August 2025

Bookreporter readers are well aware of how much I love Shari Lapena’s books. She knows how to keep me turning the pages. In fact, I had just a few chapters of SHE DIDN’T SEE IT COMING left to read one morning, so I downloaded the audiobook and finished with a listen on the way to the health club. She is that good; I just did not want to wait to see how the book wrapped up.

Let’s look at the setup. Bryden is working at home in her luxury apartment. She fails to pick up her daughter at daycare, which is most unlike her. Her husband, Sam, arrives home to find her laptop on, her car keys still there, her vehicle still in the underground garage, and her cell phone still in the apartment. It’s as if she vanished.

How could Bryden have just walked away leaving everything behind? There’s some speculation that she never even left the building. Sam is at his wit’s end trying to keep their daughter’s life on some semblance of a schedule while many fingers seem to be pointing his way. Did they really have the perfect life? There are a lot of questions about that now. Bryden’s parents and neighbors are enlisted to help, as is her best friend. They all start to wonder how well they really know each other.

And then… Wait, I am not going to tell you that. It would spoil the story. Ruth Ware says that “[n]o one does suburban paranoia like Shari Lapena,” and I do agree.