It Could Have Been Her
- Judith D Collins
- a few seconds ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 4 minutes ago
By: Lisa Jewell
Narrators: James Norton, Lesley Sharp, Joanna David, Emilia Fox, Freddie Fox, Tim McInnerny, Harriet Fisher, Ella Rae Smith, Elsa Lepecki Bean
Simon & Schuster Audio
ISBN: 9781668033906
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication Date: 06/23/2026
Format: Hardcover
My Rating: 5 Stars (ARC)
#1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell brings her signature dark, atmospheric suspense and sharp acuity to this new psychological thriller about a lost dog, a missing woman, and a mysterious house.
Jane Trevally is walking her dogs on her country estate one May afternoon when a small white dog appears. The teenaged girl that had been staying nearby with the dog is nowhere to be found, and Jane decides to return it to his registered owner hours away in London, in the deepest backwaters of Hampstead. But when Jane arrives, she is immediately unsettled—because she has a dark history with this house.
The man who answers the door tells her the dog, Hugo, must have been stolen from the Heath, but Jane very much doubts that is true. Through the window, she catches a glimpse of a haunted-looking woman, not the missing girl she’d hoped to find.
Facing a crossroads similar to the one that first led her to this home twenty-five years ago, Jane knows that the house holds the key—to the missing teenager, to the lost dog, and to dark secrets they’d all rather leave buried.
My Review
A pitch-black, deeply unsettling Gothic domestic suspense masterclass.
"A haunting and meticulously layered puzzle where a chance encounter with a lost dog resurrects a house of horrors and buried family sins."
In It Could Have Been Her, #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell delivers what is easily her darkest and most addictive thriller to date. The story hinges on an intuitive amateur sleuth who returns a lost dog, only to find herself trapped in the gravity of a menacing estate she barely escaped twenty-five years ago. A missing teenager vs. the terrifying echoes of a traumatic past.
Elevator Pitch
When a loose dog leads Jane Trevally to the gates of Thornwood—a dilapidated Hampstead mansion tied to a terrifying night from her youth—she stumbles onto a new nightmare. A young vacationing teenager has vanished, a cagey man claims ignorance, and a haunted woman watches from the window. To find the girl, Jane must confront her own historical trauma and dissect the secrets of a deeply dysfunctional family before the house claims another victim.
A Lost Dog. A Missing Girl. A House of Horrors.
Setting
An ominous shift between a sprawling country estate and Thornwood—a run-down, imposing mansion tucked away in the deep backwaters of Hampstead Heath, London. The setting functions as its own entity, steeped in Gothic dread, heavy foreboding, and structural decay.
Vibe
Creepy, multi-layered, and deeply atmospheric. The author masterfully fuses the haunting, house-centric psychological dread of The Family Upstairs with the sweeping, trauma-informed tension of a Chris Whitaker novel like All the Colors of the Dark.
Genre
Psychological Suspense / Domestic Thriller / Gothic Mystery.
Themes
~The Echoes of Traumatic Space
~The Dysfunctional Family Structure
~Intuition and Accidental Justice
~Intertwined Fates
JANE & THE THORNWOOD PRISONERS
Turning an accidental investigator and a fractured family into a high-stakes psychological game.
Standout Characters
~Jane Trevally: Endearing, sharp-witted, and deeply observant; a protagonist returning from Don't Let Him In who steps onto the path of becoming a private investigator.
~Dexter Lombardi: Jane’s loyal and supportive stepson who assists her in tracing the microchip and navigating the initial London search.
~The Haunted Window Woman: A silent, terrified captive glimpsed through the Thornwood glass, serving as the physical proof of the home’s ongoing rot.
Author Writing Standout
Jewell’s signature multi-timeline pacing is at absolute peak performance here. By effortlessly transitioning from 2005 through alternating perspectives up to May 2026, she builds an incredible sense of slow-burn dread and immediate momentum. She strips away any safety nets, treating complex family dysfunction with raw, visceral realism that gets inside the reader's head.
Takeaway
The past never truly stays buried; it merely waits behind closed doors, biding its time until a single open gate drags its darkest secrets back into the light.
Title Significance
It Could Have Been Her serves as a chilling, double-edged realization. It highlights Jane's sudden awareness that the missing teenager's current nightmare is the exact fate Jane narrowly escaped decades prior, while emphasizing the thin, fragile line between survival and becoming another tragedy.
Metaphor
The missing dog, Hugo, serves as the central metaphor of the novel. He represents the catalyst of truth—an innocent, roaming creature that breaks free from a web of domestic isolation, inadvertently leading an investigator straight to a hidden house of horrors.
Why You Should Read
Read this if you love dark, boundary-pushing domestic suspense like None of This Is True meets The Invisible Girl, or if you are a fan of Chris Whitaker’s ability to dissect deeply buried family sins and historical scars. It is a superbly written, puzzle-box mystery driven by an irresistible, nosy protagonist who refuses to look away
My Thoughts
The novel succeeds beautifully in executing a masterclass in domestic suspense. The slow-burn dread of Thornwood—the crumbling Hampstead Heath house—paired with Jane’s relentless, intuitive drive keeps you turning pages at maximum speed. What makes it work so well is the balance. Jewell perfectly weighs harrowing psychological tension against pure, unputdownable structural wit.
Verdict: 5 / 5 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"A dark, masterfully layered psychological triumph that proves why Lisa Jewell remains the undisputed queen of modern suspense fiction."
Recs
For more standout psychological thrillers, I highly recommend some of Lisa's fabulous backlist.
~Don't Let Him In by Lisa Jewell, for the essential backstory establishing our incredible main character, Jane.
~The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell, for another brilliant, claustrophobic look into an unsettling house of long-buried secrets.
~The Last One at the Wedding by Jason Rekulak, for a matching, high-tension modern suspense landscape steeped in deep family trauma.
Special thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for sharing an advanced reading copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 5 Stars
Pub Date: June 23 2026
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Praise
"Jewell is one of the best writers of psychological thrillers, and this one spectacularly showcases her gifts for character design and plotting. We get the sense that the author was having an especially good time crafting this one, too, and very much enjoying the agonizing suspense she’s putting us through...Magnificent."
—Booklist
"With a shrewd command of the narrative, Jewell turns a chance encounter into a disturbing treatise on the past’s ability to assert itself in ways both unwelcome and unlikely . . . . [a] pitch-black spine-tingler."
—Publishers Weekly
“Deliciously dark, devilishly addictive and beautifully written. This gripping, twisted tale will keep you guessing until the end. Nobody writes like Lisa Jewell."
—Alice Feeney, New York Times bestselling author of My Husband’s Wife
“Twisty, twisted and oh so dark. Lisa Jewell once again proves herself a master of suspense.”
—Riley Sager, New York Times bestselling author of With a Vengeance
“Another top-notch thriller, featuring the most endearing protagonist that I can easily identify with—a nosy middle-aged woman who stumbles across the story of a missing girl and decides to investigate it herself. Alternately cozy and harrowing, it investigates the most toxic family I have ever read. Superbly written with wit and class, Lisa Jewell remains at the top of her game with this entertaining and twisty thriller.”
—Liz Nugent, author of Strange Sally Diamond
“Absolutely stunning storytelling, with layer after layer deftly and tantalizingly revealed, and a denouement that is so perfect, so devilishly clever, and yet I didn’t see it coming. A true masterpiece.”
—Andrea Mara, author of All Her Fault
About the Author
Lisa Jewell is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-four novels, including Don’t Let Him In, None of This Is True, The Family Upstairs, and Then She Was Gone, as well as Invisible Girl and Watching You. Her novels have sold more than fifteen million copies internationally, and her work has also been translated into over thirty languages. Connect with her on X @LisaJewellUK, on Instagram @LisaJewellUK, and on Facebook @LisaJewellOfficial.
