I’ve read two other books by Mary Kubica, Local Woman Missing and She’s Not Sorry, and after It’s Not Her, I think it’s safe to say I need to keep reading her books. I absolutely devoured this one. It’s Not Her started off with a bang and never stopped. From the very beginning, there was something happening, someone to suspect, and another reason I needed to keep reading.
Amazon Summary
A scream shatters the silence…
Courtney Gray’s peaceful vacation turns into a nightmare when she discovers her brother and sister-in-law dead in their lakeside cottage. Her niece Reese is missing. Her nephew Wyatt is asleep upstairs—unharmed.
A town full of secrets…
As police swarm the quiet resort, dark truths about Courtney’s family—and the town itself—begin to surface. Is Reese a victim… or the killer?
A truth no one saw coming…
With everyone hiding something, Courtney races to uncover the terrible mystery. But the closer she gets, the harder it is to know who—or what—to trust.
My Thoughts
This book was so good I don’t even know where to start.
We get most of the story from Courtney’s perspective, but interspersed throughout are chapters from Reese. And Reese is missing. Her parents are dead. So what happened?
As we learn more about Reese, we find out she can be explosive. She and her mom, Emily, have been having problems, and Reese is constantly angry and belligerent. So naturally, you start wondering: Did Reese do something?
But she is far from the only possibility.
Did Courtney’s husband really go fishing when he said he did? Did dinner have something to do with Reese’s disappearance? What about the guy Reese was with? Then there’s Wyatt, who also seems to have plenty of anger of his own and has terrible episodes of sleepwalking.
Or was it none of them? Could someone else have wandered onto the resort? Could it have been another person staying there?
That’s what I loved about this book. You get little tidbits of information from Courtney and Reese as their stories slowly move toward each other. Every new piece gives you a little more information, but it also gives you another reason to question what you think happened. I kept bouncing from one possibility to another.
One of the saddest parts for me was learning what happened between Reese and Emily right before the murders. After all the fighting and tension between them, they finally talk. Really talk. They make up and have this wonderful moment together.
And then an intruder ruins everything.
But Emily fought like hell for her family, and I loved that. When it mattered most, she was going to do whatever she could to protect them.
It’s Not Her was just a great, fast-paced thriller. There was never really a point where it slowed down enough for me to want to put it away. I needed to know what happened to Reese, who killed her parents, and how all these seemingly suspicious people fit into the story.
And even when you think it’s over, it’s not over.
We get the detective’s perspective at the end, and my mouth was pretty much hanging open. I absolutely did not expect where Mary Kubica took this one.
This was easily one of those books where I finished the last page and just sat there thinking, Wait. WHAT?!
And I love when a thriller can do that.