She Didn't See It Coming by Shari Lapena

A special thank you to the publisher, Penguin Random House Canada, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When a beloved wife and mother disappears, a luxurious condo building transforms into a potential crime scene, and the investigation begins: can the detectives find her before it's too late?

Bryden and Sam have it all: thriving careers, a smart apartment in a luxury condominium, supportive friends and a cherished daughter. The perfect life for the perfect couple.

Then Sam receives a call at his office. Bryden—working from home that day—has failed to collect their daughter from daycare. Arriving home with their little girl, he finds his wife’s car in the underground garage. Upstairs in their apartment her laptop is open on the table, her cell phone nearby, her keys in their usual place in the hall.

Except Bryden is nowhere to be seen. It’s as if she just walked out. 

The queen of domestic suspense, Shari Lapena, is back with a gripping and claustrophobic tale of deception, revenge, and jealousy. 

She Didn't See it Coming is union of a suburban thriller and police procedural. Told from multiple points of view, this cast of unreliable and unlikable characters are full of secrets, lies, and in some cases motivation—everyone is a suspect for Detective Jayne Salter.

Expertly plotted and full of red herrings and twists, this is Lapena is at her finest. Strong recommend.

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SHARI LAPENA is is the internationally bestselling author of nine thrillers—including The Couple Next Door—which have all been New York Times, Sunday Times, and Globe and Mail bestsellers. Her books have been sold in forty territories around the world. 

Lapena lives on a farm outside Toronto with her husband.

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Q & A with Shari Lapena*

GWR: Is there a particular author/work that inspired you to become a writer or the way you write?  

SL: There’s no one book or author who inspired me to become a writer exactly, but I do remember being nine years old and reading Nancy Drew books and thinking that I’d like to grow up and write Nancy Drew books one day. As far as the way I write, I take inspiration from Patricia Highsmith, who was so good at getting into the deep, dark psychology of her characters.

GWR: Are you a pantser/gardener or a plotter/architect? 

SL: That’s interesting—I haven’t heard the gardener/architect labels before. I’m definitely a pantser/gardener. I’ve tried planning but I just can’t think of anything that might happen unless I’m actually writing inside a character in a scene and seeing what happens next. I’m definitely an organic writer—one thing leads to another for me. I start with a couple of characters and a situation or conflict and see what they do and go from there. 

GWR: As a seasoned author, what is your favourite part of the publishing process? Is there anything that you still find difficult?

SL: I still love writing the first draft. I love to see where the story is going. And I love touring and going to festivals. I still find edits a slog after a while, but they’re a necessary part of the process. There’s also a lot of administrative work that goes along with being an author, but it must be done.

GWR: What sparked the idea for She Didn't See It Coming?

SL: I’ve always been interested in stories about people who go out to the corner store to get a loaf of bread for example and are never seen again. I always want to know what happened. I came up with the idea of a woman working from home one day in a condominium building who appears to have just stepped out for a moment, leaving her purse, keys and phone behind. No signs of a struggle. And no clues as to what happened to her. Of course, the people left behind are going mad not knowing what happened to her. The police investigation is extra interesting because there is no evidence that she ever actually left the building—but they can’t find her.

GWR: Detective Jayne Salter and her partner, Dr. Michael Fraser, are persuasive and compelling characters—will either/both be featured in any upcoming works, or for a series perhaps? 

SL: That’s a good question! I’ve always written stand alones, but I’m actually starting to consider doing a series. And I like Jayne and Michael too—her struggles with being a homicide detective, and the extra colour he provides as a psychologist. I might come back to them. People are already asking for a sequel to She Didn't See It Coming.

GWR: Why do you prefer to write from a third-person point of view? 

SL: I love third person point of view, but even more, I love multiple points of view. Third person is great because you can get as shallow or as deep as you like into a character—and I like to get deep into their emotions and complexities. And I love multiple viewpoints because I find it really helps to keep the pacing fast and sets up lots of opportunities to engage and mislead the reader.  

GWR: How do you write such effective red herrings when you are so close to the material?

SL: I don’t even have to think about red herrings—they just occur naturally as I write. I think of every character, or most characters, as a suspect, so I’m imagining why they might have done the crime and how and why. So the red herrings are there naturally for each suspect.

GWR: As the queen of domestic suspense, do you build your stories around a twist/reveal, or does this happen organically?

SL: It’s all organic for me. I don’t plan any of it, and that includes plot, character, twists, reveals, and the ending. I start with an incident—for example, in She Didn't See It Coming, I knew Bryden would disappear from her condo and not pick her child up from daycare. I knew she would have a husband. But that’s it. After I’d written that, I went back and added a prologue about a minor car accident she’d had. And then I started adding in other characters as they occurred to me in the story.

GWR: What draws you to darker themes? 

SL: That is such a good question, and do we ever really know? I just find that I’m curious about them. It’s curiosity that drives me to write, and I think it’s curiosity that drives us to read. We want to know what happens next. People have a built-in love for story. I think it’s how we learn.

GWR: What’s the one element of a thriller that is a must?

SL: Tension. You can’t have a thriller without tension. You can have a thriller without a dead body, but you must have tension.

GWR: If your book was a beverage, what would it be? 

SL: Oh, no one’s ever asked me that before. Maybe a black coffee with a shot of gin. I wonder what that tastes like? (Shari said that the black coffee for a jolt and the gin because apparently psychopaths drink gin.)

GWR: Can you share what are you working on now?

SL: Yes, I’ve just finished my tenth crime novel, called Getting Away With Murder. It will be out next summer. It just might be my best yet.

*A version of this post was published on STYLE Canada. 

#HarperPresents: A Cozy Fall Evening with Authors Gilly Macmillan and Tarryn Fisher

Author promotional photos credit: HarperCollins Canada.  All other photos belong to Girl Well Read — do not use without written permission.

Toronto book lovers were invited to meet authors Gilly Macmillan (The Nanny) and Tarryn Fisher (The Wives) to hear about their new books. The event was moderated by Canadian bestselling author, Shari Lapena, and was followed by a candle making workshop.

Psychological thrillers

Tarryn starts with a "what if" question. "What would you do if your husband had more than one wife?" Her newest work is a modern day polygamy story that is the unravelling of one of the wives.

"I love women—how they work, view each other, how men affect them, and how women view other women. Women connect more to each other than men do to one another," Fisher said.

The Nanny is about a woman named Jo who unexpectedly lost her husband. Jo and her daughter, Ruby, return to England to live with her mother—Jo doesn't get along with her mother. She had a nanny growing up and she loved Hannah more than anything, even her mum.

Jo's mother behaves strangely after human remains are found on her estate property, and then someone claiming to be the nanny shows up after all this time. What does she want?

The story spans 2 generations of mother daughter relationships—Macmillan loves digging into family relationships.

On their writing process

Fisher is the author of nine novels. As mentioned, all of her books start with a "what if" question. She also finds inspiration in her own life including her mistakes.

Lapena asked if Tarryn was a "pantser" as in fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, or a "plotter" to which she replied that she was a pantser, but curious about a plotter and how they outline. It takes her about a year for the first draft and two months for the revisions.

Tarryn used to write with a boiling pot in the background. Now she writes using a rain machine.

Macmillan is the author of six novels. When asked about her writing process, she laughed and said that she constanstantly writes herself into corners. She also sets up too many stories and has to cut material. Gilly has been publishing a book a year, spending six or seven months on her first draft and then a few months revising.

To write, Gilly likes coffee, her dogs, and when her house is quiet.

What is your favourite part of being a writer?

"When you have good days," said Gilly. "Right stage of the book, and you have a handle on the characters."

Fisher likes the actual writing itself. "I have a baby so it's hard to write."

Before they were writers

Gilly was a housewife with three children. She has an art background and was teaching photography but wanted to see if she could write a book—she committed to a thousand words a day and her efforts turned into What She Knew.

Tarryn said that she has done every job "very poorly." She has been actively writing since the age of five. As a child, she send a letter to an editor. Fisher went to school for psychology (this is very evident in her 'Tuesdays with Tarryn' feature on Instagram). She was  fashion editor in Miami and used to write at work.

Suspense

Tarryn is drawn to dark things. She even interned at a mental hospital, to which Lapena quipped  "there would have been lots of good material there."

When asked where she gets her own intuitiveness from, Gilly said that she is nosey—she's fascinated by people and what motivates them. "You can see a lot of patterns," she said. And that you have to be careful bringing in real life into your stories.

Fisher on the other hand pulls everything in. Suspense just comes out in her writing, it unfolds. She loves villains and said that if she villainizes you, it's actually a compliment.

Gilly also looks at suspense from the perspective of the reader asking "would I turn the pages if I was reading it?"

Does it ever get easier?

"No, there is pressure to be better than the last," Tarryn said.

Gilly agreed and said that it gets harder.

Tarryn was approachable, warm, and has incredible style. She exudes confidence and I have to be honest, I was a wee bit star struck. And the PLNs were out in full force (way to represent Canada, ladies).

Gilly is so lovely! She's incredibly sweet and has such a kind way about her. I've had the pleasure of corresponding with her via Instagram and it was wonderful to finally meet in person! I was more than excited to meet her and was totally fangirling.

The Nanny

Seven-year-old Jocelyn Holt is devastated when Hannah, her beloved nanny, suddenly leaves and vanishes without a trace. This monumental loss in Jo's life haunts her to this day. She grew up bitter and distant from her parents, eventually leaving Lake Hall, the family's aristocratic residence.

Thirty years later, Jo confronts her complicated relationship with her mother when she is forced to return to Lake Hall after the death of her husband. To add to the sting, Jo's daughter, Ruby, seems to be enamoured with her grandmother, Lady Victoria Holt.

In an attempt at mother-daughter bonding, Jo takes Ruby on a boat ride because it was something she loved to do as a child. The pair make a grisly discovery of some human remains in the lake that is on the grounds of the estate. Jo begins to question her past and everything she thought she knew may not be as it once appeared.

An unexpected visitor comes calling and sends Jo into a tailspin. She is desperate to piece together the mystery of who her nanny really was, why she left Jo all those years ago, and what role her mother played in all of it. The only problem is she can't seem to trust her memories.

The Nanny is a diabolical tale that exposes the dark impulses and lengths people will go to not only protect themselves, but to hurt one another. Sometimes the truth hurts so much that you live the lie instead.

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GILLY MACMILLAN is the New York Times bestselling author of What She Knew (previously published as Burnt Paper Sky in some territories), The Perfect Girl, Odd Child Out, and I Know You Know.

Gilly is Edgar Award nominated and an ITW award finalist. Her books have been translated into over 20 languages.

She grew up in Swindon, Wiltshire and also lived in Northern California. She studied History of Art at Bristol University and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.

Macmillan lives in Bristol, UK with her husband, three children and two dogs and writes full time. She’s currently working on her sixth novel.

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The Wives

Your husband has three wives and you are wife number two. You have never met the other women. Because of this arrangement, you see your husband only one day a week—you're the Thursday wife, the best wife. You convince yourself that this agreement works because you love him so much and he's worth it.

When you are doing his laundry, you find an appointment slip in his pocket for Hannah. She has to be one of the other wives. You can't help yourself, your curiosity gets the better of you and you manage to track her down. The two of you strike up a friendship, she is quite likeable even though she is young and naive.

Hannah shows up to one of your coffee dates with bruises and you know that these marks are because she is being abused by her husband—only he's your husband too. But he's never been violent with you, so why now? Do you even really know the man that you married? And who is his mysterious first wife?

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TARRYN FISHER is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of nine novels.

Born a sun hater, she currently makes her home in Seattle, Washington with her children, husband, and psychotic husky.

Tarryn writes about villains.

Someone We Know by Shari Lapena

A special thank you to Edelweiss and Penguin Publishing Group for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What would you do if you found out that your teenage son has been breaking into homes in your quiet, upscale neighbourhood? Olivia Sharpe has just learned that her son Raleigh has a new hobby. He swears he isn't stealing, just hacking into people's computers.

Thinking she's doing the right thing, Olivia sends anonymous letters to the neighbours who were victim to Raleigh's snooping. At the same time, a woman down the street that the neighbours assumed left her husband—when in fact he had filed a missing persons report—was found in the trunk of her car at the bottom of a lake. Olivia is shocked to learn that the woman is Amanda Pierce whose home Raleigh broke into.

Will the letters incriminate her family? Is her son as harmless as he lets on? Who actually killed Amanda and just how far are they willing to go to protect themselves?

What I liked about Someone We Know—that I found lacking with An Unwanted Guest—is that this thriller was more of a character study. Lapena fully developed this particular cast of characters, but it was lacking in execution. There seems to be a lot of repetition because the plot isn't very liner so you end being led in circles.

SHARI LAPENA worked as a lawyer and as an English teacher before turning to writing fiction. A Stranger in the House, as well as Lapena's suspense debut, The Couple Next Door, were both New York Times and international bestsellers.

An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena

A special thank you to Edelweiss and Penguin Publishing Group for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Lapena's debut The Couple Next Door was an instant hit and received rave reviews and I thought it was a solid effort. Admittedly, I was a tiny bit underwhelmed by her second book, A Stranger in the House, but feel that An Unwanted Guest is on par with The Couple Next Door (and that was a solid 3.5 out of 5 stars). It takes place at a secluded hotel and what unfolds is a thriller that is reminiscent of a classic mystery—think Agatha Christie.  

Mitchell's Inn, nestled in the Catskills, boasts a cozy atmosphere, but this is anything but a cozy mystery. The stately rooms feature woodburning fireplaces and have just the right amount of nostalgia to be quaint, including no Wi-Fi or cell service.  

When a winter storm knocks out the power, all contact with the outside world is cut off. The guests try to make the best of the situation until one of them turns up dead. At first it appears to be an accident, but then a second guest dies and panic sets in.    

With everyone being a suspect, the guests have no choice but to weather the storm and each other.  

I liked how Lapena juxtaposed the violence of the storm against the violent acts of murder and thought the premise was clever. The atmosphere and description were the stand out parts of the book—I did tire of the repetitious thoughts about who the killer could be. The reader does not need to be reminded that each character needs to figure out which one of them is the killer—isn't that the whole point of the book?  

What I ultimately struggled with, and what continues to baffle me, is how removed Lapena can be. Given that this book is told from multiple points of view, this should be a character-driven novel, but there wasn't enough character development. There wasn't enough distinction between their voices so for the most part, it felt like there was only one narrator. 

I haven't given up on Lapena yet, her stories are incredibly engaging and imaginative.    

SHARI LAPENA worked as a lawyer and as an English teacher before turning to writing fiction. A Stranger in the House, as well as Lapena's suspense debut, The Couple Next Door, were both New York Times and international bestsellers.