It's Not What You Think by Clare Mackintosh

 

Convinced her partner is cheating on her, Nadeeka rushes home from work, hoping to catch him in the act. However, when she gets home, the police are waiting for her and her partner is dead.

It's Not What You Think by Clare Mackintosh is absolutely gripping. The riveting opening puts you straight into the action as you join Nadeeka rushing home, hoping to catch her partner, Jamie, with another woman. Although she's desperately hoping she's wrong, as Jamie is her first serious relationship since her ex-husband cheated on her and he'd promised he would never do the same.

You really feel sympathetic towards Nadeeka. After the end of her marriage, she was extremely reluctant to let anyone else into her life, but Jamie seemed perfect; to then have him cheat on her is gut-wrenching. The emotional punches continue when Nadeeka learns that Jamie is dead. Over the coming days, Nadeeka is unable to accept what has happened, and in her search for answers, she discovers some disturbing facts. Doubts and questions begin to swirl around her mind, robbing her of the happy memories she had.

There are lots of twists, and they start early in the narrative; the first one in particular floored me. Using different POVs allows us to see the investigation from different viewpoints, each one adding to the twisty plot. The pacing works brilliantly. After the frantic opening, the tempo slows to reflect the different perspectives and the rate at which an investigation happens, to then increase again at breakneck speed towards the shocking conclusion.

It's Not What You Think by Clare Mackintosh will be published on 26th March 2026 in hardback, ebook and audio format. My thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for a review copy.

Author Details

With over three million copies of her books sold worldwide, number one bestseller Clare Mackintosh is the multi-award-winning author of I Let You Go, which was a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller and the fastest-selling title by a new crime writer in 2015. It also won the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year in 2016. She has since written seven more bestselling novels. Together, her books have been translated into 40 languages and spent more than sixty-five weeks in The Sunday Times bestseller lists.

Clare is patron of the Silver Star Society, a charity based at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, which supports parents experiencing high-risk or difficult pregnancies.