Every once in a while, a cool opportunity pops up. The opportunity to read It’s Not Her by Mary Kubica about a year before it’s published falls under that category. Thanks to the team at HTP’s Hive for asking me to read it early-early.
It’s Not Her [Buy Bookshop Amazon LibroFM] is a classic family vacation turnes deadly tale. A brother and sister drag their families to a resort in Wisconsin, which isn’t very resort-like. Courtney spends a post-sleepover morning with her daughter and her niece, then sends her niece back to her cottage next door. Mae runs back with blood on her hands, so Courtney goes to see what’s going on and finds her brother and sister-in-law dead. Their son slept through the murders, but their daughter Reese is missing.
This story is told in two points of view, Courtney and Reese. On Courtney’s side, we get the after effects of the murder and her push to find the killer. She’s desperate to locate Reese, especially after learning there was a girl who disappeared from that area years before. Reese’s perspective starts on the drive and leads up to the murders, giving us a look at some of the family tensions and her budding summer romance with a much older man.
Overall, It’s Not Her is a fun, twisty read. I figured out the who relatively early on gut instinct alone. There wasn’t anything really in the text to indicate this person, so I did find myself questioning it and riding the waves of suspicion through the book. There were still some twists on the why that were wild, which kept it enjoyable. And then Mary delivered the biggest sucker punch of a twist in the epilogue. It is delicious.
And check out my blurb in the book!
Literary Hypewoman 
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