My Review on Gone Before Goodbye by Reese Witherspoon & Harlan Coben

I have read Harlan Coben books in the past. I have liked most of them. However, this book was different because I could notice when the story was in Reese Witherspoon's voice as it unfolded and when Coben's voice was made known. Knowing that Ms. Witherspoon has written scripts for movies in the past I felt she was trying to write in that mindset as the book began. As the novel progressed it seemed to change in an author's novel voice and more of a book form until the conclusion. Gone Before Goodbye, being the first novel for Ms. Witherspoon, was slow in development in the first half of the novel. This is where I felt Coben came in and he probably was writing the male characters, while she was the voice on Maggie McCabe the main character / narrator and maybe the other female characters. This is where the story seemed to really take off. It seemed more interesting from the beginning of the second half to the final parts of the story as Maggie deals with many points introduced from the story's early layout. She had to come to terms with her past, the attention using her acquired skills as a plastic surgeon and her relationship with Mark her husband, Pork Chop her father in law and other characters introduced throughout. This pacing seemed to increase faster as the story was progressing to its conclusion as Maggie deals with her grief losing her husband and having to deal with Russian interests. A conclusion which I did not see coming. I decided to not read this printed book but instead listen to the audio book because I heard there was going to be something different for me in the recording. The introduction of an ensembled voice cast of actors. Some were screen actors like Reese as the narrator and the voice of Maggie. Another screen / voice actors were Chris Pine as Mark for another example. I liked this audio book. This might be better than the written page because of the performances of the cast of voices helping the story flow better in my head for the plot, setting and character structure with voice separations. This is a well done book and worth the attention if you are looking for a suspense thriller and you have been or are a Harlan Coben fan.