It’s Not Her by Mary Kubica * * * *
The story centres on two families vacationing together at a mountain resort. Pine trees crowd the cabins. There is a still lake nearby that looks peaceful in the sun and threatening after dark. Courtney and Nolan are brother and sister. Nolan’s wife, Emily, was Courtney’s childhood best friend. Their lives are tightly woven together.
Then Courtney walks into Nolan and Emily’s cabin and finds them bludgeoned to death.
Their eldest daughter, Reese, is missing.
From that moment on, the novel becomes a race against time. Courtney wants to find her niece. She also wants to get her own family out of that place as quickly as possible. The quiet resort begins to feel suffocating. Every conversation feels loaded. Every small detail might matter.
What makes this thriller stand out is its dual timeline. Courtney narrates the present, beginning with the discovery of the bodies and following the investigation as it slowly unfolds. Reese narrates the past, starting with their arrival at the resort and moving steadily toward the night of the murders. Her timeline also covers the period of her disappearance, which keeps the tension alive on two fronts.
This structure works extremely well. You are not simply told what the investigators discover. You see how certain “clues” came into existence. At times Courtney finds something that looks suspicious or even damning, only for Reese’s earlier in the timeline chapters to reveal its far more ordinary origin. That back and forth is clever and satisfying. It allows you to participate. I could form theories, adjust them, discard them. I even recorded a video halfway through the audiobook to document my predictions. I guessed part of the ending. The majority still surprised me.
That balance is important. The book plays fair. The clues are there. The context is there. You are given enough information to actually attempt to solve it. Too many thrillers hide everything and then deliver a twist that feels disconnected from the story you have been reading. Here, the final reveal feels shocking but earned.
Another aspect that stood out to me is how the novel engages with the online world. Without giving anything away, the internet is not just background decoration. It plays a meaningful role. Posts, messages, digital traces, they carry consequences. The story quietly raises uncomfortable questions about what children understand about their actions and what they do not, about raising kids in the digital age with all of its dangers.
As someone who grew up before smartphones were part of everyday childhood, that element lingered with me. I was already an adult when social media became dominant. Watching a generation grow up inside it is a very different reality. The book captures that tension without turning into a lecture. It simply shows how quickly things can spiral.
Courtney is a strong focal point. She is grieving her brother and her best friend. She is terrified for her niece. She is also forced to confront the possibility that she did not truly know the people closest to her as well as she believed. Reese’s chapters offer a believable teenage perspective. Defensive. Observant. Holding back more than she says out loud.
I listened to the audiobook, which uses two narrators. Courtney’s voice felt grounded and steady. Reese’s narration leaned heavily into teenage sighs and breathy frustration, which sometimes felt exaggerated. It did not ruin the experience, but it was noticeable.
I gave this four stars. I was not completely consumed by it, but I was consistently engaged. The investigation felt participatory. The twists felt constructed rather than random. And the ending genuinely unsettled me.
I will definitely read more by Mary Kubica. If this is the kind of tension and thematic depth she consistently delivers, I am curious to see what else she can do.
Some tragedies explode out of nowhere. Others begin with something that seems small and harmless.
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