It Could Have Been Her: A Novel

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone Lisa Jewell, two women's lives converge in a house containing devastating secrets that refuse to stay buried in this "deliciously dark, devilishly addictive" (Alice Feeney, bestselling author of My Husband's Wife) novel.

Jane Trevally is walking her dogs on her country estate when a small white terrier appears, alone and with no sign of the teenaged girl he’d been staying with nearby. When the teenager is reported missing, Jane offers to return the dog to his registered owner, hours away in London. Arriving at a run-down house called Thornwood in the deepest backwaters of Hampstead, she is immediately on alert—because Jane has a dark history with this house.

The man who answers the door is not the man that Jane remembers from her past. He is cagey, and claims to know nothing about the missing teenage girl. Then, through the window of the house, Jane catches a glimpse of a haunted-looking woman.

Conjuring her memories from twenty-five years ago, Jane knows this unsettling house holds the key—to the missing teenager, to her own traumatic story, and to the dark secrets of the past.

LISA JEWELL was born in London in 1968.

Her first novel, Ralph's Party, was the best- selling debut novel of 1999. Since then she has written another twenty novels, most recently a number of dark psychological thrillers, including The Girls, Then She Was Gone, The Family Upstairs, The Family Remains and The Night She Disappeared, all of which were Richard & Judy Book Club picks.

Lisa is a New York Times and Sunday Times number one bestselling author who has been published worldwide in over thirty languages. She lives in north London with her husband and two daughters.

It Could Have Been Her by Lisa Jewell is a psychological thriller built around a lost dog, a missing young woman, and an old house that hides a terrible history. The story centers on Jane Trevally, a wealthy, middle-aged woman living alone on her family estate with her dogs after two difficult marriages. On the surface, Jane has a quiet and comfortable life, but underneath that calm she carries old trauma from a terrifying experience in her youth that left a deep mark on her. When a small dog turns up on her land, Jane begins a chain of events that pulls her back toward that buried past and into a present-day mystery that feels increasingly dangerous.

The mystery begins with the dog, which Jane discovers has been left without its owner. After tracing the dog’s chip, she finds that it belongs to a young woman staying nearby, and when she goes to return the dog, she realizes the woman has disappeared. That disappearance is only the beginning. The search leads Jane to a house in London connected to the girl and to a disturbing feeling that she has been there before. The house awakens memories of a frightening night from many years earlier, when she had once gone to a similar place with a man who made her feel trapped and in danger. In the present, Jane senses that what is happening now may be tied to what happened then.

As Jane starts investigating, she becomes almost instinctively determined to find the missing woman. What begins as a simple act of kindness turns into an amateur investigation, and she slowly takes on the role of a private detective, helped by people around her who care about her and trust her judgment. Her stepson Dexter, her ex-husband Tony, and others in her orbit become part of the search, but Jane remains the emotional center of the novel. She is not a police officer or a trained investigator; she is someone who has lived through fear before and cannot ignore the warning signs when she sees them again.

The novel unfolds through multiple points of view and several timelines, which gradually reveal that the house Jane is investigating is not merely eerie but full of long-buried secrets. The present-day disappearance is only one thread in a much larger pattern involving abuse, control, silence, and women whose lives were hidden or erased. Lisa Jewell uses this structure to slowly build unease, showing how the past continues to shape the present even when no one wants to talk about it. Jane’s search for the missing woman becomes a search for truth about the people who lived in that house before and the suffering that may have been concealed there for years.

One of the book’s strongest themes is the lasting effect of trauma. Jane’s own history matters deeply to the story because her fear is not abstract; it is rooted in a memory of escape, of nearly being caught in a situation that could have destroyed her. That past gives her investigation emotional urgency. She is not simply trying to help a stranger. She is also, in a sense, trying to confront the younger version of herself who once got away. The novel suggests that trauma does not disappear just because time passes. It stays alive in instinct, memory, and the way a person reacts when danger seems familiar again.

The book also explores the ways dangerous people can hide in plain sight. The house at the center of the story seems outwardly ordinary, but the deeper Jane looks, the more disturbing the reality becomes. Suspicious behavior, hidden relationships, and contradictory stories all point toward a truth that is much darker than a simple missing-person case. Jewell uses that slow reveal to create a sense of dread, making the reader feel that something terrible has been happening behind closed doors for a long time.

In the end, It Could Have Been Her is both a suspenseful thriller and a story about recovery, memory, and the courage to pay attention when something feels wrong. Jane’s investigation is driven by empathy as much as fear, and that makes her feel vivid and human. The novel asks what happens when an ordinary act of returning a dog leads to the exposure of secrets that were never meant to surface. It is a dark, layered story about the women who disappear, the people who notice, and the pasts that refuse to stay buried.