She Didn’t See It Coming by Shari Lapena
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Crime
Pages: 480
Published by: Penguin on 17th July, 2025
Format: Paperback
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Book Synopsis:
Bryden and Sam have it all – thriving careers, a smart apartment in a luxury condo, supportive friends and a cherished daughter. The perfect life for the perfect couple.
Then Sam receives a call at his office. Bryden β working from home that day – has failed to collect their daughter from daycare.
Arriving home with their little girl, he finds his wifeβs car in the underground garage. Upstairs in their apartment her laptop is open on the table, her phone nearby, her keys in their usual place in the hall.
Except Bryden is nowhere to be seen. Itβs as if she just walked out.
How can she have disappeared from her own home? And did she even leave the building at all?
Book Review
I haven’t read a Shari Lapena book in about five years, so I was excited to pick up another one of hers. Iβve only read one book by her, and I gave it five stars. I’m not sure how much of that was because I was quite new to reading again at the time. It may also have been because I was just getting into mystery/thrillers. I was having so much fun with the genre that it felt five-star worthy. I rate mystery/thrillers purely based on vibes, so was that five-star rating actually accurate? Who knows! Maybe if I re-read it now, I wouldn’t give it five stars. This one was still a good time, but it was nowhere near giving me five-star feelings.
I’m not normally a fan of domestic thrillers, but this one didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. The story hooked me from the very first page! I read this book in about three days and I’m pretty sure I was reading over 100 pages a day because I just didn’t want to put it down. The writing style is easy to follow (maybe a little too basic at times), and the chapters are short, which I love in a mystery/thriller. Quick chapters help so much with keeping the pacing moving.
Lapena tells the story in third person, and I didn’t mind it. Personally, I think first person could have worked even better. It would have let us get deeper into each suspectβs perspective. That said, I didn’t mind the third-person narration. The story itself didn’t blow me away, as I found parts of it quite predictable. There wasn’t a shocking plot twist, and I had an idea of who was responsible around the 80β90% mark. That being said, I read mystery/thrillers purely for the vibes, and this definitely delivered! Considering I haven’t been in my mystery/thriller era for a while, this was an entertaining book to get me back in the mood to read more of them.
If you like a good page-turner when it comes to your mystery/thrillers, I’d say give this one a go. It’s not an amazing book, but I had a good time reading it, and sometimes that’s all that matters. I enjoyed it enough that I’d definitely read another Lapena book in the future.
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