Readers' rating:
Published Oct 2019
352 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
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.
"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.
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.
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