just go home and get their own lives (although their husbands didn't seem much better, honestly). Still, as mentioned, the reveals are interesting, and there is enough interest in what happened to Ashley to keep you reading. If you can get past the irritating characters, you'll be intrigued, albeit potentially annoyed.

Thank You to Netgalley, Lake Union Publishing and the authors Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke for an ARC in exchange for an hones review. All opinions are my own and independent of receiving and advanced copy.

Three girls, who were at one time best friends, had a falling out and decide to go to Mexico to see if they can mend their relationships. Ashley, Natalie and Lauren soon discover that friendships are not so easily put back together, even if they miss each other and want to try to mend fences. What was supposed to be a week of reconnecting and reaffirming their love for each other, ended up being filled with harsh words and hurt feelings. Then, tragedy strikes when Ashley goes missing and Natalie wakes up disoriented, on the beach, with no memory of what happened. The story is told in alternating chapters, through all three of the girls’ perspectives and jumps back and forth in time from the days leading up to Ashley’s disappearance to the days after.

Ashley and Natalie are co-owners of a very successful business with a product called “Blo-Me”, a hair brush that blow dries your hair. I know right! The authors do have fun with it and those tongue in cheek moments are only part of the charm of this book. The novel could have an identity crisis - am I a thriller?, am I chick lit?, am I about friendship?, but it does such a great job of combining all these different aspects into one really enjoyable read. I was reading something else and someone’s review of this book caught my eye. I didn’t read the review because I didn’t want it to influence (or ruin) the book for me, but I thought I would just see what the first few pages were like. I was hooked. It was such easy reading that I flew through the book in about a day. It did a great balancing act between these different genres that it’s parts ended up becoming greater than the whole.

So Ashley and Natalie are at odds because a huge offer from Revlon has come in to buy their company. Natalie wants to, well needs to sell and Ashley refuses. They each have their reasons but has caused a rift in their very strong bond. This tension between them has also caused them to stop confiding in each other, which further creates distance. Then there is Lauren, who lost her husband a year ago. Ashley and Lauren had a huge fight at the funeral and both said horrible things that has led them to not speaking for the past year. Ashley’s marriage is falling apart and she needs her best friends. She invites them both to go on this trip to Mexico and hopes that by extending the olive branch they can all make their way back to each other.

Fenton and Steinke get so many things right about friendships, which I found to be the most enjoyable part of this book. Ashley is a force of nature. Beautiful and outgoing, she is someone who is used to getting her way. Confident and sexy, she can manipulate anyone to give her anything and is used to flying by the seat of her pants leaving someone else to clean up her mess. But everyone is drawn to her, including both her best friends. As can happen in threesomes, both Natalie and Lauren are jealous of the other person’s relationship with Ashley and they each want Ashley to choose them first. They fight for her attention. The dynamics of their relationship along with their personalities impacts on whether or not they will be able to reconcile on this trip. As the book develops and more facts become clear, you really understand how this plays out in their friendship. Who hasn’t had these relationships in their life? You can relate to each of these women because we have all been them at one point or another in our lives.

The thriller part of the novel was enough to keep me intrigued. There is a mysterious man, Marcos, who enchants Ashley. The girls know that he has lied about who he is. Natalie wakes up all wet after having slept on the beach with no memory of the night before. Was she drugged or is her mind protecting her from something worse. Lauren had a terrible fight with Ashley and left them to return to the hotel. Her words were so awful, if only she could have forgiven Ashley. Everything gets answered, if in an ambiguous sort of way. The only weak part of the book for me was the role of mother. Both Ashley and Natalie are mothers and neither of the depictions rang true. It could be that it would have been too much to add something else in the mix but I didn’t buy it. There was a lot of time and effort put into each of the ladies’ husbands but the kids part seemed off. I didn’t need them to be mother of the year, but I didn’t buy these women who were so invested in their relationships with each other, their husbands and their business to then be so flat with their kids.

You should also check out the story behind the authors. I read the afterwords and was so intrigued I went to their website. Their story was so cute and exciting that I am interested in reading (and have purchased) their other novels. I can see why they write about friendship so clearly!

Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke are lifelong best friends who co-author books. I read and enjoyed two of them, and I have anticipated Girls’ Night Out since they posted on Facebook about their girls’ trip to Tulum, Mexico when they were in the writing process. Follow them on Facebook if you have not already. They are so fun! The setting in Tulum piqued my interest because I traveled there years ago, and I remember its immense beauty well.

Ashley, Natalie, and Lauren were best friends for over twenty years, but lately they have not spoken. They determine it is time to mend fences and, to do that, they travel to Tulum, Mexico. When one friend (Ashley) disappears on the trip, Natalie and Lauren try to figure out where she is, but their memories are not clear because there was plenty of drinking on girls’ night. They are not sure if she left, or if she could have been kidnapped. They really have no idea. Natalie and Lauren search for Ashley, but as they do, dangerous secrets come to a head.

Liz and Lisa are skilled in writing about friendship. I think their own friendship adds to the authenticity in their writing. Each of the friends has a role to play in the triad. With a group of three, someone is always left out, and my mom has always said a group of three friends would never get along. (She was always right about that by the way).

While Girls’ Night Out is most definitely an intriguing, twisty thriller and kept me guessing, there are also themes of friendship and forgiveness and the secrets we hold back from the ones we love and trust most. Will these friends and their friendship survive the trip to Tulum?

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Three friends with issues to resolve take a trip to Mexico to try to reconnect.

The issues seemed to compound rather than lessen. When one of the friends is missing the morning after a wild night of drinking, the tension between the two remaining friends continues and worsens as their fears mount.

GIRLS’ NIGHT OUT goes back and forth from past to present bringing with it a bit of confusion as to what is going on for the reader, but revealing that the friends have a lot of secrets they never told each other.

The book actually dragged on for me even though the secrets were interesting, but they were a bit too vague to bring anything to the story for me until around half way through the book when the reasons for the fights and the estrangements started to emerge.

The tension mounted even more when the police arrived, but up until that point, I didn’t think there was that much suspense.

GIRLS’ NIGHT OUT gives wonderful reasons for friendships to repair themselves and for women to support each other.

GIRLS’ NIGHT OUT was suspenseful because of the missing friend, but the majority of the book was about repairing friendships and revealing secrets.

Most of the secrets dealt with domestic abuse which is an excellent topic to get out in the open.

Another issue about being safe and making smart decisions when you are in a foreign country and with strangers was addressed. That is great advice and very frightening.

The tension in the last 20% of the book definitely picked up my interest and my opinion despite the slow read until then. So instead of a 3/5, I am changing my rating to a 4/5.

I received an Advanced Reader copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Girls Night Out by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke is a well written and fast paced mystery. The basic premise is that there are three old friends, Ashley, Natalie and Lauren, who venture to Mexico on a girls' trip in an effort to repair their long-time friendship. When one of them disappears after a night of partying the page turning begins.

The story is suspenseful and compelling. I have seen others describe this book as such as they are exactly right in their description. I personally found myself flipping the pages, wanting to find out all of the hidden secrets of these three women with the hopes that it would answer the question of what had happened to their friendship.

The trip is meant to fix relationships but in truth, the secrets they have and the pain they've caused each other may be too far gone to repair.

Overall, this book was an interesting read that provided some really good twists and turns. It also provided very engaging and believable characters, along with an intriguing plot. It served as a perfect end-of-summer read! This was my first read from Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke. I’m looking forward to reading more from this talented duo in the future!

I received an advanced readers digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to provide a positive review and this affected neither my opinion of the book, nor the content of my review!! Thank you NetGalley!

I went into this with high expectations. Unfortunately, I came out the other side with just an average, “hmm...that was just an OK” read.

Three women, lifelong friends. Two of the three are business partners as well. They’ve all decided to head for Mexico for a much anticipated “friends” retreat. They hope to rebuild their fractured friendships and maybe even make a final decision on the direction of their business.

Of course, nothing goes smoothly, to say the least. In fact, it all hits the fan when their thinly-veiled animosity towards one other explodes. Suddenly, the three women are now just two!

I found this book to be somewhat drawn out and struggled connecting to any of the characters. Told from all three voices, and in different timelines, before and after the disappearance.
There seemed to be nothing of substance that made any of the three women’s voices distinguishable from one another. I constantly had to refer back to the beginning of each chapter to confirm who was speaking.

Sorry to say, this just wasn’t a good fit for me. I wish you better luck that you’ll enjoy it!

A buddy read with Susanne!

Thank you to NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing and Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke for an ARC to review in exchange for an honest review.

Three friends. They have been having some problems, so they take a trip to Mexico in hopes to bring them back together. However, one of the friends goes missing, and due to a night of drinking, nobody can remember the evening before. This story goes back and forth between the night in question and shares the issues that the girls have been going through and after that night and what they’re trying to do to find their missing friend.

Girls Night Out by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke was such a haunting, moving story about friendship, love, life, and what happens when you put those things to the test. At first getting into the story was a little difficult because you are questioning so many things and wondering what had happened to each of them before going on vacation. The storyline is a little choppy at times jumping from present to past to future between three different girls. But the further you read the more that is revealed and what you are left with is a moving story. A story that has you questioning what is truth and what is a lie. The book truly had me guessing up until the very end. Every twist and turn that is revealed in this book makes your thoughts go a completely different direction. I enjoyed the book but the ending was a little sad and the authors took the story in a way I didn’t see coming. A way that was a little disturbing to me. While it was a great book to read, and a quick read at that, I think one should know that it is not a “happily-ever after” type of ending. The only complaint I have with this book is that they left you wondering about Marco. (Well at least me) I feel they should have had one more chapter sharing his side and thoughts on everything and maybe telling how he moved on afterwards. Besides that little complaint it was a great read. It was also packed with history about the Mayans which was very interesting.

I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

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.

This is a solid, fast paced book that questions what you really know about your close friends. In this twisty story we follow three point of views that travel in time to slowly reveal the past, present and possibly future of these three best friends. Ashley, Lauren and Natalie have shared most of their adults lives together but when an incident in the past and a present struggle throws their balance off, Ashley seeks to put them back together with a trip to Mexico. When Ashley goes missing after a Girl's Night Out they begin to question if her intentions were really pure and who is Marco, the local who has befriended Ashley?I thought one of the strong elements in this story was the aspect of out growing friendships. Can you remain friends with everyone for 20+ and even if you do should you? I thought the complex nature of women friendships was a strong part of the story that really added depth, emotion and drama. There are always those people in your lives who you can't see befriending as an adult but remain friends because it's second nature. I would recommend this book and really enjoyed reading it. It kept me guessing up until the final chapter.
Thank you Lake Union Publishing and Liz and Lisa for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The brilliant duo of Fenton and Steinke bring us a suspenseful work of psychological intrigue about three ladies attempting to reconnect after events that lead to division in the group; division which caused deep wounds that have gone unhealed.

Ashley, Lauren and Natalie head to picturesque Tulum, Mexico to reconnect but while there get much more than they anticipated. I enjoyed that the story unfolded from each person's differing perspectives while offering insight into past and present events (and intentions); events that had the potential to lead to danger.

Halfway through I thought I had it all figured out. Nope! There are twists and turns that lead away from the normal course but that leave you wanting more. I absolutely LOVED this read. It was exciting, unpredictable and filled with the scaffolding of suspense.

I received an advanced review copy (ARC) of this book from the publisher through NetGalley for my honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Girls’ Night Out is a clever book about friendship with an extra dose of intrigue. Three women journey to Tulum, Mexico to reunite and repair their friendship. But once together, each woman holds back, and during what was supposed to be a fun night out, one of the women disappears. In the aftermath, the remaining two women try to figure out what happens.
The story moves from the point of view of each of the women while also moving back and forth through time. In a less skilled writer’s hands, this could result in a very confusing plot, but I liked how secrets were revealed slowly versus waiting until the end of the novel find out everything.
For fans of Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke, I highly recommend this book. I'd like to thank NetGalley for providing me an advanced copy.

**Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for a free e-copy of Girls' Night Out in exchange for an honest review.**

Having been friends for 20 years, Ashley, Natalie and Lauren have had their ups and downs. The three estranged friends decide to go on a girls only trip to Tulum, Mexico and attempt to mend their relationships with one another. However, on the last night of their trip, Ashley goes missing. From a tequila haze, Natalie and Lauren try to piece together the details of their night. What happened to Ashley? Did she leave on her own with the mysterious man she met at a yoga class a few days prior? Did he take her against her will? Or was it something else entirely?

This was a 3.5 star read for me. While I enjoyed it, at times it seemed a bit slow paced and the ending was anti-climatic for me. However it made me want to go on another vacation to Mexico. The authors did a wonderful job describing the beauty of that country! This would make a great beach read.

3.5 stars rounded up. Thank you to Netgalley & Lake Union Publishing for the ARC. I was very much looking forward to this book because I enjoyed The Good Widow - and it was written by friends! There is something empowering about that alone, that two women who have been friends for a lifetime can co-write successfully without ripping each other's hair out (maybe??), but it also explains why the dialogue between the two business partner friends in the story was so plausible and real, as the authors have probably experienced disagreements together in regards to the direction of their brand (holy run-on sentence!!). But anyway! This book wasn't anything earth shattering; the pace was perfect, not too fast, not too slow, and it gently guided you down different avenues of theory. I don't know if everyone else is like me and is constantly guessing which way the book is headed, trying to find out whodunit before the end of the book so I can shout, I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT ALL ALONG, even if to myself...in an empty room... But this one definitely proved me wrong, even to the last page. The one thing I took from this book, though, was Tulum. The beautiful written imagery prompted me to google all of the landmarks mentioned and it is now my future vacation destination with my sister and brother in law. I seriously hope the authors were able to explore Tulum and write it off on their taxes as a business expense! Overall, would definitely recommend if you don't want anything TOO deep to read, but still would like a reliable, enjoyable thriller.

Girls Night Out – Fenton/Steinke (7/24)
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!

really enjoyed this book! There was an “incident” that you don’t find out until the end of the story. The rest of the book takes place before the incident and after the incident. It was an interesting read for me, as the story kept going back and forth, which made it fun to read. This is sure to be a good beach read this summer. If you do read, be sure to check out the author’s note. It is my favorite author’s note of all time! Happy reading!

A gripping psychological thriller you must read all the way to the end.

Excellent depiction of characters and a well timed plot make this one to follow all the twists and turns to the very end.

I highly recommend this book to fans of the genre.

I just finished reading “Girls Night Out,” and all I can say is that Liz and Lisa have done it AGAIN! Relatable characters, beautiful setting, and a page-turner. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know how I would feel about 2 of my favorite chic-lit/women’s fiction writers writing a mystery, but it worked!

I swear my only problem with these 2 authors is that I can never choose a favorite book of theirs! I keep re-reading and re-listening, and I’m never disappointed. Thanks, guys, and I’m so lucky and thankful to receive an advanced reader’s copy!

Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke have done it again. Written a multi-layered book about female friendship and the depths of those bonds. Lauren, Ashley and Natalie have been friends for 20 years and like most of us their friendship has weathered storms — highs and lows. Currently it’s in a low spot, so the friends decide to reconnect on a trip to Mexico. Something goes horribly wrong — Ashley disappears. As the friends and the police race to piece together the circumstances around Ashley’s disappearance, secrets bubble to the surface.

Girls Night Out brilliantly examines the complex nature of our friendships and the lengths we go to for those people.

Highly recommend.

I receive this from the author for honest review.
Thank you for the free book and the opportunity to review.
OK first thing first I was so excited to read this book it sounded like a good thrill.
While I'm reading there Alot of secrets and drama between this 3 ladies. They have a good friendship until one of the ladies husband dyes. Nat and Ashely busness is up for sell. Revlon wants to buy it of them. But Ashely don't want to sell. Nat needs her to say yes because she needs the money. Nat husband messes up big time and there about to lose everything cuz of him. Ashely doesn't now yet.
All 3 ladies Lauren, Nat, Ashley go on a little vacation to relax and try to work things out between all 3 of them. But that doesn't happen at all. Nat and Ashely are all arguing and Lauren also. At one point Ashley meets a man name Marco who she decide to tell him everything. Nat is really upset cuz Ashely is married. But for Ashely and are not doing good at all. There going for a divorce. Any way one night drinking Nat wakes up all wet on the beach. She doesn't now why. She has no memory of that night. She went back to the boat and realize that Ashely is missing. She went to Lauren to ask if she seen Ashely and nothing. She is asking everybody and nothing. They leave the boat to look for Ashely and even gone to Marco job and place cuz Ashley was last seen with him. Marco was not there or Ashely. It more like he left and moved. Everything was gone.
Nat get a phone call that somebody heard someone like screaming at night. One of the other passengers heard it but by the time they look over nobody was there and it got quiet. There still looking everywhere for Ashley. Time is running out! She missing! Memory are gone! What happen to Ashley?
Well everybody if you want to find out really happen to Ashely?
I enjoyed reading this. It was slow until a couple a chapters in. The chapters are long.
If you like a long chapters with drama. This is your book. Highly recommend!

Three friends from college venture to Tulum, Mexico on a girls trip in hopes to mend their strained relationship. We quickly learn that something has gone wrong and Ashley is missing. Ashley is a successful, seemingly happy mother of two girls, so where could she have gone? The facts that surface as her friends Natalie and Lauren try to put the pieces back together, proves that the girls may not have known each other like they thought they had.

Through chapters in each woman's perspective, we slowly learn about how their friendship fell apart the year
prior and what ultimately led to Ashley's disappearance leaving them where they are today.

Although the middle seemed a little slow, it was a page turner due to the fact that I needed to know how it
ended. A true tale of friendship and secrets.

They have been friends for over 20 years. Ashley, Lauren, and Natalie. Always there for each other, sharing everything with each other. And then, they weren't. Ashley trying to reconnect with her two best friends, suggests a trip to Mexico. It is to be a time of relaxation, and being able to let bygones be bygones. A time of forgiveness. The secrets each has kept from the others will prove to be their downfall.
The character of the three friends, can be actual. Someone is always feeling a little left out in that type of situation. The secrets they have could also be consistent with the shame each feels. Good storyline.
4 Stars

I had the audible version. Both this book and the one preceding "TheGood Widow" we're good to listen to but if I had been reading there are some tiresome parts with the issues of Natalie an Ashley . Natalie has a screw up husband and she wanted Ashley to do things her way. Hey Natalie get a grip and make your failure husband bear the burden not Ashley. I hate characters and people who are poor me victims.. Well, enough said, book brought out emotions from me and Natalie is a a pain in the tush! Interesting ending, you will have to read it and see what you think of Natalie, Definitely a good book to listen to!

Lisa and Liz have become one of my favorite writing duos. While this was not my favorite of their work, it still is one I got caught up in pretty quickly. It was escapist fiction at its best with a foreign locale, strained friendship, domestic drama, and plenty of alcohol!
The characters were not very likeable, and it took me a while to care about Ashley enough to want to know why she was missing, but once I did I was hooked! This is one you'll definitely enjoy reading while on the beach with a drink in your hand.
*I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Another solid, great book by Liz and Lisa! I really enjoy their writing and all of their books in general. It's a quick, enjoyable read that makes you realize that even if you're stuck at home, maybe that's not a bad thing - going to Mexico is sometimes overrated. :) The story is a mystery set in Tulum, and I really do feel like they research their books well - you feel like you've been there by the end. You don't know who all is involved in the mystery until the end, but you do find yourself struggling to find someone to cheer for at times. Overall, a fun summer thriller!

Side note: it is really impressive how these two both write, yet you can't really tell that two voices are telling the story. Their chemistry is great!

One of my favorite books ever! I am still thinking about it. I love this mystery/suspense route Fenton & Steinke took. It is so well-written. The twists and turns with the suspense of trying to figure out what happened to Ashley kept me on my toes. Down to the very last paragraph, this book completely held me and surprised me. I was completely taken and continue to think about it, looking at women as well as friends differently all due to this book! I absolutely loved this book and cannot say enough good or give enough stars!!! Thank you, NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing!!!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was a fun story of friendship. However, I did not connect well with the characters. Many of their choices were questionable which made the story less enjoyable. I think the author pushes some things too far.

I especially did not like the ending. I got very dark and depressing. Characters that I liked turned unlikable.

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