It’s Not Her: By Mary Kubica (Book Review)

A lakeside holiday—families, cabins, the usual calm—shatters when a scream draws Courtney Gray next door and the scene she finds is worse than any nightmare: her brother and sister-in-law are dead, one niece is missing, another child is miraculously unharmed. From that first gut-punch, Kubica sets a furious tempo. Secrets leak, suspicion ricochets between relatives and locals, and the past keeps rearranging the present. It’s Not Her: By Mary Kubica is billed as a twisty, unputdownable thriller, and it leans into that promise from page one.

The engine: plotting and pace

Kubica has always been a careful architect of suspense, and here she fully commits to momentum. The chapters are short and sharp, almost breathless, designed to keep you flipping pages even when you tell yourself you’ll stop at the next one. The plot thrives on misdirection—quiet details that feel insignificant at first but later turn sinister, characters who seem harmless until they aren’t, and red herrings that actually work.

The story never feels random, though. Everything has a place, even if you don’t realize it until much later. The pacing is especially strong in the middle section, where tension doesn’t just come from what’s happening, but from what isn’t being said.

Characters — human fault lines

What really elevates It’s Not Her beyond a standard thriller is how grounded the characters feel. Courtney, in particular, is a compelling emotional anchor. She’s not a fearless investigator or a brilliant detective—she’s just a woman thrown into something unbearable, trying to protect what little family she has left.

The children are written with surprising sensitivity, which adds emotional weight to the story. They don’t feel like plot devices; they feel real, scared, confused, and fragile. Even the side characters—neighbors, friends, acquaintances—carry just enough personality to make their secrets believable. You end up suspecting almost everyone, and then feeling slightly guilty for doing so.

Themes — secrets, family, and the shadow of true crime

At its core, It’s Not Her is about how well we really know the people closest to us. Kubica explores familiar territory: family trauma, buried guilt, small-town facades, and the way tragedy exposes long-hidden cracks in relationships.

There’s also an undercurrent of true-crime energy running through the novel. The setting and structure echo real-life unsolved cases, which gives the story a disturbing sense of realism. It doesn’t feel like a glossy, cinematic thriller—it feels closer to something you might hear about in a late-night documentary, where the answers are messy and the truth is never fully comforting.

What works

• Relentless momentum. The book is genuinely hard to put down once it gets going.
• Emotional stakes. The family dynamics make the suspense feel personal, not just sensational.
• A strong final twist. The ending reframes earlier events in a way that feels earned rather than gimmicky.

What might not land for everyone

• Familiar structure. If you read a lot of domestic thrillers, some of the narrative tricks will feel recognizable.
• Late information dump. Many revelations arrive near the end, which may feel slightly rushed to some readers.

Reader fit — who should pick this up

This is a great choice for fans of psychological and domestic thrillers—the kind where tension comes from relationships as much as from danger. If you enjoy stories about missing children, unreliable narratives, and family secrets, this will be right up your alley. It’s especially ideal for readers who like finishing a book and immediately wanting to talk about the ending.

Verdict — the lake doesn’t let you go

It’s Not Her is a tense, emotionally driven thriller that plays to Mary Kubica’s strengths. It doesn’t try to reinvent the genre, but it executes it with confidence and care. The characters feel real, the suspense is tightly controlled, and the story lingers in your mind after the final page.

It’s unsettling without being over-the-top, dramatic without losing emotional credibility—a solid, gripping read that proves once again why Kubica remains a reliable name in modern psychological suspense.