[Review] It Could Have Been Her - Lisa Jewell

Summary: 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. (Pub Date: Jun 23 2026)

Jane has a bad feeling when she goes to London to give back a lost dog she found far, faraway where the old house she inherited from her parents is. In fact, Jane remembers one night decades ago when she'd been brought to this same house listed as where the dog's owners lives. And the feeling she escaped something macabre that night returns to her. Even if the man who correctly identifies the dog isn't the same sketchy man she'd met back then, she can't help but investigate deeper what happened and if it is somehow connected to what she lived that night.

This isn't among my Jewell favorites, but the introduction to the book was right: this is a dark one. Jane is adrift as the last surviving member of her family, divorced, childless. So after helping expose a scammer as a side character in Jewell's previous novel, she's seen how to give her days some direction and meaning. Her reasons for getting entangled here are occasionally a little convenient, and yes, the coincidence that she'd visited this very house before does strain credulity, when it wasn't completely needed for the rest of the story to happen. I feel she'd have gotten involved regardless. Her very first encounter with Stuart when she hands over the dog would have been unsettling enough to justify her suspicions on its own. This made me accept it more without frowning the whole book at why she didn't just run from there (preferably taking the dog). This prior connection, then, turns out to be more atmospheric than consequential.

I'll be honest, I'm still trying to figure why I didn't like this story better. Jewell managed to build something bizarre, secrets stacked on secrets, each revelation worse than the last. My first guess is that it could have been better presented, and while the architecture of the plot is impressive, the delivery undercuts it. The way information surfaces rarely feels like the most exciting option, so even if each secret revealed is worse than the last, there's no punch. Some parts were actually anticlimactic, especially most that involved the younger girl, Daisy.

The book is, strangely, more horrifying in retrospect than while reading it. Which is probably for the best in some of the darker reveals, but it took a toll on the book, making it flatter than its potential. I'd argue this might have been better served as horror than as thriller. The restraint that keeps it in the thriller lane softens some of what should be truly disturbing. On the other hand, it saved me from some trauma.

It's still a story I'm not going to forget. Just wow. 

Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

Rating: 3 out of 5.