Ellie Mack has been missing for ten years. At fifteen, beautiful, smart, and full of life and potential, she disappeared without a trace. The police suspect she ran away, but her mother Laurel refuses to believe it. Ten years later, divorced and disconnected from her other children, Laurel is still struggling to accept that Ellie is not coming back. Things start to look up when she meets Floyd and quickly falls into a relationship--falling under his nine-year-old daughter Poppy's spell as much as his. Poppy bears an eerie resemblance to Ellie, and soon Laurel is wondering if the connections between them are more than just coincidence.

This book reads as a mystery, and though it's not hard to figure out from the beginning, I was completely hooked and needed to know how the story played out. It's rare that I rate a thriller with five stars, but this one fit the bill. It doesn't quite fit the criteria for a thriller that isn't a mystery, but it's close. Jewell manages to build suspense but is meticulous in tying up loose ends, making this one of the most satisfying thrillers I've read in a long time.

Lisa Jewell's Then She Was Gone is one of the better thrillers I've read recently, so I knew I wanted to try out her new offering, Watching You. Jewell's mastery of the thriller shines here as she steps backward from the scene of a murder in a small English town, bringing together a cast of characters all focused on one charismatic man: the headmaster of a local school, Tom Fitzwilliam.

A young newlywed develops an unhealthy infatuation with Tom, while a teen girl in the neighborhood is convinced he's not all he seems--and her mentally ill mother agrees. Tom's son, in the meantime, grapples with his own mixed feelings about his father while he watches and records the goings-on in the neighborhood.

The loose ties between the characters tighten as past meets present and Jewell manages to surprise without resorting to twists that feel gimmicky. I'm not a devoted reader of thrillers, but I'll continue to pick up her books knowing I'm in for a twisty and satisfying read.

The House We Grew Up In is a twisty family tale from one of my new favorite thriller authors, Lisa Jewell--except it's not really a thriller, and I hadn't even realized that Jewell was the author until I revisited this book. Her mastery of family and relationship intricacies is on point here, and as in her thrillers, there are secrets to untangle. But this book is more about family--a seemingly perfect English family that is torn apart by tragedy one Easter weekend. Years later, the scattered children return and are forced to face their mother's mental illness and the truth of what happened that long-ago holiday.

At 25 years old, Libby opens a letter to find out the identity of her birth parents--and that she has inherited their abandoned mansion in London. Twenty-five years ago, police were called to the house to find only a baby alive in a crib--and three dead bodies in the kitchen. The four other children were gone. Libby finds herself entangled in the families that lived in the house--and their secrets. Through flashbacks between past and present, as well as from multiple character perspectives, we learn happened in the house and how the events of the past are still unfolding in the present.

Lisa Jewell has become one of my favorite mystery and thriller writers. She writes smart, solid stories with fully developed characters and without gimmicky twists, and I'm pleased to say that The Family Upstairs follows this pattern. She adds just the right touch of creepiness for a reader like me who is a little sensitive to scary stories. Most intriguing here are the manipulative, dark characters, and the flashbacks told by various characters will keep you guessing about what is true and what is not.