Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of One Night Gone by Tara Laskowski

One Night Gone by Tara Laskowski

One Night Gone

by Tara Laskowski

  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • Published:
  • Oct 2019, 352 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

It was the perfect place to disappear...

One sultry summer, Maureen Haddaway arrives in the wealthy town of Opal Beach to start her life anew—to achieve her destiny.

There, she finds herself lured by the promise of friendship, love, starry skies, and wild parties. But Maureen's new life just might be too good to be true, and before the summer is up, she vanishes.

Decades later, when Allison Simpson is offered the opportunity to house-sit in Opal Beach during the off-season, it seems like the perfect chance to begin fresh after a messy divorce. But when she becomes drawn into the mysterious disappearance of a girl thirty years before, Allison realizes the gorgeous homes of Opal Beach hide dark secrets. And the truth of that long-ago summer is not even the most shocking part of all.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"The voices of the two narrators are vibrant, as are the descriptions of Opal Beach. At the heart of this intriguing thriller lies a disturbing awareness of society's inclination to view women as disposable. Laskowski is off to a fine start." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"One Night Gone's strength lies in its all-pervading sense of precariousness: everything is fragile, unstable and under threat, from Maureen's prized freedom and Allison's hard-won recovery to the intricate framework of relationships and hierarchies that underpins life in the small seaside town. It makes for a subtly but relentlessly unsettling book." - Tana French, author of The Witch Elm

"A heart-wrenching and suspenseful novel of betrayal and revenge. A stunning debut! " - Carol Goodman, Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of The Night Visitors

"Featuring a brilliantly executed dual timeline with two unforgettable narrators, Tara Laskowski's One Night Gone is a timely and timeless mystery, one that will keep you obsessively reading well past your bedtime." - Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts

"Absolutely gripping. This multi-layered and gorgeously structured tale of betrayal, murder, and redemption will haunt you long after the book is over. The talented Tara Laskowski, with her confident hand, beautifully drawn characters and unique style, is sure to be a major voice in crime fiction." - Hank Phillippi Ryan, bestselling and award-winning author of Trust Me

This information about One Night Gone was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Mary

I just love a good mystery, and One Night Gone is a good mystery
I was drawn in from the very beginning . First off this was just what I needed for this month a good mystery with no romance, just the mystery and suspense of wondering what is going on. I loved seeing that with every clue I was just trying to figure out what really happened.

Then there was the back and fourth through time seeing how things started for Maureen and what eventually led to her end. The way the book ended as well was surprising, and as I read I was pulled in deeper and deeper and I was truly glued to every word on every page.

I recommend to you lovely readers that you really need to check this book out. Pulls you in and doesn’t let you go till the very end. Such a great read, highly recommend!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Tara Laskowski

Tara Laskowski is the award-winning author of two short story collections, Modern Manners for Your Inner Demons and Bystanders, which the Guardian named a best book of 2017. She has had stories published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Mid-American Review, among others, and is the editor of SmokeLong Quarterly. Tara earned a BA in English from Susquehanna University and an MFA from George Mason University and currently lives in Virginia. One Night Gone is her first novel.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more thrillers...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    The Frozen River
    by Ariel Lawhon
    "I cannot say why it is so important that I make this daily record. Perhaps because I have been ...
  • Book Jacket
    Prophet Song
    by Paul Lynch
    Paul Lynch's 2023 Booker Prize–winning Prophet Song is a speedboat of a novel that hurtles...
  • Book Jacket: The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
    The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
    by Lynda Cohen Loigman
    Lynda Cohen Loigman's delightful novel The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern opens in 1987. The titular ...
  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Story Collector
by Evie Woods
From the international bestselling author of The Lost Bookshop!
Book Jacket
The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters
A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl disappears, leaving a mystery unsolved for fifty years.
Who Said...

A library is a temple unabridged with priceless treasure...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.