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| British Author Lisa Jewell |
Author: Lisa Jewell
Published: Jun 2026
Pages: 373
My Rating: 4/5 stars
Find it on Amazon here
Book Blurb
Lisa Jewell brings the suspense to this shocking new thriller about a lost dog, a missing woman, and a house of long buried secrets.
Jane Trevally is walking her dogs on her country estate when a small white terrier appears, alone and with no sign of the teenaged girl he’d been staying with nearby. When the teenager is reported missing, Jane offers to return the dog to his registered owner, hours away in London. Arriving at a run-down house called Thornwood in the deepest backwaters of Hampstead, she is immediately on alert—because Jane has a dark history with this house.
The man who answers the door is not the man that Jane remembers from her past. He is cagey, and claims to know nothing about the missing teenage girl. Then, through the window of the house, Jane catches a glimpse of a haunted-looking woman.
Conjuring her memories from twenty-five years ago, Jane knows this unsettling house holds the key—to the missing teenager, to her own traumatic story, and to the dark secrets of the past.
My Thoughts!
Back to Lisa Jewell after a while - the cover and title seemed promising, and in a lucky streak, I was finding all sorts of new releases available at our library, so why not!?And this one was a winner! Honestly I wasn’t expecting much, and when I started reading, it took a good 100 pages to be completely immersed in it, but boy was it worth it. The last one by Jewell I read was Don’t Let Him In which I remembered feeling annoyed about, and within the first few pages we see a clear reference to Paddy Swan, a character in that book, so I wasn’t hopeful -but I ended up really enjoying this mystery. The central character is Jane Trevally, now in her 50s (or 60s? I forget, thanks to my mom brain), trying to maintain her breaking-into-pieces family estate and living with her 4 dogs. She notices a small lost dog one day in the woods by her home, and realizes it belongs to a young, teenage girl that's gone missing. Jane has a penchant for mysteries and she absolutely wants to find this girl, and so she starts following clues, trying to piece together the parts of the puzzle. She stays in London for a few days while trying to solve this "disappearance", helped by her stepson Dexter (who is shown to be SO sweet! I loved him). We get a bit of backstory and how Jane is PERSONALLY tied to this mystery (she was once "almost" sort-of-kidnapped/stuck in a weird home with a weird vibe but had managed to escape, and now that very home is at the center of this disappearance, so Jane HAS TO find out the truth, for the sake of her own sanity if nothing else). Hence the title, "It could have been her".
We get three different timelines reading simultaneously, and while it gets confusing at the beginning, it is also very engaging and interesting. One is the present, one is the past (when Jane was almost-abducted), and one is from the generation before! It's an intricate story, well woven-together, and well narrated. There were some parts that felt a little unrealistic, like Dexter drawing conclusions so precisely when things look like just a shot in the dark (or maybe I'm jealous of his skills, I dunno). The book is also somewhat "heavy" with the themes of abuse, trauma and its ripple effects, living with dark secrets, family and belonging. The story overall is a sad one, with its characters lives intermingled in chaotic ways that feel threatening even as a reader, and always, always disturbing. This is definitely not your average light-read and definitely not for when you want to feel happy. JK! I was totally engrossed in this and was a true late-night reader while this one was being read, and I ended up really appreciating and liking this book. SO YES, I'm gonna recommend it for fans of psychological thrillers and anyone looking for an engaging, high quality book. (And yes, I'm gonna be open to reading more Lisa Jewell now).
