Lisa jewel is one of my favorite authors-her ability to tell a story, is nothing short of amazing. With that said, I am sadly so disappointed in her latest book. Typically, I am pulled into Lisa’s books from the beginning pages. In contrast, this book started very slowly. The many characters, changing timelines, and multiple POV’s, made the story-telling clumsy and murky. The many timelines were confusing, at times.The entire story was a repetitive storyline involving the same scenario playing out with many different women. The book went into great detail of their lives, and their association with the main character. The storyline moved extremely slowly, with not much happening other than further examples of how awful a conman the main character is, how he lived his very dysfunctional life, and how the women were conned over and over again. Not many surprises or twists, often predictable outcomes. I believe the story idea is a good one, and with the proper execution, could have been fantastic. Those who like character driven novels with many character storylines and analyses, may enjoy this book. The theme of obsession is prominent. The author is able to weave together all the characters, and intersecting plot lines, although the intersecting character interactions were sometimes forced. I still adore Lisa Jewel and look forward to her next one!

Thank you #netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book from a fantastic author!

While I enjoyed “Don’t Let Him In”, it sure took me a while with the back and forth between characters to figure out the storyline. It was a good read, I just wish the ending didn’t crash upon it so quickly. DO make sure you read the epilogue!

This book started off extremely choppy. It eventually came together, but I found it rather irritating. Since I was reading this on my kindle, I couldn’t easily flip back to chapters to jog my memory. Not a spoiler, but I’m a bit confused also about the letter at the end. What was the significance?

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for a free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

It's amazing how many lives can come together, and be negatively impacted, by just one man... Do you know what it feels like to meet a friend of a friend that everyone loves, but they give you a vibe and you know that there's something wrong with them? Do you know what it feels like to question your sanity, or to have other people question it? If so, then you will likely resonate with this novel.

Jewell always keeps me interested with her cast of flawed and very human characters, but I think this is probably her strongest work yet. The way she goes back and forth between POVs in this novel really kept me on the edge of my seat. The rate of revelation felt very controlled and the whole thing felt so well plotted out, like I could see the red strings on the map connecting characters, locations, and events on someone's wall.

Whatever you do, do not let him in!

Jewell’s new novel surrounds a man with many names, but we’ll call him Nick. We begin by learning about Nina and Ash, who are overcome with grief over the death of their father/husband. This leads to Nick swooping in to offer comfort and company as an old friend of the new,ly deceased. Nina soon begins a whirlwind romance with Nick that leaves Ash immediately suspicious.

As the book progresses, we learn how secrets, lies, and deception can all play a role in someone’s story.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book as the plot started to pickup. Jewell did it again by keeping me captivated by a story that contained a lot of twists and turns.

Thank you Net Galley and Atria for the ARC!

Martha is a florist with two sons from her first husband and one daughter with her current husband, Alistair. While Al is always charming, she can’t understand why despite how many hours she works, they are always short on money. Recently Al has become more distant, disappearing for days on end for work.

Paddy Swann was pushed in front of a train and killed leaving behind his wife, Nina, and two adult children, Ash and Arlo. They receive a note and Paddy’s old lighter from Nick Radcliffe, an old friend of Paddy’s of whom they’ve never heard. After some back and forth correspondence Nina and Nick form a relationship despite concern from Ash.

Ash’s unease about Nick propels her to investigate his story. She learns a lot more than she bargained for about Nick…and Al.


As always Lisa Jewell has written an amazingly creepy and complex antagonist. The short chapters and fast pace of this book makes it a fast and binge-worthy read. The multiple POVs and timelines were a bit confusing at times - I wondered if chapter headings would be helped me keep track. Overall, I enjoyed this thriller & would recommend!

I typically love any book written by this author but I was sadly surprised that this was not one of them. I found the book to be very hard to follow to begin with as we went back and forth to different characters without explanation a lot of the book did not make sense and didn't begin to wrap up until the ending. It was a difficult read one that I probably wouldn't have finished but did in order to give it my best review. This would not be a book I would consider one of her best or even one of a book I would expect from this author. The book was not horrible by any means but it was definitely difficult to follow

Bam...another amazing Jewell novel! This one wasn't as much as a thriller as other books but the character...just so evil!
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Queen Lisa has a way of dropping you into a story and have you not knowing what’s going on all while thinking you do. She is the master thriller writer, and I did not want to stop reading this one!

Don’t Let Him In will leave you on the edge of your seat wondering what’s going to happen next.

I went into this book blind, and I fully believe that’s the way to go with any Lisa book!

I had so much fun reading Lisa Jewell's new book, Don’t Let Him In! It’s a delightfully disturbing, impossible-to-put-down read that moves fast from start to finish. The story centers on Ash, her mother Nina, and Martha. Ash and Nina are still dealing with the tragic loss of their father and husband, who was pushed onto the London Tube tracks in a shocking act of murder. Meanwhile, Martha seems to have it all—her own adorable floral shop, a beautiful baby, and a picture-perfect husband. Their lives are all tied together by one man: Nick.

And what a character he is! Nick is ridiculously handsome and effortlessly charming, with that lost-puppy vulnerability that draws people in. Even when he’s being awful, there’s something oddly captivating about him. As his story unravels, that charm turns into a dangerous weapon—a mix of charisma and manipulation that keeps everyone, including the reader, hooked. With perfectly timed twists, quirky side characters who bring humor and heart to the story (I loved Jane and seriously think she deserves her own novel!), and a plot that never slows down, this is Lisa Jewell at her absolute best!

Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for providing this digital review copy in exchange for my honest thoughts!

A fun, engaging, and propulsive read although perhaps a bit far fetched at times. I definitely stayed up way too late one night evening just to figure out what happened next. A perfect book for fans of Lisa Jewell’s The Family Upstairs.

I didn’t love this one and I usually really enjoy Lisa Jewell’s books. I found it to be very predictable, nothing shocked me or surprised me. To me it was more a book of information about things that already happened in these characters’ lives as opposed to a story unfolding in real time. Like, I just felt like I was being fed facts the whole book and saw the ending coming from a mile away, including the conclusion to Ash’s mental breakdown story.

✨DON’T LET HIM IN✨

4/5⭐️| Release Date: 6/24/25

I immediately bumped everything on my ARC list to read this. 😍

READ IF YOU LOVE:
👩🏻‍❤️‍👨🏼 Domestic Thrillers
🕙 Multiple Timelines
📖 Short Chapters
🧟‍♂️ Toxic/Narcissistic Antagonists
🧩 Puzzle-piece Endings

SHORT DESCRIPTION:
This novel follows Nina and her daughter Ash who lost their beloved husband/father, Paddy, after he was pushed onto the train tracks. A man (Nick) that once worked with Paddy reached out to Nina via letter returning a zippo that once belonged to him.

The story also follows Martha, her two sons, her husband (Al) and their new baby. She owns a beautiful flower shoppe, but is newly post partum and navigating life with her overworked husband with dooming financials.

Nick and Al might not be who they say they are at all and they somehow all intertwine.

REVIEW:
This is 100% a domestic thriller, so don’t go blind into it thinking it’s not. (Silly me) Even though it’s a domestic thriller it had me hooked from the beginning. I could tell quickly that Ash was going to be a badass. It’s hard to talk about the plot without giving anything away so I’ll just say it was wrapped up in a nice bow at the end.

I knocked it down a star because the timeline felt chaotic at times which made it hard to follow. Because of this I do not recommend the audio version. (Part of me wonders if the chaos was intentional) I also found the switch from first POV to second POV very hard to transition back and forth.

A huge thank you to Net Galley and Atria Books for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest feedback.

I absolutely hated the main character Nick or whatever name he likes to use. What a deeply disturbing person but I found myself rushing to the end to see his fate because I got over the story pretty quickly.

I want to thank Net Galley and Atria Books for an advanced copy of this book.

Lisa Jewell is one of my favorite authors, so I was thrilled to get this. Every book I’ve read of hers so far has been 4 stars, easy. But this one not so much. I could barely get through it. Not very thrilling. Very redundant chapters and the characters were boring to me. I kept waiting for this book to get better, for something to happen, and it never did. It is definitely not her best. Will I keep reading her books? Heck yes. Every author seems to have one that isn’t as great as the rest.

Lisa Jewell has done it again with "Don't Let Him In"! I absolutely loved this book—it’s one of her most suspenseful yet. From the very first page, the tension kept building, and I couldn’t stop reading.

The twists in this story really caught me off guard, and just when I thought I had it all figured out, something new would happen. It’s the kind of book that keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole way through.

If you’re a fan of Lisa Jewell or just love a good thriller that keeps you guessing, this is a must-read. It’s gripping, fast-paced, and full of surprises—one of my favorites from her so far!

ARC Review
Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell
Release date: June 24, 2025
🚪
When Paddy Swann dies suddenly and tragically, his wife Nina and daughter Ash are left reeling. Soon after, Nick Radcliffe enters their lives, claiming to be an old friend of Paddy’s. Charming and seemingly kind, Nick quickly begins to win Nina over, much to Ash’s concern. Despite Ash’s warnings, Nina seems to fall for him, and Ash suspects that Nick may be too good to be true—he always seems to have a perfect excuse for everything.

As Ash digs deeper into Nick’s past, she uncovers a web of women whose lives have been impacted by him in dark and unsettling ways. Determined to protect her mother, Ash sets out to gather evidence and expose the truth about Nick.
🚪
Unfortunately, I found this book slow and anticlimactic. While I’ve always enjoyed Lisa Jewell’s writing style, this story didn’t quite live up to my expectations. I found myself waiting for something to happen, but it never really did, and much of the narrative felt repetitive.

That said, I did appreciate the ending!

The story reminded me a lot of the true crime case of John Meehan, aka “Dirty John.” If you’re a fan of that kind of story, this might be worth a try.
🚪
Read for:
-Dirty John vibes 💰
-Slow burn 🔥
-Revenge plot 🤫
🚪
*This ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

This was an extremely creepy book! Nick seems like a great guy when he connects with Paddy Swann's widow and daughter after Paddy's untimely death (was it really an accident?). But Paddy's daughter Nina starts to suspect Nick may be too good to be true, and she does some investigating. The truth is slowly teased out, through the viewpoints of multiple people and time periods. As others have noted, the switch between first and third person POVs was a little distracting, and Nick was such a vile character, that I really didn't enjoy reading about him. Although I'm a big Lisa Jewell fan, and look forward to her next book, this one was not for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love Jewell's books but this one was harder to get into than the rest as it goes back and forth in time so seamlessly. It begins with Ash and her mother Nina as they receive flowers after her father Paddy is killed by a random man. And then all of a sudden we are thrust into a time four years earlier when a guy needs money from his wife. The novel continues to vacillate between two different times and we are never really sure how they are connected until the end! I did breathe a sigh of relief when it ended as Jewel always cleans up her "messes" with surprises that stay with the reader long after the book is finished!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

Big thank you to @netgalley for the arc of this one! Lisa Jewell is one of my favorite thriller authors. I’ve been a big fan ever since reading
“And Then She Was Gone.” This book isn’t publishing until June, so I was super excited to get this approval!

𝕄𝕪 𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤💭
This is definitely more of a slow burn psychological thriller. I enjoyed the beginning and got hooked into the story, however ( without giving away any spoilers) I felt that the middle of the story was a bit repetitive, and the same thing kept happening with different characters, again and again. That being said though, Lisa Jewell really knows how to write an ending. The last page of this book was 🤌🏻 chef’s kiss perfect. I felt conflicted in my rating because of this 😜
It was for sure not my favorite Lisa Jewell, but still a good read.
3.5