DON'T LET HIM IN Book Review

Don't Let Him In¹ by Lisa Jewell, audiobook, 12h 14m

Synopsis from Audible: He’s the perfect man. It’s a perfect lie. Nick Radcliffe is a man of substance and good taste. He’s exactly what newly widowed Nina Swann needs in her life. But to Nina’s adult daughter, Ash, Nick seems too slick, too polished, too good to be true. When Ash begins digging into his past, she finds a trail of unsettling coincidences.

Martha lives in a neighboring town with her infant daughter and devoted husband Alistair. But lately, Alistair has been traveling more and more frequently for work, disappearing for days at a time, and Martha can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t right.

Nina, Martha, and Ash have no idea they are on a collision course with a shocking truth. And all three are about to wish they had heeded the same warning: Don’t let him in.

BOOK REVIEW: I listened to this book for book club and I have to say that while thrillers have historically been my favorite genre, I have been so immersed into fantasy worlds this year that I almost didn't finish this. Yeah. I almost DNFed it. I think one of the reasons why I didn't is because of one of the narrators. It was Joanne Froggatt who played Anna in Downton Abbey and the only voice I recognized. That said, the story just didn't hook me like I want a thriller to, or any book for that matter. It got a little repetitive. I also had to increase my listening speed because a lot of the narrative was coming out really slowly. I can't even imagine listening to the scene with a character stuttering at regular speed. 1.2-1.5x is what I listened at and it only speed up when it was about 5 hours before book club and I had 4 hours of listening to do at 1.2x.

We're getting the story told from three POVs. Ash, Martha, and Nick. While Ash and Martha are in the present, Nick's narrative starts, I think, four years earlier. I picked up on that pretty quickly so I knew when the only male narrator was talking, he was giving insights into what could be coming later. I did call my mom when I was still trying to decide if I was going to finish it or not and said answer this with a yes or a no. You don't have to go into details but let me know if I'm on the right track. I laid out to her the dots I was connecting and she told me I was on the right track. That and Joanne are the only reasons I stuck it out.

Overall it's a 4 star for me. I think it was mostly the pace and the repetition that had me contemplating the DNF but I did end up enjoying this. I don't remember how it ended up on my personal TBR (which is how it ended up on our book club's TBR) but I'm glad we read it. Now for the audiobook, we have six narrators, five are female. Going back and forth between Ash and Martha I couldn't tell if there were other female voices for female characters within those chapters. It wasn't until closer towards the end that I think I picked up on some other voices but really I have no idea who was who. I did look up all the narrators and I recognized a couple other women but couldn't hear their voices. That didn't bother me though. It actually made me feel less overwhelmed. Typically when you see a list of 6 narrators the words full cast are present meaning the a person is assigned a character and any time that character speaks, the narrator speaks but that didn't always seem to be the case here. When Nick was narrating and dialogue came up with Nina or another woman, he narrated it. Same for Ash and Martha. Whenever there was male dialogue they narrated it. Do I recommend this book? Yes. Will I read it again? Probably not.

4/5 Stars

2026 Reading Challenge: 42/55 complete

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