The Night We Lost Him: A Novel by Laura Dave
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Web ID: 20312254Family Mystery
This novel packs in a few too many characters for my liking and worse, the arcs for them are often lacking. In spite of this, I did enjoy unraveling the mystery behind the death of a father as his children (estranged through divorce(s)) poke blame at others and each other and try to find answers to their dad's sudden demise (considered an accident by police). The pacing of this story was a little slower than some of her other books, but it did hold my interest. I do love unraveling a mystery, even if at times it seems a little forced. Thanks to Simon & Schuster and Net Galley for the ARC. This is my honest review.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Secrets, and lies, and love.
Nora's mother passed away some months ago, and now, her father, Liam, has died in a freak accident. In the weeks following her father's death, she is confronted by one of her estranged brothers (from her father's 2nd marriage) with news of things in the will, as well as the thought that maybe their father's death was not an accident, Nora and her brother, Sam start bi-costal inquiry into the night their father died, and the things in his life he kept just to and for himself. Told from Nora's present day point of view alternating chapters with her father's perspective starting 51 years ago, author Laura Dave strings together a beautiful life of love and loyalty, and what they mean to different people. At under 250 pages, this is an easy read that moves along at a great pace. The time/narration jumps were well documented by chapter titles. Though I did find Nora's chapter titles to be odd and not always "on topic" which left me wondering at times if I was missing something important. (But then I got swept up in the story and stopped thinking so much about them.) Thank you, NetGalley and Simon Element of Simon & Schuster for the change to read this ARC.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Fascinating
Nora and her brother Sam are heartbroken when their father passes away after falling from a cliff at his home. Things are even more confusing and painful when they find out Liam's death was not an accident. Nora has professionally followed in her father's footsteps by becoming an architect, and she searches for answers to why she has been named as the one to inherit the cliffside home Windbreak, and also how her father died.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
A thriller with a lot of heart!
An unexpected death, a family fortune, and three estranged siblings. Add in one father, three divorces, and four love stories. Yes, it gets complicated. As love does. This is, at its heart, a love story. A man’s love for a woman, a father’s love for his children, a child’s love for their parents. It’s a slow burn mystery that is much more about the “why” than the “what” or “how.” Laura Dave walks us through many complex emotions as she slowly unravels the mystery of this dual timeline story, weaving a deeper narrative of love, acceptance, purpose, and what it means to love and be loved simply for who we are. I enjoyed this book very much, even though I struggled with one big “Why?” that I can’t spoil for you here. 😉 If you appreciated Laura Dave’s previous novel The Last Thing He Told Me and other domestic “thrillers” that are more about the family story than the mystery, this one may be right up your alley! Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and author for Thank you to Simon & Schuster, NetGalley, and author #LauraDave for the complimentary copy! It was my pleasure to write this candid review. Synopsis: Nora Noone is the eldest child of resort titan Liam Noone, but she’s never been interested in the family business – or its financial benefits. Though she loves her father, she doesn’t understand him, and has gone to great lengths to keep him at arms length since the death of her mother. After his sudden death, Nora and her estranged half-brother Sam suspect it wasn’t just an accident, and struggle to find out what really happened the night their father fell from his beloved cliff-top coastal home.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
A slow-burn family drama
I loved Laura Dave’s best-selling thriller, THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME. I even enjoyed the adaptation with Jennifer Garner on Apple TV. So, I was super excited to get a copy of her newest book. Unfortunately, life didn’t allow me as much reading time as I hoped and it took me a bit to get through it. But, I also noticed that this time, I wasn’t as compelled to keep reading as I was with her last book. I read THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME in two days and THE NIGHT WE LOST HIM in six weeks. I read a lot at the beginning learning the back story and the characters. Then, I read quickly at the end, knowing the conclusion and answer to what happened to Liam was looming closer. The middle was a bit of a slower-paced read for me. As someone who has been grieving the loss of my dad this year, I found this quote to be so affirming. Nora is on the phone with Sam, hearing him say that he thinks they need to go to California and look into their dad’s death. “I run my hands over my eyes, exhausted. Grief is exhausting. No one talks about that. Or, at least, no one told me. No one told me just how exhausting it feels to carry it around with you. And it uses the same muscle as love. Because with real love you have to show up and give. You have to show up and be given to. And it’s not so much that I’ve forgotten how. It’s that it’s all added up to be so heavy.” Estranged siblings Nora, Sam, and Tommy are struggling with the grief of losing their father in a tragic accident on his property. When Sam calls Nora with the idea that it wasn’t an accident, the two of them join forces to find out what really happened that night on the cliff at his property, Windbreak. “I don’t like that I’m thinking about the beginning. In my experience that usually happens when you are approaching an end you don’t want. Why are beginnings and endings so intricately linked? Maybe because they aren’t the opposite of each other—their DNA is the same. They are the two things we all try to fix.” Liam, a hotel magnate, apparently kept a lot of secrets from his children. Even though both of his sons worked with him in the Noone Properties business, there was a lot that they didn’t know about. Nora wants nothing to do with her father’s business or his properties, but when she finds out he left her his cliffside home, she is confused, heartbroken over the lost time together, and struggling to find answers to her questions. Even though there is a mystery about what happened to Liam looming throughout the story, I would be hard-pressed to call this more than that. A mystery. It didn’t feel suspenseful or thriller-like. I wasn’t anxious or white-knuckled while reading. To me, it felt more like a family drama where, over time, we get small pieces of the story that eventually will fall into place and reveal the puzzle we’ve been trying to put together. “It feels like they’re all pushing their own agenda, like they’re sharing just a small piece of a puzzle that they don’t want us to solve.” The story is told through short chapters, alternating between flashbacks in Liam’s life and the present day with Sam and Nora. There were several characters to get to know right away and one particular character has two names which you don’t realize until later on. I related to Nora in the story, coming to terms with her father’s death, with the possibility that it wasn’t an accident, and with some regrets over their relationship. Nora is also struggling in her relationship with her significant other, Jack, and what the future holds for them. I really enjoyed Nora and watching her change and learn about herself in the story. Nora designs buildings, homes, etc, using neuroarchitecture. It’s a term I’ve never heard before involving spaces built specifically to benefit memory and mental stimulation, and to avoid stress. That sounds like someplace I would like to live. If you are looking for a fast-paced thriller like Dave’s previous novel, you won’t find it here. Instead this slow burn, family drama, leads up to a conclusion that isn’t shocking but leaves you feeling like the characters are going to find a way through their grief and reach happiness on the other side. As a side note, there is a planned sequel for THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME publishing in 2025!
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Decent Mystery but annoying characters
The Night We Lost Him was my second novel by Laura Dave and I have given both novels 3 stars. I believe I just am not the right audience for her mysteries. (I would still try some of her previous works that were more straight fiction than mystery.) I found myself annoyed from the start of this book: The way the gather kept his children from different mothers separate, but apparently loved them all. Their attitudes toward interacting with one another also annoyed me, especially Nora's since there was no reason for her to hold ill-will toward her brothers as far as I could tell. In any case, I liked the book and the mystery. As the blurb said, the ending twist was a heartbreaking one. I would recommend The Night We Lost Him to people who liked The Last Thing He Told Me or to newer mystery readers who maybe don't have the expectations I do for being compelled through a book and having the characters behave in relatable ways.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Twisty mystery
This story is a popular two-timeline tale with lots of mystery involved. In the current timeline, Nora and her half brother, Sam don’t believe that their father accidentally fell over a cliff at his beach retreat in California. The historical timeline addresses their father, Liam’s long term affair with a woman known as Cory. As the siblings jet set from coast to coast in their quest to discover the truth, many suspects are introduced as they unravel Liam’s well kept secrets. I enjoyed reading this book and really got caught up in trying to figure out the mystery of Cory and how she may have been involved in Liam’s death. The intricacies of the mystery were pulled back layer after layer and I felt like my attention was being shifted all over the place in a good way. The guessing became fun as the characters became more complicated. I did find the story to bog down a bit at times and all the flying back and forth by Nora and Sam to chase leads seemed like a bit too much but I did enjoy the twist at the end and absolutely did not predict it.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Family Drama with a hint of mystery!
Thank you to Simon Element and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book to read and give my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own. I was excited to get a book by Dave as I've really enjoyed the other books I have read by this author. In all honesty, I didn't even read the blurb because I know I like her writing and figured whatever it was I'd enjoy it. I was expecting a mystery perhaps with a little bit of thrill to it, but that's not really what I got. Is it a mystery, for sure. But not in the most common sense of the genre. This one is filled with a lot of family dynamics that the characters worked through and I thoroughly enjoyed that part of the story. There is a lot of heart-wrenching family drama which the characters work through. Dave has a way of writing characters that are deep and emotional. I get sucked into them and their development. I loved watching the ones in this book morph and change a bit while still maintaining who they are. I find them very relatable and it's easy to feel their emotions through the words on the page. The characters come together through tragedy. Despite being family, they have never truly been connected. But their father's death brings them into each other's paths and they find they have more in common than they thought. It was nice watching Nora build a relationship with her brother. The timeline alternates between present and past giving us a glimpse at the character who is no longer with us during the present chapters. Nora narrates the present chapters while the past chapters are seen through her father Liam's eyes. The past progresses towards the present as the author slowly builds the characters towards what they are in the present. The writing is really great in this book. It grabbed me right from the starts. I was eager to turn the pages and learn what would happen in the next chapter. I would say this was definitely fast paced as I finished it in two days. If you're looking for what Dave gave you in her book prior to this one, you're not going to get quite as much mystery. It's there, but this book really is more about the family and how they learn about each other through their pasts and their presents. This is a slow burn mystery with family drama. Dave will continue to be an auto-buy/read author for me in the future.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com