It's Not Her by Mary Kubica — A Lakeside Cabin, a Brutal Crime and a Missing Teenager

Courtney Gray never wanted to go on the trip. Two families sharing cabins at a shabby resort in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, with one shared bathroom and a forest that hides most of the lake, was not her idea of a holiday. Then, one morning, she finds her brother Nolan and his wife Emily dead. Their seventeen-year-old daughter, Reese, is nowhere to be found. It's Not Her, published on 3 February 2026 by Park Row in the US and Sphere in the UK, is the latest thriller from Mary Kubica, the author of The Good Girl, Local Woman Missing and She's Not Sorry. As the title suggests, the question at its heart is not only who did this, but who everyone thinks did it, and why. Two narrators, two timelines Kubica tells the story in two voices. Courtney narrates the present: the shock, the police investigation and the effort to look after her brother's two younger children while trying to work out what happened. Reese narrates the week before, as the trip slowly goes wrong. Everyone has something to hide. Reese has been seeing one of the resort's employees in secret. Her fourteen-year-old brother, Wyatt, may or may not be sleepwalking, and his behaviour unsettles Courtney. Courtney's own husband, Elliott, has blood on his shoes. Was it someone from outside, or someone inside the family? Reese steals the show Kirkus was most impressed by Reese, describing her rage, her resentment of her mother and her longing for approval as entirely believable. The reviewer even suggested the book might have worked better told only from her point of view. Those feelings matter to the mystery, too. Because Reese is angry with her parents and keeping secrets of her own, her chapters show the cracks in the family that Courtney, caught up in the aftermath, can't see. Kubica has always been good at teenagers, and Reese is one of her strongest. The dual-timeline format will be familiar to anyone who reads a lot of thrillers, but it is handled well. Pamela Kramer called the alternating narratives "extremely effective" and wrote, "Kubica creates the perfect amount of tension." Slow burn, sharp ending This is not a breakneck thriller. Kramer described it as "definitely a slow burn", and much of the book is about tension inside the family rather than action. Both narrators may be hiding things from the reader, which keeps you second-guessing. Several reviewers mention a final twist they didn't see coming, and this summary won't spoil it. Alison Helms, reviewing for Showbiz Junkies, gave it four stars and called it an "enthralling psychological thriller". Before you start The book opens with a violent crime, and the story stays with grief, family conflict and a missing child throughout. Readers who want fast pacing may find the middle slow, and the structure won't surprise genre regulars. Our verdict It's Not Her is a well-built family thriller with a vivid, uncomfortable setting and a teenage narrator who lingers long after you finish. Read it if you liked Local Woman Missing or enjoy suspense where the danger might be sitting at the same campfire. If you need a twist on every page, look elsewhere.