You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.3 AVERAGE
3.3 AVERAGE
4 suspenseful stars to Girls’ Night Out! ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
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 Amazon Publishing/Lake Union for the complimentary ARC. Girls’ Night Out will be published on July 24, 2018.
My reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com
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 Amazon Publishing/Lake Union for the complimentary ARC. Girls’ Night Out will be published on July 24, 2018.
My reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com
I was so excited for this book, and bought it the day it came out. A travel adventure gone awry? I absolutely love that stuff!
And then once I dove in, I was like "ehh, this isn't all that".
Truthfully, the girl drama was a bit over-the-top for me. It was MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. I get that people develop resentments, and I can accept how a long history can inspire some strong feelings, but the angst driving the plot here seemed so very contrived. If I personally knew women who were this stubborn, selfish, dramatic and resentful, I'd have closed them out of my inner circle long ago. Life is too short for such exasperating entanglements.
So a whole book about three entitled drama queens, without much going on besides their constant arguments, secrets and back-biting, didn't add up to anything compelling for me. Was it interesting? For the most part, kind of. Mostly I just grew to dislike each of them and their pettiness. I don't think that was really the authors' point.
The litmus test: Was I dying to get back to the book, to find out what happened to Ashley? What would happen with the Revlon deal? Whether or not Marco was a bad guy? Nope, nope, and nope.
A few key questions were dangled out there, and never answered, which was frustrating. These were things that could have twisted up the story and taken things down an intriguing path. For instance, were the women honest in their complaints about and suspicions of the men? We'll never know, but I'll admit I kept waiting for some big revelation, or some big twist, to make powering through to the end worthwhile. Alas, there was no big gotcha. Some bitchy women went on a trip, some shit went down, and then it ended.
So there you have it. Three stars, because while it was well written, there just wasn't enough meat to it for me to say "yeah, that made for a good story".
And then once I dove in, I was like "ehh, this isn't all that".
Truthfully, the girl drama was a bit over-the-top for me. It was MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. I get that people develop resentments, and I can accept how a long history can inspire some strong feelings, but the angst driving the plot here seemed so very contrived. If I personally knew women who were this stubborn, selfish, dramatic and resentful, I'd have closed them out of my inner circle long ago. Life is too short for such exasperating entanglements.
So a whole book about three entitled drama queens, without much going on besides their constant arguments, secrets and back-biting, didn't add up to anything compelling for me. Was it interesting? For the most part, kind of. Mostly I just grew to dislike each of them and their pettiness. I don't think that was really the authors' point.
The litmus test: Was I dying to get back to the book, to find out what happened to Ashley? What would happen with the Revlon deal? Whether or not Marco was a bad guy? Nope, nope, and nope.
A few key questions were dangled out there, and never answered, which was frustrating. These were things that could have twisted up the story and taken things down an intriguing path. For instance, were the women honest in their complaints about and suspicions of the men? We'll never know, but I'll admit I kept waiting for some big revelation, or some big twist, to make powering through to the end worthwhile. Alas, there was no big gotcha. Some bitchy women went on a trip, some shit went down, and then it ended.
So there you have it. Three stars, because while it was well written, there just wasn't enough meat to it for me to say "yeah, that made for a good story".
I wanted to like this book more. I couldn’t believe how deceptive and nasty these alleged friends were to each other. If anything, I learned to air your greviances and make amends with your friends so you are able to move on.
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!
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!
Girls' Night Out, quite like The Good Widow was a mind boggling read. The ending was absolutely baffling, and it left me on the edge.
Girls'Night Out is the story of three best friends, who've had issues for the past one year. Contrary to the 'besties' label, there's a lot of bad blood among them. Their issues come to light as the story moves forward.
The story begins with Ashley's disappearance and Natalie's lost memory. Natalie was the last one to see Ashley, and now she couldn't remember anything. Was that a coincidence? Or was she lying?
Add a con man who'd been trapping Ashley and you have a suspense packed thriller!
There were a lot of elements in the story, and a lot of suspects too. I spent all the while switching from one person to another, convinced that they'd killed Ashley. Well, as expected, the ending proved me totally wrong!
Girls'Night Out was so full of suspense and thrill that I just couldn't put it down until I finished it. Liz & Lisa did a phenomenal job once again, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to read it!
Girls'Night Out is the story of three best friends, who've had issues for the past one year. Contrary to the 'besties' label, there's a lot of bad blood among them. Their issues come to light as the story moves forward.
The story begins with Ashley's disappearance and Natalie's lost memory. Natalie was the last one to see Ashley, and now she couldn't remember anything. Was that a coincidence? Or was she lying?
Add a con man who'd been trapping Ashley and you have a suspense packed thriller!
There were a lot of elements in the story, and a lot of suspects too. I spent all the while switching from one person to another, convinced that they'd killed Ashley. Well, as expected, the ending proved me totally wrong!
Girls'Night Out was so full of suspense and thrill that I just couldn't put it down until I finished it. Liz & Lisa did a phenomenal job once again, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to read it!
Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not impact my rating or review.
Apparently Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke are branching out to the thriller/mystery genre. Doesn't it feel like every book lately is in this genre? I didn't read their first offering, "The Good Widow" but can honestly say that if it set up like this book, I am going to pass on that one.
"Girls' Night Out" is about a group of friends (Ashley, Lauren, and Natalie) going to Tulum, Mexico in an effort to repair the fractured friendship between the three of them. There is tension between this group and it takes a long while before you find out why, I honestly thought the reveal to one of these plot-lines was just aggravating as can be. The character of Ashley disappears (not a spoiler, it's part of the synopsis) and then Lauren and Natalie try to figure out what happened to her. The back and forth between three characters showing them before Ashley's disappearance and after doesn't mesh well. The flow was really off for me while reading. The ending was so anti-climactic, I just didn't buy it at all.
The characters of Ashley and Natalie are not only long-term friends, they are business partners. Part of the tension between them is that they received an offer from Revlon to buy their company. Natalie wants to sell and Ashley doesn't want to. I was curious about why in the world they just didn't bring up Ashley buying Natalie's share out? I mean, it seemed the simplest solution and it was weird I didn't see anyone just saying that. That whole plot point was just to show how Ashley is selfish and doesn't care about other people.
Ashley and Lauren have tension for a very good reason. I don't want to spoil the whole thing, but I am sorry, I had zero sympathy for Lauren. What a piece of work. I wish that the authors had decided to just have her have some self awareness about things, but nope, we don't even get that in the end. Just her and her grudging forgiveness.
Lauren and Natalie's tension is mostly about wanting to be the center of Ashley's attention. At times I wondered how old these three women were (almost 40, with one of them being 40) and who does stuff like this. It was a contradiction I found throughout the book. They get angry at Ashley being self involved and managing to make people bend to her will. And then they would be jealous if she sought one of them out and not the other.
Ashley is the center of this story (for good or bad) and she was not that interesting. Sorry, I just was getting a whiff of poor little rich girl here until we get a random aside thrown out about her marriage. I really wanted all of these women to go into therapy and just cut each other off. They all were the definition of a toxic friendship.
The secondary characters were not developed that well. We know that the three women have husbands, but they might as well has been called husband #1, #2, and #3.
We had the character of Marco that was obviously a con-man. I don't get why the character of Ashley was even telling this guy all of her business. Her justification didn't make a lot of sense since as other characters said, what was the point of her hanging out with her friends if she was going to listen to some mystical crap from some random dude she met on a beach.
I think it would also have been better to set up the book prologue with the three women meeting in college. I just needed to see/believe that they were actually friends. The book jumps too quickly into Ashley's disappearance and then goes back to days before she went missing and then to days after they noticed she was missing. It was hard to keep things straight. The authors do set up each chapter heading with the character and they do let you know how many days has passed or not passed, but I still found it confusing. Maybe because we have characters referring to conversations that we didn't get to see.
I wish that we had more dialogue instead of people having inner dialogue with themselves . It also didn't help that sometimes in a paragraph you would have a character having a conversation with someone in the past (both Lauren and Natalie's passages did that) and it would take me a while to realize that I wasn't in the current timeline that I was reading something that had happened before.
The flow was off almost from the beginning. I think it's because of the before mentioned changing POVs with the different timelines.
The setting of Tulum, Mexico was obviously very well researched. I have actually stayed there and visited the same locations that these characters did (Chichen Itza) so reading about that made me happy. I think though that besides a few things here and there, once again we don't get to see the women enjoying things, we just jump around too much.
The ending was way too simple. I don't want to spoil, but I had a hard time with it. It felt like the two authors just gave up 3/4 of the way through.
Apparently Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke are branching out to the thriller/mystery genre. Doesn't it feel like every book lately is in this genre? I didn't read their first offering, "The Good Widow" but can honestly say that if it set up like this book, I am going to pass on that one.
"Girls' Night Out" is about a group of friends (Ashley, Lauren, and Natalie) going to Tulum, Mexico in an effort to repair the fractured friendship between the three of them. There is tension between this group and it takes a long while before you find out why, I honestly thought the reveal to one of these plot-lines was just aggravating as can be. The character of Ashley disappears (not a spoiler, it's part of the synopsis) and then Lauren and Natalie try to figure out what happened to her. The back and forth between three characters showing them before Ashley's disappearance and after doesn't mesh well. The flow was really off for me while reading. The ending was so anti-climactic, I just didn't buy it at all.
The characters of Ashley and Natalie are not only long-term friends, they are business partners. Part of the tension between them is that they received an offer from Revlon to buy their company. Natalie wants to sell and Ashley doesn't want to. I was curious about why in the world they just didn't bring up Ashley buying Natalie's share out? I mean, it seemed the simplest solution and it was weird I didn't see anyone just saying that. That whole plot point was just to show how Ashley is selfish and doesn't care about other people.
Ashley and Lauren have tension for a very good reason. I don't want to spoil the whole thing, but I am sorry, I had zero sympathy for Lauren. What a piece of work. I wish that the authors had decided to just have her have some self awareness about things, but nope, we don't even get that in the end. Just her and her grudging forgiveness.
Lauren and Natalie's tension is mostly about wanting to be the center of Ashley's attention. At times I wondered how old these three women were (almost 40, with one of them being 40) and who does stuff like this. It was a contradiction I found throughout the book. They get angry at Ashley being self involved and managing to make people bend to her will. And then they would be jealous if she sought one of them out and not the other.
Ashley is the center of this story (for good or bad) and she was not that interesting. Sorry, I just was getting a whiff of poor little rich girl here until we get a random aside thrown out about her marriage. I really wanted all of these women to go into therapy and just cut each other off. They all were the definition of a toxic friendship.
The secondary characters were not developed that well. We know that the three women have husbands, but they might as well has been called husband #1, #2, and #3.
We had the character of Marco that was obviously a con-man. I don't get why the character of Ashley was even telling this guy all of her business. Her justification didn't make a lot of sense since as other characters said, what was the point of her hanging out with her friends if she was going to listen to some mystical crap from some random dude she met on a beach.
I think it would also have been better to set up the book prologue with the three women meeting in college. I just needed to see/believe that they were actually friends. The book jumps too quickly into Ashley's disappearance and then goes back to days before she went missing and then to days after they noticed she was missing. It was hard to keep things straight. The authors do set up each chapter heading with the character and they do let you know how many days has passed or not passed, but I still found it confusing. Maybe because we have characters referring to conversations that we didn't get to see.
I wish that we had more dialogue instead of people having inner dialogue with themselves . It also didn't help that sometimes in a paragraph you would have a character having a conversation with someone in the past (both Lauren and Natalie's passages did that) and it would take me a while to realize that I wasn't in the current timeline that I was reading something that had happened before.
The flow was off almost from the beginning. I think it's because of the before mentioned changing POVs with the different timelines.
The setting of Tulum, Mexico was obviously very well researched. I have actually stayed there and visited the same locations that these characters did (Chichen Itza) so reading about that made me happy. I think though that besides a few things here and there, once again we don't get to see the women enjoying things, we just jump around too much.
The ending was way too simple. I don't want to spoil, but I had a hard time with it. It felt like the two authors just gave up 3/4 of the way through.
I'm all for unlikable characters in stories, but these three were kind of the worst. I didn't connect at all.
Girls' night out follows Ashley, Lauren and Natalie on their trip to Tulun mexico. The girls, best friends for over 20 years, have had a rough couple of years and their friendship is in desperate need of new- good energie. When they meet a local man, Ashley seems to be glued to his side; instead of rebuilding their friendship. And then, after a very eventful night.. Where is Ashley?
The girls in this book all have their own problems; one is grieving over the loss of her husband, one is afraid she'll lose everything and is holding onto everything for dear life, and the other.. she just needs to get the other let go, in order to get what she really needs.. A fresh start.
The main characters are built well, they all seem to revolve around Ashley and she doesn't seem to mind that at all. When it's time to let go of that.. Alpha-girl thing, Lauren and Natalie first seem a little lost, but pick themselves up wonderfully. Because of that, the struggle to be their own person - so to say- it made all of the events in this book a lot more interesting. It felt super real and I could really connect with the girls.
The girls in this book all have their own problems; one is grieving over the loss of her husband, one is afraid she'll lose everything and is holding onto everything for dear life, and the other.. she just needs to get the other let go, in order to get what she really needs.. A fresh start.
The main characters are built well, they all seem to revolve around Ashley and she doesn't seem to mind that at all. When it's time to let go of that.. Alpha-girl thing, Lauren and Natalie first seem a little lost, but pick themselves up wonderfully. Because of that, the struggle to be their own person - so to say- it made all of the events in this book a lot more interesting. It felt super real and I could really connect with the girls.