Laura Dave’s highly anticipated new mystery is more of a heart-wrenching family drama than a suspenseful thriller. It delves into a father’s secret life, which prevents him from building healthy relationships with his children, who are also lost in their lives after his sudden death, dealing with their grief in their own ways.
A great read.

I enjoyed reading about Sam and Nora getting to know each other better, but the mystery itself was just ok. But this book is described as an epic love story. And although the second plot concentrates around Liam and Cory and their relationship, I just thought that the guy should have left the poor woman alone and not trying to overcompensate by marrying unsuitable other woman. For me, the highlight of the book was finding out who Cory really was, and relationship between Liam’s children. In a way, this is more a family drama than a mystery of a suspicious death. A nice and easy read, but will not really stay with me.

I found this to be more of a family drama than anything else. It was really hard to get into, a bit of a slow burn and then it felt forever waiting on a conclusion. It was an ok read but not one I would recommend to others.

I remember being completely engrossed by The Last Thing He Told Me when I read it 3 years ago, so I was excited to see a new book by this author buuut my experience of The Night We Lost Him was average.

It promised an interesting story with a plot that drew me in initially but it largely lacked any oomph and I didn’t find myself in a hurry to pick it up. I think it’s unrealistic to expect books to be non-stop exciting from first page to last but I like to be drip-fed little snatches of drama or intrigue throughout and this book didn’t provide me with that. The characters were okay but I didn’t really feel anything about them either way. I don’t have anything overly negative to say about this story, but equally not anything overwhelmingly positive either.

I loved this book. It isn’t a super twisty thriller which is what I was expecting. For me it was the perfect combination of thriller and romance. I didn’t see the twist coming. I loved the relationships between the characters and that there was such a complicated variety. It was fast paced to read too.

When Nora and Sam's father passes away they believe it looks too suspicious to be an accident and decide to work together to find out the truth about what happened that night.
I'd say this is more a family drama than a mystery/suspense novel but I loved this. I flew through this in a couple hours between the mystery surrounding Liam, the father's, death and his romance with Cory and Nora struggling through her grief and navigating her relationship with her fiance Jack I couldn't put it down. I shed a few tears at the end of this too and I liked how everyone's story wrapped up well. If you like heartwrenching family dramas you'll love this highly recommend.

Nora has been feeling lost since the death of her father a month previously. When her younger half brother Sam turns up and asks her to help him investigate the death she's torn. She's never been close with her siblings and now seems a strange time to start. However she finds herself on a flight to California and the cliff top home her father loved, which is now hers. Did Liam fall or was he pushed? We follow Liam's story from high school to his death meeting more characters along the way. The twist was not at all what I was expecting. An interesting story of life and family. #netgalley #thenightwelosthim

The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave

Nora is an architect who lives with her boyfriend who works as a chef. Nora’s way of designing a house focuses entirely on the well-being of the people who live there and lately she’d been considering a way of re—designing her father’s home, that was until his recent sudden death. The official version is he fell from the cliffs at his cottage on the pacific coast. This was the place he felt most at home and it was only a small cottage that he’d kept in its original state unlike the mega mansions that surrounded him. He always wanted it to remain the same as when he first saw it. Nora can’t believe he would have fallen. He knew every inch of that property, including the grounds. The alternative is even more unthinkable, she can’t imagine her father ever committing suicide. Her misgivings have stayed running around in her head until her brother Sam starts asking questions and begs her to help him look into it. Nora has always been responsible and inclined to put work before everything else, but something tells her to drop everything and go with Sam.

Their father Liam has had a chequered past when it comes to relationships, in fact Nora and Sam have different mothers. In between his children’s search we delve into the past and a relationship it seems nobody knew about. Here we read about his history with a woman called Cody that reaches back into his teens. It begins as a friendship but becomes so much more. They’re clearly in love, but the time never seems quite right. I felt that Cody was elusive, always ready with a ream of excuses about why it wasn’t right including the fact they’re ok as they are and don’t need a piece of paper to legitimise how they feel. However, for Liam it clearly does matter, he just wants to live in the open with the woman he loves. Liam has kept all of his other relationships very separate, including his children so not only are Nora and Sam discovering the truth about their father, they’re discovering each other. Nora also has complication in her own relationships, unsure about boyfriend Jack and still in contact with her ex.

I would describe this as a family drama rather than thriller because it doesn’t have those fast paced twists and turns we might expect. I found myself more intrigued by the romance aspect of who Liam’s secret woman was rather than how he died or who killed him. I was also interested in Nora and Sam and their developing relationship as they haven’t spent this much time together before. The effect of their quest on Nora and how she grows emotionally through the novel is the other well written part. Their journey works on her in a similar way to a counselling process, she sees her family members in a different light and becomes much more self-aware. I love people’s emotional lives and how the way they’ve been parented effects them. For their father Liam to have married Nora and Sam’s mothers, all the while loving someone else, must have the way he related to his wives and children. Why not be together? Or are they a couple who have endured simply because their relationship is full of captured moments and interludes? Ordinary life and the mundane day to day routine can bleed the romance from a relationship. Staying the course is what a commitment like marriage is about, accepting there will be bad times along the way. Did Cody know that Liam wasn’t able to sustain a long term relationship? Or was this inability to stay with one woman because he was in love with Cody? There were slower sections where I wasn’t as engaged with the story but it was these psychological insights and character development kept me reading, plus the ending was satisfying when it came.

I love how I can get completely lost in a Laura Dave thriller without feeling super stressed, I was just desperate to turn the pages.

The Night We Lost Him was about disconnected siblings and the loss of their beloved father. The key protagonists were Nora and Sam, two estranged siblings who began to suspect their father's death was not straight forward. Liam, their father, wasn't exactly husband of the year but he was a caring dad.

Through regular but brief flashbacks from Liam's early adulthood, a story of connection to a woman was revealed but it took until the last 10% of the story for me to really piece this together. When the big reveal came, I had to go back and reread a few pages, thinking I'd misunderstood but all while suspecting that Dave was twisting me all up... she was.

I romped through this story of relationships and I enjoyed the lower thriller stakes it brought. Somehow, it was also full of emotion. The length of the story was just right. I'll always pick this author's books, they deliver that shorter thrilling ride.

Thank you to Century Books for the eARC.

Great read, I will be looking out for this author in the future. It is more of a slow paced mystery than I am used to but for those who love a slow burn this will be perfect.

This book was hard to get into at first then it became a book about family and the death of a father the stories of the children and his they go about looking into his death I would have preferred a more suspenseful thriller but I will try another of this author books but this one really wasn’t for me

I loved this book it was such a great read. Things the first from this author and I’ll be reading more in future.

Laura Dave’s The Night We Lost Him is a masterful blend of suspense and emotional depth. With her signature compelling prose, Dave weaves a gripping story about love, loss, and the secrets that bind us. The characters feel authentic, and the twists kept me hooked until the very end. It’s a thought-provoking and addictive read that will linger with you long after the final page. A must-read for fans of domestic thrillers with heart!

This dual timeline family drama centres around the mystery of Nora’s fathers sudden death.
The plot and pacing hit the mark for me, but it felt like reading a script for a more wholesome version of Succession than an engaging mystery.

I felt as though there was so much potential for a setting to be so prominent that it’s almost a character, it felt that we were halfway there with her fathers cottage, but it didn’t quite get there for me. There wasn’t enough description or build up in atmosphere to give any of the settings real presence in my mind.
A lot of it fell quite flat for me, I found myself getting confused between the large cast of family members and friends as I couldn’t quite picture them all.

Thanks very much to NetGalley and the publishers for issuing me with a free Advanced Readers Copy in exchange for an honest review.

An interesting idea for a storyline.

Nora Noone and her stepbrother Sam Noone have never been close, that is, until their father dies under mysterious circumstances at his home on the edge of a cliff situated in Central California Coast.

Sam is convinced that their father was murdered. The police have written off his death as a fall. Yet the siblings know how careful their father was about getting too close to the edge of the cliff.

They agree to travel to California to see if they can allay their fears of murder. This journey to try to uncover the reason of their father’s death is going to open boxes of secrets about Liam Samuel Noone’s life that they and their other siblings were unaware of.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Laura Dave has given us a storyline that makes us, the readers, concentrate on how Nora and Sam tackle the puzzle of his death. How fractured family relationships can be overcome and how grief can take us to places we never expected to experience.

Rony

Elite Reviewing Group received a copy of the book from NetGalley to review.

I was late to the Laura Dave train last time, and I’m so happy I wasn’t this time. Her writing is just SO enjoyable, and the twisty turns she takes always takes me by surprise and she keeps me enthralled in the pages and not wanting to put it down

Family drama and mystery all rolled in to one.

Promising story at first involving a hotel businessman who suddenly dies falling off a cliff at his holiday home.

Suspicions mount with Sam and half sister Nora trying to solve the death/accident.

Bit slow at first and no real excitement for me. Possibly because I don't really like the timeline scenario.

Not quite a 4 I am afraid., but thanks to Net Galley and Random House UK Cornerstone for the chance to read and review..

Liam Noone is a rich property developer dies in mysterious circumstances. Married three times. A daughter with first wife, two boys from his second and a girl from his third marriage. The official verdict is that it was due to him having fallen. Nora receives a visit from her half brother Sam. Sam is convinced that it wasn’t an accident. And so begins an intriguing story of their search for the truth. A truth that no one seems to want to discuss. The storyline slowly reveals the story of Liam and the secrets that he never wanted to reveal to his family. This kept me inter3st from start to finish. A satisfying tale of complicate£ family relationships, love and loyalty.

This is not an easy book to review. It is very well written, with the premise of Sam and Norah, half- siblings, trying to find out how their father died and what his state of mind was at the time. Their family history is extremely complicated and convoluted, their father having married three times, and having several offspring. Some of his children work in his highly successful company, some do not.
The writing style is very much ‘stream of consciousness’ when describing every scene, and every character’s thoughts, and the constant introspection became very wearing for this reader.
Norah and Sam chase around various family places in USA as they pursue their quest, but with much more enthusiasm than I had as I read about it. In the end, they did discover the ‘mystery’ surrounding their father’s death, and the reasons behind it. However for me, it was an anti- climax. Norah’s doubts and soul- searching about her possible future with her soul- mate Jack, her fiancé, were just irritating. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3 stars from me.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advance copy of this book.

This is the first book iv read by Laura and I really enjoyed it. I like a duel timeline and the mystery of Cory and also Liam’s fall had me gripped all the way through. There was also the subplots of Nora’s and Sam’s relationships as well as their investigation. All equaled to a really good read and I would recommend it. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this early copy.