Book Review: The Night Before by Wendy Walker

Hello, Fellow Book Worms and Book Dragons!

  Emma in the Night was a favorite novel of mine in 2017. I gave it five stars and was genuinely excited to read another of Wendy Walker's novels. Last week while visiting my favorite bookshop I was handed her latest novel by an eager bookseller that highly recommended it. 

  The Night Before is Wendy Walker's third suspense novel, and it is published by St. Martin's Press. We are introduced to Laura Lochner, a tragic woman who has carried the terrifying vision of her high school boyfriend's murder. Many believed that she had killed Mitch Adler due to the fact that she was found standing over his body with a baseball bat. Eleven years later Laura has a successful job on Wall Street in New York City, and she is dating a wonderful man that truly loves her. But one day she receives a text from her current beau stating he never wants to see her again. Devastated she moves back to Connecticut, into her sister's home. She takes a leave of absence from work and spends her days miserable over her break up. With some urging she creates a profile on an online dating site. After some tweaks to her profile she meets Jonathan Fields, an aging divorced man. He seems nice and she agrees to meet him.

  Hours after she leaves her sister's home, Laura is missing. Her sister Rosie is beside herself with worry. With the help of her school friend Gabe and her husband Joe, she embarks on a journey to find Laura. What she begins to find are disturbing stories from women who have dated Jonathan Fields in the past. One woman has a single word for Rosie: "RUN!". What happened to Laura? Is she in danger with Jonathan Fields? Or will history repeat itself and find Laura standing over the body of another dead man.... baseball bat in hand?

  The Night Before was an excellent mystery. Walker's ability to keep her reader in suspense is on full display here. I enjoyed the structure of the novel, which utilizes therapy sessions and points of view from both Laura and Rosie. This served the plot well, building suspense. I was invested in finding Laura and I was always wondering just what happened that night her high school boyfriend Mitch was murdered. If she killed him, did she also kill Jonathan? Walker toyed with Laura's sanity during the duration of the novel, making me and Laura question her veracity. The reveal at the end was very surprising, however the execution of the reveal was a bit anti-climactic. During a Laura flashback we are introduced to the twist. When Rosie finally finds out the truth it took some of the steam out of the final confrontation for me. I would have preferred to have found out the twist the same time as Rosie. Regardless the ending was excellent.

  I read the Night Before in part with the narration of actresses, Gabra Zackman (Rosie) and Saskia Maarleveld (Laura). Their combined effort worked very well. I enjoyed their presentation, each giving an excellent performance. I enjoyed the way that they owned their characters and added their own dimension to the narrative.

  The Night Before was a four star read for me. I had a lot of fun trying to figure out the mystery despite my one complaint. The characters were likeable and the danger was tense at times. This is definitely a great Summer read that will have you guessing.  

  Have fun reading this week. Let me know in the comments below what you are reading this week.

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