You Look Beautiful Tonight

A Thriller

By: L. R. Jones

Narrated by: Andi Arndt

Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

A secret admirer’s devotion turns deadly in a twisting novel of psychological suspense.

Mia Anderson is an invisible woman. An unremarkable thirty-two-year-old Tennessee librarian, she’s accustomed to disappearing in a crowd, unseen and unheard. Then she receives an anonymous note: You look beautiful today.

It doesn’t stop there. The attentive stranger—a secret admirer named Adam—has plans for Mia. With each new text comes a suggestion for her hair, clothes, or attitude, and for the first time in memory, Mia feels noticed. Slowly, she develops a confidence in herself she’s never had. But Adam has a surprise coming…and Mia finally sees him for who he is and what he’s prepared to do for her. Even kill.

Fearing she could be implicated in the murder, Mia’s forced to turn to the stranger in the shadows watching her every move. Adam’s game of cat and mouse begins with Mia as the prey. In order to survive, she must also become the predator.

©2023 by Julie Patra Publishing, Inc. (P)2023 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“In this devilishly twisty standalone…Jones reveals her characters’ secrets and motives slowly, expertly ratcheting up the pace before an explosive conclusion. This white-knuckler is not to be missed.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Not what I expected

I didn’t want to finish this title but didn’t want to waste a credit so I did. I’m glad I did the ending is the best part and so unexpected.

Building confidence

3.5

Mia is a timid insecure woman who works at a library. She’s not very assertive or confident in her life. She’s currently single but has two amazing friends Jess and Jack. Jack works with her at the library. Mia has known Jess for quite some time. At one point they lived together. Mia will do anything for Jess including joining a dating app so Hess can write an article on the experience. …
The story is tied up on this concept about helping Mia build up her confidence at home, at work, with friends, and with guys. When Mia joins the dating app Adam begins a conversation with her. Of course, she’s skeptical and flattered considering she’s been known as “the invisible girl” her entire life. Adam encourages her to take control of her life or he will be forced to take control for her. This is where it gets interesting. Mia’s situation with Adam creates fear and paranoia to the point she longer wants to be noticed.
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The premise of You Look Beautiful Tonight is transforming Mia from an insecure woman into a confident woman who takes charge of her life. It begins with a dating app and ends with murder.
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L.R. Jones generated plenty of suspicion with various characters. While I appreciate every crazy notion, I remained impassive about this type of thriller. Some writers have a way with words that capture a readers full attention. While I appreciate the effort to create an original plot scheme I was not entirely invested in this book. Had it not been for the exceptional performance by Andi Arndt I would’ve missed out on this one. I just found out this book was written by Lisa Renee Jones. That’s wild. Kind of changes my perspective on this book. In a good way. Looking back I’ve read seven books by Lisa Renee Jones making this book eight. Although I’m still on the fence with my rating toggling between 3.5 and 4. The writing was smart and intelligent. This was an easy smooth read. The concept was fantastic if not a little humorous in all the wrong ways. The humor came from me questioning the authenticity of the situation. I was in disbelief about what transpired at the hands of Adam. For some reason I’m stuck on the execution part because it slumped in some areas where I wasn’t completed invested in the storyline.
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This audiobook by Andi Arndt proves her voice acting skills because without her narration I wouldn’t have enjoyed this book as much as I did. Plain and simple it’s the premise, but with Andi’s performance these characters came alive. Andi enhanced my listening experience as well as my overall experience with this book. Bravo! To Andi for her ability to not only read the authors words but do it in a way that makes them come alive. She really transports readers with her voice catching my attention.

It’s allllllllright

To many chapters, plot ran to long. It’s okay good suspense but a bit boring at times.

Excellent read

The story was extremely well written, and I never saw the twist at the end coming. Great read!

Great story, with a weak twist

The first half of the book is rather slow, daily life stuff. You get hints and glipses that something is wrong with the setting early on, but once the second act starts in full force, everything feels lightning fast.

The mistery is interesting at first, with the reveal of the dark side of Mia's secret admirer shifting the story into something very different from the first half. After that, the mistery switches to who might be the secret admirer, but it's not difficult to deduce who it is. When the reveal came, I was waiting for some sort of double fake out, but then it was really what I thought it was and everytthing suddenly ended, all the loose ends tightly shut.

The narration is excellent. Each character feels like they have their own voice.

I liked the story, but the twist didn't feel like a twist at all, rather, I was wondering how Mia didn't pick up on all the clues (there were many).

If you want to read a story with excellent prose and interesting characters, this is the story for you. Just don't expect the ending to surprise you a whole lot.

Very enjoyable

This story drags a bit in places, but is overall a very good read. I have to say that I did not see the end coming. I’m always disappointed when I can unravel the plot too easily, and that certainly didn’t happen here.

Twisted but good

I enjoyed the audio book and the whodunnit storyline. The heroine was not strong but loved her friends and family. She was easily fooled into believing things detrimental to her. Her best friend has a strong personality but stands by her, trying to expand her horizons. Jack is another good friend whose friendship seems so natural. But as Adam plays tricks and starts his murder spree, Mia’s confusion increases but she also starts standing up for herself. It’s a mix of personal growth spurred by threats and murdered. Healthy? Ha!!

I did enjoy the book and was surprised at the end.

Good narration.

Kept me listening

The MC was stupid, as well as a Karen at times, but I still enjoyed the book🤣 I’m not a high-brow literature connoisseur; I just want something entertaining. This *was* entertaining. Sure, there were some dumb things in the story, but it kept me wanting to listen, to find out what happened next. Honestly, that’s all I want from a book, so it did its job👍

Start slow ..

It started slow and I almost stopped listening but after the 5th chapter it started to get very interesting and I was hooked! Great story and kept me on my toes!

Surprise ending

It wasn’t a bad read , an average read with a good plot twist at the end.