📖 Book Review ~ She Didn’t See It Coming by Shari Lapena

Random House
Transworld
17 July 2025

Thanks to the publisher for the copy of this book to review

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 – working from home that day - has failed to collect their daughter from daycare.

Arriving home with their little girl, he finds his wife’s 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. It’s as if she just walked out.

How can she have disappeared from her own home? And did she even leave the building at all?

With every minute that passes – and as questions swirl around their community – Bryden and Sam’s past seems a little less perfect, their luxury condo less safe, their friends, neighbours and relatives no longer quite so reliable.

📖 My Review..

Sam receives a phone call to inform him that his wife has failed to pick up their little girl from day-care. This is completely out of character as normally Bryden is a conscientious mother and dotes on her daughter. The mystery deepens when Sam arrives home and finds their luxury condo empty, and even more worrying is that all of Bryden’s belongings are still lying around, seemingly untouched. With no choice, Sam alerts the police and a detailed investigation is launched into Bryden’s mysterious disappearance.

This is a cleverly written domestic drama which has twists and turns aplenty and with a cast of charmless characters who could, in their own unique way, all know something about Bryden’s uncharacteristic disappearance. With few clues to go on the local police have to delve deeply into Bryden and Sam’s lives in order to try and fit together all the missing pieces of this complex puzzle. The other main characters, particularly Bryden’s sister, and her best friend, have a difficult time as they too can’t work out why Bryden would willingly go off and leave her husband and young daughter.

She Didn’t See It Coming is a cleverly constructed psychological thriller which not only keeps you turning the pages but also keeps you guessing towards a clever ending that I really didn’t see coming.

About the Author

Shari Lapena is the internationally multimillion copy bestselling author. Her books have been sold in fifty territories around the world. She lives in Toronto.

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