3 stars! This book was fine, but not my favorite by this author. To me, it was a little repetitive in that we saw the same situation play out with different women and on top of that, there were several instances where these experiences were recounted or summarized to or by other characters multiple times. Because of this the book felt a little slow and as though no enough happened (because the same thing was happening over and over again).
I also didn't find this all that thrilling or suspenseful because you knew for the most part what was going on, so to me there wasn't a big reveal at the end. I also found the timelines and multiple (similar) characters a little difficult to keep track of. Because there were so many characters, I found the character development lacking and was pretty ambivalent about everyone. The author was successful at keeping me interested enough in wanting to know how everything was going to come together and be resolved. at the end. I was satisfied with the ending, but was hoping this book was more twisty than it ended up being especially since I was able to guess a lot of the "twists". I would recommend this book if you like domestic mysteries/suspense and other works by the author, but just know it's not a "thriller." A lot of readers are rating this book highly, so there's clearly an audience for this book!

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review!

Lisa Jewell does it again. Absolute page turner. Read most of it in one sitting which I don’t usually do.

I found the storylines they were a bit hard to keep straight at first but it’s kind of by design. The chapters are quick, you get into a rhythm, and they become clear - and incredibly interwoven. This is also what makes it hard to put down! She must have a spreadsheet to keep all this straight?

Truly, no one does it like Lisa Jewell. Always riveting. Always social commentary and insights on the human condition, wrapped in one insane little package that makes it impossible to walk away from.

Thank you @netgalley and @atriabooks for the advance copy in exchange for honest review.

Lisa Jewell is back with another summer hit! While I thought this one got off to a bit of a slower start as we set the stage, I still ultimately enjoyed it. The storyline is more straightforward and less twisty than I typically expect from Jewell, but it was still an incredibly intricate house of cards that is SO satisfying to watch crumble to the ground. I'm not sure how to classify this one... it's not really a mystery (the readers put the pieces together far faster than our characters do), nor is it a thriller/suspense (we can see the car crash coming and I couldn't WAIT for it to happen)... but it's somewhere in that zone and still makes for a delightful summer popcorn/vacation read! My main takeaway from this one was "Ladies, trust your instincts"!

Overall this was another dark, intriguing, and entertaining story l'd recommend to Jewell fans everywhere. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review!

“I am always the unreliable narrator in my life. People always question my motives, question the accuracy of my opinions. You know? They always think I’m trying to twist the narrative or something.”

Lisa Jewell is such a masterful writer. Her books always draw me in and make feel such anxiety. Her thrillers are unique and I don't think anyone else writers like her.

This is a gripping story told through three different perspectives. Ash has recently lost her father and now her mother is dating a man named Nick who claims to have known her father years ago. Martha is struggling with her flower business and in her relationship with her husband. And Martha’s husband, who clearly has something to hide. At first these storylines don’t seem to go together, but as the story progresses and the pieces fell together, I couldn’t read fast enough.

Everything about this is so interesting, even when it’s a bit predictable. Ash is such a formidable character in that she won’t rest until she figures out who Nick really is to keep her mother safe. It’s also easy to feel for Martha and her struggles, and also understand why she keeps hoping her husband will turn everything around to be the loving man she fell in love with. It’s anxiety-inducing as the storylines come together.

The pacing is excellent, and the reveals come in great places. There are predictable moments, but it’s enjoyable in how we get to the resolution. It’s still satisfying and I will say the ending did surprise me a bit, and I really loved it.

A fun summer thriller.
While this was not my favorite Lisa Jewell book I have read, I still did have a fun time.
Some of the twists did get me, while some I did figure out pretty quickly on my own.
The short chapters though were fantastic. That is how thrillers should be written.
In my opinion thrillers need to be fast-paced and quick reads.
This one definitely hit the mark on that.

If you pick this one up, I don't think you will regret it.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

I did think was an entertaining book. I got a little confused by the different people point of views in chapters, but I understood why that was done as I kept reading. Without spoilers, I felt like one of the main characters was so UNLIKABLE. He did not have any redemption in this book.

Don’t Let Him In by @lisajewelluk

5 stars

In Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell, recently widowed Nina Swann reconnects with her late husband’s charming old friend, Nick Radcliffe—much to the suspicion of her daughter, Ash, who begins digging into his unsettling past. Meanwhile, in a nearby town, Martha grows increasingly anxious about her husband Alistair’s mysterious absences. As these three women’s lives collide, dark secrets surface, revealing a chilling truth: the man they trusted is not who he seems.

Another banger from Lisa Jewell! A heart-pounding, nail-biting, jaw-dropping, addictive story that had me guessing until the very last page. Multiple timelines and POVs, that are slowly pieced together to fit a masterful puzzle. That ending, *chef’s kiss*.

Release date: 6/24/25

I received a digital review copy via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Lisa Jewell does it again. Another twisty story that had me interested right away.

Ash Swann lost her beloved father, Paddy, last year and now her mother has received letters from an old acquaintance of Paddy's. Suddenly Nick is in their lives and seems to be making himself quite comfortable in their lives and even home. More secrets come out with Nick's complicated past.

I read this one in just two days because I couldn't put it down. I love the way Lisa Jewell writes her stories to keep you guessing on what is actually reality vs. a characters perception of the situation.

I will read anything Lisa Jewell writes and Don’t Let Him In definitely just made one of my top reads of hers! It was SO good!

I finished this last week and it was absolutely a 5⭐️ for me! This was slightly (okay a lot) unhinged, but I absolutely ate this one up! 👏🏻 The different timeliness and the many different POV’s really made for a bingeable book that was hard to put down! But also, I just loved that all these different women worked together to try and bring down the MMC! 🙌🏻

If you’re looking for a twisty psychological thriller with an extremely morally grey (not the good kind) be sure to add this to your TBR! I don’t think you’ll be disappointed!

A huge Thank You to @atriabooks for the e-arc, all opinions are my own!

Don't Let Him In by Lisa Jewell is a multi-layered domestic thriller full of suspense, deception, and lies.

Nina Swann is still reeling over the death of her husband Paddy. When she receives a card from her husband's old friend Nick Radcliffe, she is grateful to reconnect with Nick and reminisce about their shared love for Paddy. Nick is charming, smooth, and has a smile that wins Nina right over. Nina's grown daughter Ash however is not as charmed. She believes that Nick is hiding something so taking it upon herself, she begins to look into this too good to be true stranger.
Meanwhile, Martha is a florist that lives in a neighboring town with her husband Alistair and their infant daughter. Martha has noticed that lately Alistair leaves the house more frequently for work and for longer periods of time. Alistair always has a plausible excuse, but Martha knows something isn't right.

Okay so this book is a little confusing at the beginning, but stick with it! The alternating characters and POVs are a bit tricky to get used to but once I had it figured out I couldn't put it down! Once again Lisa Jewell has proven herself to be the queen of domestic thrillers!! Don't Let Him In is expertly layered, suspenseful, and the character development is top notch. All three of our female main characters are fully fleshed out, realistic and relatable. Nick as the antagonist is truly sociopathic and proves that evil can be found in anyone and you might not know who your partner really is. The ending could have been presented a bit different but that could totally be a me thing! Overall a solid domestic thriller for readers who love twisty and suspenseful stories and unreliable characters!

Thank you to NetGalley, Lisa Jewell, and Atria Books for this ARC! Publication date is June 24th 2025.

I always look forward to a new Lisa Jewell book! I know her books will keep me on the edge of my seat. They will also leave me feeling unsettled, yet unable to look away, and thoroughly entertained. This one is billed as a kaleidoscopic thriller, and that's a perfect description!

Multi-POV, multi-timeline, and unfolding quickly, this begins with snippets of events from the lives of three women. Initially puzzling but engaging, it took a little while for the bigger picture to come into view. However, once it does, the suspense kicks in. I recommend going in as blind as possible because the slow reveal and being kept off-balance are integral parts of the experience, mirroring the gaslighting and manipulation that must be unraveled for these characters. The structure and plotting of this is so well done!

Jewell's characters tend to elicit strong responses in me, especially her more unhinged ones, and this book is no exception. One character is so horrible, and yet, their POV especially as brought to life by narrator Richard Armitage, was one I loved to hate.

The audiobook is a knockout! Brilliantly narrated by a full cast that includes Richard Armitage, Joanne Froggatt, Tamaryn Payne, Gemma Whelan, Louise Brealey, and Patience Tomlinson. The stellar performances make this audiobook immersive. I ended up mainly listening to this story because the audiobook is just that good and perfectly cast! It was like watching a film and super entertaining.

Thank you to Atria Books, Simon & Schuster Audio and Netgalley for the gifted. book and audiobook

What did I just read and waste my time with? Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell is about a psycho, monster who cons women over and over again. The only reason I kept reading was because I thought there would be a great ending, well, in my opinion that didn’t happen.

I have read two other Lisa Jewell books that I rated 4 stars. If you are a Jewell fan I would love to know your opinion of this one. Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. There is definitely an audience for this book, but it isn’t me.

This was an enjoyable, engaging read. It didn’t have many turns along the way, and the twist at the end was a small one that I didn’t anticipate. Otherwise, it was a pretty standard con man story. I was interested in the story, but it didn’t excite me waiting to find out what was next. Overall, 4 stars and another great read by the author

Don’t Let Him In is a story that makes you wonder just who might be watching you from the shadows – and why.

Our story begins with an end. Flowers are delivered to the home of successful entrepreneur Paddy Swain. They are unwelcome. His wife, Nina, and daughter, Ash, have all the posies they can stand. There are no vases available for this latest batch, one more fragrant bouquet sent in condolence as they mourn the man who had always been the life of the party and the heart of their family.

Even as she shoves this latest offering into an already overcrowded arrangement, twenty-four-year-old Ash finds it impossible to believe that Paddy was murdered in such a gruesome and meaningless manner. He’d been pushed into the path of an oncoming train by a man struggling with mental illness, and she can’t reconcile the pointlessness of it with the over-the-top, king-of-the-world energy her father had always exuded.

Less than a year later, Ash wonders if her inability to move beyond her grief has kept her from accepting the new man in Nina’s life. Ash is uncomfortable with the fact that Nick has ingratiated himself to the family by claiming to be an old acquaintance of Paddy’s, and that the start of this new relationship was a condolence card with the gift of a lighter that had allegedly belonged to her dad long ago. It was an odd thing for a casual friend to have kept for twenty-odd years, and Ash can’t shake the suspicion that there is something off, something sinister about charming Nick and his generic stories of the past. An incident from just before her father died has left Ash questioning her own judgement, but she figures there’s no harm in checking with others from her dad’s youth and seeing what they remember about Nick.

In a village a short drive away from Ash is Martha, a small-town florist with an absentee husband. Al has been working long, weird hours lately and fallen into the habit of not returning her calls and texts for days. She struggles to keep up with her three kids while managing her thriving business independently and is growing increasingly resentful of Al’s smooth but uninformative responses to her reasonable questions. The night she has to call a friend to drive her and her sick youngest child to A&E because Al has the car is the final straw. It’s time for her to start searching for answers as to just why Al’s job is keeping him away from both his phone and his family.

I imagine most readers think they know the score by this point, and in some ways, you are right. But Ms. Jewell is a consummate professional, and she turns what could have been a mundane charade into a richly layered mystery, with Martha and Ash discovering completely unexpected twists.

The tale is told from multiple points of view, which works well to give us a comprehensive look at both how the villain operates and how strong, capable women are pulled into the bizarre situation the story revolves around. Ms. Jewell’s skill at creating unique voices for her cast keeps the head-hopping from turning confusing and disjointed, and it helps that the bulk of the narrative is told by our primary protagonists, Ash and Martha. I adored Ash, who is a lovely combination of youthful insecurity, determination, and intelligence. She’s clever enough to realize something’s off but also resourceful enough to recognize she’ll need outside help to figure it out. Once she begins to connect with Paddy’s past, she finds an older and wiser woman to be her confidant. Together, Ash and Martha carefully follow up on each clue, building a case before confronting Nick or Nina with what they have discovered.

Martha is a more complicated heroine. Many times when a crime is committed, the victim is left to wonder why they hadn’t been smart enough to avoid being victimized, and that is especially true with someone in Martha’s position. The story does a nice job of presenting her as a savvy, busy woman whose kindness makes her vulnerable.

Creating relatable, likable characters and having their decency catch them up in bizarre, dangerous situations is a hallmark of Jewell’s work. Another strength is how she can take an ordinary suburban world and slowly turn it into a grey, gloomy, gothic atmospheric setting. At the start, we are told the day of Paddy’s funeral is cloudy and dreary, a direct contrast to the sunshine-loving, fun man Paddy was, as though he had taken all the light and warmth with him. The author amplifies that perception throughout the novel, as though his death creates the dark world Martha and Ash soon inhabit. It gives the tale an increasing sense of ratcheting danger, making it an enthralling reading experience.

I also appreciated the way the author delicately explores how believing in our own exceptionalism can be the bait that keeps us mired in a trap long after we’ve discovered it’s a danger. For Martha and a character introduced late in the novel, the idea that they are somehow special and different keeps them stuck in a situation from which they’ve had multiple opportunities to escape.

That said, this particular novel is not Jewell at her strongest. It’s pretty clear from the beginning that the villain is less troubled than monstrous. They aren’t two-dimensional at all, simply abusive and narcissistic. We know (a little of) what is happening from the start, but it stays interesting up to the last page because we get surprise after surprise as Martha and Ash dig deeper. At first, this was wonderfully thrilling, but as we approached the finale, I experienced shock fatigue. Too many unbelievable things had happened for me to maintain my suspension of disbelief during the intervention-style denouement and the events that follow. I also struggled to believe in the behavior of one of the characters/victims in the last quarter of the book. The plot hinges on her doing what she does, but what she does didn’t seem credible.

Don’t Let Him In is one of those stories that’s hard to grade. There are problems, such as the above, plus other little foibles that keep it from being an A read. On the other hand, it holds the attention from start to finish. You might find some of the events completely implausible, but it won’t matter because you want to see the conclusion and arrive at closure for all you (and the characters) have been through. I strongly recommend it to mystery fans despite its imperfections.

Note: This book deals with manipulation, gaslighting, violence against women, and abuse of individuals with mental illness.

love Lisa Jewell's novels and I was hooked on this one at 16% She tells the best, most shocking stories and I was literally questioning everything for the entire book!

Nina meets Nick Radcliffe after her husband Paddy tragically dies after being pushed in front of a train. He is quite the man, living quite the life! I was getting whiplash just following this journey of truth vs lies! When the revelations come, they are shocking/dark and made my anxiety rise.

You can't help but try to connect all the dots and that was the FUN part! Question EVERYTHING! The dots could also be a massive amount of red flags!

The ending lost me a bit and felt a little too tidy, but don't let that deter you because I'm sure you'll be racing to the end just like I was! If you like a fast thriller, give it a try!

After tragically losing her husband, Nina receives a condolence card from a man named Nick who claims to have been an old friend and acquaintance of his. When their correspondence soon moves off paper to in person, her daughter, Ash, becomes suspicious of this charming stranger's stories. She secretly starts to do some digging into his past after one too many red flags and quickly finds more causes for concern. Meanwhile, Martha, a florist not far away, grows increasingly skeptical at her husband Alistair's unexplained and lengthy absences. As the women in his orbit from past and present unravel all the strands of the tangled web this man has weaved, the danger they could be in rises.

🪷 Thoughts:
If Lisa's penning it, I'll be reading it! Listen, I've harbored a lot of dislike for some male characters in recent books, but Nick/ Al/ Damien whatever you wanna call him really takes the toxicity to a new level. Instantly narcissistic and teeming with misogyny and even slight incel vibes, he only becomes worse as the story goes with his tales of conning, gaslighting and manipulations. (Mega Dirty John vibes here for any other true crime junkies!) I was so enraged every time he weaseled his way out of detection and into another life. My slight hangups were that it did get a little repetitive after a while, and some things were easily predictable. That said, this was still Lisa Jewell so the quality of writing and storytelling was ultimately engaging and kept me turning the pages to the end! A bingeable summer read! 3.5 ✨

✌🏼Book Tuesday
*
Forever behind on Bookstagram reviews so I’m coming at you live with a double review
*
Don’t Let Him In- thank you @netgalley and @atriabooks for the advanced gifted copy ! 4⭐️ this was a super solid follow up to Jewells last banger (possibly one of my favorites ever?!) so it was impossible to follow it up. I’m convinced Jewell can’t write a bad book, and man was the MMC absolutely devious. If this was wrapped up a little better at the end it would have been a 5 star for me. Ultimately I just felt like it was a few too many characters/cons at the end. Definitely a fantastic thriller and a fun summer read for sure!
*
QOTD- how many books are you hoping to squeeze in before June ends ?! I’m hoping to read at least 4 more, summer break starts Thursday for me. 🤓

Don't Let Him In
By Lisa Jewell
Release Date: 6.24.25

Thank you, @Atriabooks, for the e-ARC of Lisa Jewell's latest, Don't Let Him In.

A dual perspective and timeline psychological thriller. We are following multiple women and their relationships. Nina recently lost her husband in a freak accident being left behind with two adult children and all of his business ventures. Martha is working tirelessly to raise her family while juggling her flower business. When men enter these women's lives, it seems new, exciting, and supporting until it's not.

This is a story of lying, manipulation, and deceit. With the dual perspective and timeline, I found myself a bit lost in the first part trying to keep everything and everyone straight. It began to come together more for me as the timelines appeared to close in on one another. I liked the short chapters because it made the book because it kept me reading.

I believe that Jewell's intent was to empower women in each of their situations, but at the same time she makes these women, (all highly successful in their own areas), become vulnerable, unaware, and reliant. I have issues with some of the believability of parts in the middle. The ending didn't work for me. I am left with unanswered questions on how and was hoping for more of a twist than what was presented.

Thank you so much to @netgalley and @atriabooks for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

So I love me some Lisa Jewell but this one just wasn’t my favorite. Her writing is a sure way to get hooked but this one was just a smidge flat for me.

In this thriller, you meet a professional swindler and unravel the lies he’s created from woman to woman. One daughter of the swindler’s latest love interest feels like something is a bit fishy and it’s up to her to figure it out before her mother falls for his games.

I will admit the layered lies of the MMC is insanely infuriating and it will just make you hate him more and more as you turn each page. With that being said, it got to be a little repetitive. Like I get it, he sucks, let’s get to the point here. Once you got to climax, it just kind of happened, almost a little too easily. The add-on chapter of another perspective saved this one from being a dud for me, but there was just too much build up, with little to no meat at the end. I get that it’s a slow burn thriller, but I felt like I was riding the brake and you couldn’t get much slower.

If you’re a fan of jewell, definitely give this a read but I don’t think it will be a favorite.

⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Thank you Net Galley & Atria Books for the ARC!

Lisa Jewell is an auto-buy author and she did it again. While I didn’t find this to be a full thriller, I was hooked from the start trying to uncover the tangles through this book. Because, unfortunately, you do see these incredible and tragic stories in real life, you could see a lot of the story unfold ahead of time. However, she still had some surprises that I didn’t see coming.

Would happily recommend!