Don't Let Him In: A Novel

by Lisa Jewell Narrated by Richard Armitage, Joanne Froggatt, Tamaryn Payne, Gemma Whelan, Louise Brealey, Patience Tomlinson

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Three women’s lives intertwine when a charming man that seems too-good-to-be-true enters their lives in a twisty new domestic thriller from Lisa Jewell.

A MOST ANTICIPATED SUMMER READ from People, USA TODAY, theSkimm, E! News, Forbes, New York Post, CrimeReads, and many more!

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell, three women are connected by one man in this kaleidoscopic thriller.

He's the perfect man. It's a perfect lie.

Nina Swann is intrigued when she received a condolence card from Nick Radcliffe, an old friend of her late husband, who is looking to connect after her husband's unexpected death. Nick is a man of substance and good taste. He has a smile that could melt the coldest heart and a knack for putting others at ease. But to Nina's adult daughter, Ash, Nick seems too slick, too polished, too good to be true. Without telling her mother, Ash begins digging into Nick's past. What she finds is more than unsettling...

Martha is a florist living in a neighboring town with her infant daughter and her devoted husband, Alistair. But lately, Alistair has been traveling more and more frequently for work, disappearing for days at a time. When Martha questions him about his frequent absences, he always has a legitimate explanation, but Martha can't share the feeling that something isn't right.

Nina, Martha, and Ash are on a collision course with a shocking truth that is far darker than anyone could have imagined. And all three are about to wish they had heeded the same warning: Don't let him in. But the past won't stay buried forever.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Jewell is on a hot streak, with one brilliant thriller after another....As tantalizingly labyrinthine as her stories are, it’s the way she anchors them in a recognizably real world, and populates them with abundantly human characters, that makes them so successful. In a genre full of top-flight authors, she ranks very near the absolute top.”
—Booklist (starred review)

“Jewell effortlessly toggles back and forth in time...setting up a wicket and satisfying cat and mouse game .... Readers who like their psychological suspense on the dark side will be delighted with the results."
—Publishers Weekly

“The enduring appeal of her fiction [resides] in the atmosphere of intimate unease that Ms. Jewell—like her forebear Ruth Rendell—so expertly creates.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“Taut with danger . . . one of those gripping beach reads sure to keep you flipping the pages on your next flight.”
—Elle

“Eerie, twist-filled.”
—Woman’s World


“Don't Let Him In masterfully blurs the lines between truth and deception. The tension builds from page one, gripping you until the shocking conclusion!”
—Freida McFadden, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Don’t Let Him In is creepy, twisty, and compulsively readable. It hooked me from the first page and never let me go.”
—Emily Henry, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Funny Story

“This is a dark house of a thriller, full of trapdoors and hidden rooms and steps that lead you where you least expect and rugs that get whipped out from beneath you. Nobody – nobody – does this better than Jewell. Don’t Let Him In is the best book of Lisa Jewell’s career – the pages practically shiver.”
—A.J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window

“Don’t Let Him In is a masterclass in suspense. A dream romance spirals into a nightmare as Lisa Jewell expertly draws together the strands of deceit with increasing menace, presenting us with one of the most chilling, unsettling villains I’ve encountered in a long time.”
—Alex Michaelides, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient

“Reading a Lisa Jewell is like putting yourself inside a pressure cooker—one that you don’t really want to get out of. Nobody creates characters like she does—and in Nick she has created one of her darkest, twistiest yet.”
—JoJo Moyes, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Someone Else’s Shoes

“A thrilling, chilling, work of genius. Don’t Let Him In is Lisa Jewell at her mesmeric best.”
—Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author of All the Colors of the Dark

“Cancel all plans, this is a read-in-one-sitting book. A gripping psychological thriller that is compulsive and clever and completely brilliant. I couldn’t put it down.”
—Alice Feeney, New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ugly

"A twisting, mosaic of a novel, packed full of neon-vivid characters you root for, and a hero so evocative he could be my neighbor (if that wasn't my worst nightmare). I loved it!"
—Gillian McAllister, New York Times bestselling author of Wrong Place Wrong Time

"Utterly brilliant. Impossibly, she gets better and better."
—Mark Edwards, author of The Psychopath Next Door

“I read Lisa Jewell’s newest last night in one straight sitting, completely glued!!! I loved it so much!!! The only sad thing is now I have no more new Jewells to look forward to.”
—Emma Torzs, author of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

Kirkus Reviews

2025-04-19
Following her father’s sudden death, Aisling Swann is secretly horrified when her mother begins to date again—and she quickly becomes suspicious of this new flame.

Four years ago: A mysterious male narrator reflects upon his relationship with his wife—along with a few pointed comments about how she is aging. It quickly becomes apparent that this self-proclaimed “very pleasant” man is not who he seems; he already has a girlfriend on the side, and he’s playing both women with sob stories about his job and his traumatic past while taking money from them. Even as they get more and more frustrated with his lack of communication during ever-lengthening absences, he still gives them what they want: “a top-notch husband.” In the present day, Ash Swann; her brother, Arlo; and their mother, Nina, mourn the loss of her charismatic father, Paddy, a successful chef with a chain of lucrative restaurants. Nina receives a sympathy note from a man who claims to have worked closely with Paddy in the industry, which leads to a robust online flirtation that moves into the real world about a year after her husband’s death. Ash is living at home, mired in grief as well as her own mental health struggles, and she’s none too happy to see her mom dating—but particularly this handsome, egregiously suave Nick Radcliffe. Ash begins to notice some inconsistencies with his stories and his past, so she enlists Paddy’s ex-girlfriend Jane to help her investigate. Meanwhile, Ash’s story continues to intercut that of the mysterious man who is now married to his former girlfriend—and still up to his old tricks. Jewell’s cutting between past and present certainly allows revelations to ooze out at a slow, controlled pace; even as the reader makes obvious connections, the full picture remains obscure. Jewell has written some incredibly engaging and strong female characters, Nina, Ash, and Jane foremost among them. What would it have been like to split the narrative between them instead of giving so much voice—and thus narrative power—to the male antagonist?

Jewell is absolutely a genius at building suspense, but the “man behaving badly” plot is getting tired.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940191079004
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	06/24/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One: November

The house is spectacular. A huge white stucco villa on three floors plus attic rooms, and a direct view of the sea visible through tall windows that frame the vista at the back and the front. I imagine that a wall must have been taken down at some point to offer up that level of open-plan space in a Victorian house. Steel beams put in. Expensive stuff. Just to give the owners more light and space. I feel an uncharacteristic twitch of jealousy. It’s not like me to envy others. I rarely, in fact, give a thought to them. But this is a different case altogether. I turn off the van’s engine and sit, just for a moment, readying myself. Through the window, on the other side of the house, I see the shadows of movement and as I pull on a baseball cap and open the driver’s door, I hear the muted murmur of chatter. There are four cars parked outside and clearly the day is still going strong. I go to the side of the van and pull open the door. There it is, my last delivery of the day: an extra-large bouquet of white hydrangeas and roses, no expense spared, in a pink bag. On the envelope is the inscription “Nina Swann & Family.”

I walk toward the front door, peering in subtly as I pass the kitchen window. A small group sits around the table, a mix of younger and older people. They all have wine, are dressed somberly. There is music playing, candles are flickering. I see art and photography and graphics on the walls; I see a designer kitchen in midnight blue and pink, with flashes of brass and copper, big globe light bulbs hanging at irregular intervals from golden chains, plants on shelves. Through a door at the back of the kitchen, I see huge velvet sofas, a mixing desk, a Gorillaz poster.

It’s the home of a Gen X man who has made good decisions, made a success of his life, piled his building blocks one on top of the other with precision and care. But also, the home of a man who made one really bad mistake that his wife and his family are going to pay for, over and over again.

I keep moving past the window and then I put my finger to the doorbell.