Mini Review | The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell

Format: Audiobook (via BorrowBox)

Read: August 2023

I don’t often get into the crime-mystery-thriller genre, but a friend has been reading a lot of Lisa Jewell and highly recommended them. There is usually a reserve list for her books on audio through my library, but I noticed that this one was available and snapped it up for change of pace as I was making my way through the last of The Lunar Chronicles!

First of all I really have the sing the praises of this as an audiobook. It’s read by Joanne Froggatt, who you may know as Anna from Downton Abbey. When I saw that wasn’t sure how it would be, I have so far found screen actresses hit & miss with audio narration (Hayley Atwell was just OK for The Confession, but Carey Mulligan was pretty good for The Midnight Library). Joanne Froggatt was amazing! She is a master at different voices, not just accents, and I found she totally disappeared into the different characters. She is definitely a huge reason why I loved this so much, and I will be on the look our for more audiobooks read by her!

As for the novel itself, because it is a mystery I’m not going to say too much! These are the reasons I loved it:

• Compelling mystery. I really couldn’t work out where it was all going until the first last few chapters.
• Fantastic, complex and believable characters. I especially thought Tallulah and Kim were great, and all the small missed opportunities for communication between the pair of them that could have avoided so much pain.
• Lisa Jewell actually reminds me of Liane Moriaty (who I have also been exploring this year) in that she is so good at weaving mystery around the relationships and motives of your average, every day characters that we can recognise from our own lives.
• This was the first time I have sat for 30 minutes gripped just listening to an audiobook and not doing cleaning, gardening or walking!
• I loved this, I can’t wait to get my hands on more Lisa Jewell!

My only negative take away is that now I need more and I’m going to get on the waiting lists. I hope that this one hasn’t set the bar too high! (I fear the audiobook version might have done!)