It Could Have Been Her

Jane Trevally, a supporting character in Jewell’s 2025 thriller, Don’t Let Him In, takes center stage in this chilling gothic suspense tale. At the outset, Jane is twice divorced and living in a ramshackle house in Dorset she can’t quite summon the courage to leave. Her life changes after she finds a lost dog that neighbors tell her was last seen with a now missing young woman named Rose White. Jane decides to return the dog to the London home registered on its ID chip. When she arrives, the house—situated in the Vale of Health near Hampstead—reminds her of a haunting incident from her past. Then Stuart Tucker, the man who answers the door, claims not to know Rose, and Jane grows increasingly suspicious. She digs into Rose’s background with the help of her youngest stepson, Dexter, and together, they unravel the dark history of the family who occupies the Vale of Health house, dredging up Jane’s own buried traumas in the process. With a shrewd command of the narrative, Jewell turns a chance encounter into a disturbing treatise on the past’s ability to assert itself in ways both unwelcome and unlikely. The author’s fans will relish this pitch-black spine-tingler. Agent: Jonny Geller, Curtis Brown U.K. (June)