Breakaway Books

Authored by Lisa Jewell; Published June 2025; Thriller

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️

Don’t Let Him In is the kind of thriller that draws you in with the sheer audacity of the villain. There’s no whodunit, no question about what crimes have been committed—just a true psychopath, blazing his way through a series of victims. While the villain was somewhat compelling, the rest of the novel didn’t quite stand up to him.

In Don’t Let Him In, Ash is still recovering from the death of her father and her unceremonious dismissal from her job, licking her wounds in her childhood home, when the mysterious Nick comes calling on her mother Nina. The more Nick woos Nina, the more suspicious Ash gets, and she starts to track down women from his past and uncover his secrets. As it becomes clear that Nick has charmed and then stolen from woman after woman over the past decade, Ash must figure out how to separate him from her mom without putting Nina in danger. 

Reading this novel felt like listening to a true crime podcast. As the extent of Nick’s crimes is revealed, my fascination and horror grew, propelling me through the story. This isn’t the kind of thriller that draws its suspense from what the reader doesn’t know; rather, it relies on a fascination with the bizarre and awful to attract me. The chapters told from Nick’s point of view reveal a truly pathological sense of entitlement and anger. Still, I would have appreciated a twist or really any sort of surprise—instead, the shock wore off as I read about the women whom Nick conned in the same way, time after time. It became almost tedious by the end of the novel, and I felt like we could have gotten to the point a little more quickly. By the time the finale finally arrived, it was almost a letdown.

Ash is not my favorite heroine; she is just a little too confident about knowing what is best for her mother to ingratiate herself with the reader (or at least, this reader). Her burgeoning alliance with her father’s ex-girlfriend felt like a plot line ripe for a twist, but instead, it was straightforward, awkward and strange. Overall, the chapters told from Ash’s perspective are far more forgettable than those recounted by the villain. Suspense leaks out of the narrative when it’s her turn to tell the story, and when half the novel feels just a tad boring, it’s hard to love it.

Don’t Let Him In has some compelling elements, but I wouldn’t call it a candidate for the most thrilling page-turner of the year. It’s a good one to pick up for light (disturbing) reading.