Long Story Short? We yapped about Don't Let Him In by Lisa Jewell and we're excited to tell you why this book should be moved to the top of your TBR!

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Welcome to the Other side of the Page, a bookish podcast where we yap about the books we love and the.

Songs that give us main character energy.

We are here to sift through the chaos that is our TBR and to.

Let you know why a book might just be your next favorite read.

I'm Brit, dramatic plot twist lover and champion for MMCs needing to be more pathetic and down bad.

And I'm Hannah Reader release five books at once and a detailed fantasy map enthusiast.

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This week we are discussing the domestic suspense novel Don't Let him in by Lisa Jewel.

We'll be talking about our song choices alongside the plot and chatting about our favorite moments.

So grab an iced coffee or iced.

Chime and let's turn the page together.

Dear reader, here's the synopsis of Don't Let Him In.

He's the perfect man.

It's the perfect lie.

Nina Swan is intrigued when she is when she received a condolence card from Nick Ratcliffe, an old friend of her late husband who is looking to connect after her husband's unexpected death.

Nick is a man of substance and good taste.

He has a smile that can melt the coldest heart and a knack for putting others at ease.

But to Nina's adult daughter, Ash, Nick seems too slick, too polished, too good to be true.

Without telling her mother, Ash begins digging into Nick's past.

What she finds is more than unsettling.

Martha is a florist living in a neighboring town with her infant daughter and her devoted husband, Alistair.

But lately, Alistair has been traveling more and more frequently for work, disappearing for days at a time.

When Martha questions him about his frequent absences, he always has a legitimate explanation.

But Martha can't share the feeling that something isn't right.

Nina, Martha, and Ash are on a collision course with a shocking truth that is far darker than anyone could have imagined.

Oh, I guess.

Is that.

Yeah, I guess that is part of it, yeah.

Nina, Martha, and Ash are on a collision course with a shocking truth that is far darker than anyone could have imagined.

And all three are about to wish they had heeded the same warning.

Don't let him in.

But the past won't stay buried forever.

And we think you should read this book if you want to see the downfall of men, like mysteries and interweaving storylines.

Yes.

And you might want to avoid this book if any of the following are potentially triggering for you.

Gaslighting, murder, stalking, mental illness, violence, sexual harassment, sexual content, and talks of suicide.

Let's talk about our songs, song choices.

I feel like we kind of were in the same vein with this book.

Ye and I think it could have been the age of our mmc.

Yeah.

You know, but anyway, what did you bring this week?

I picked Easy Money by Billy Joel.

I brought Better man by Pearl Jam.

Both fit the vibe of this book for sure, 100%.

So now we're heading into our pages turned and bridges burned section, which means we are going to be discussing this book cover to cover, which means spoilers are ahead.

We're definitely going to be spoiling the, you know, main central plot of the book pretty immediately.

So if you have not read it and you don't want it spoiled for you, feel free to pause, read it, come on back.

If you're just here for the vibes or if you've already read it, welcome on in.

We're going to get started with our theme lyrics.

Yes.

My theme lyric is, I've been working all my life, can't afford to wait.

Let me call my wife so I can tell her I'll be late.

And the song title itself, I feel like Nick looks at these women like, ooh, easy money.

Like, all right, where are we going?

Where are we going?

Like, let me get this next, like, my next target.

Like, this is going to be easy.

I want.

Want it easy, right?

Yeah.

But this line to me is also, like, taking out of this, taking it out of the song, like I said, like, finding his next target, but also how he's, like, balancing all these wives because, you know, not like he's telling his current girl, right.

Oh, I got to call my wife.

But just that line is like, I gotta call my wife and tell her I'll be late.

Like, I gotta make up these excuses as to why I'm not gonna be there just to keep all of his lies straight.

Yes.

I picked again, Better man by Pearl Jam.

And the line that I brought is, she lies and says she's in love with him, can't find a better man.

And I think this song just kind of encompasses the late stage of abusive relationships and trying to leave where she knows that something is incorrect.

She can't prove it, she's been gaslit to all hell.

But she also feels like she can't find someone else.

Like there's a lot of good that's clouding the bad things that keep stacking one on top of the other.

And this happens with all of the women in this book.

And so I feel like this song is the perfect embodiment of all of the mistreatment the women Nick quote unquote brought onto them and had them endure through their relationship ups and downs over however long they were together.

Yeah.

So this book follows life of Nick and just how he's a part of all these other lives.

And like his character is immediately introduced.

And I was like, eh, I don't trust him.

The next man is introduced.

I was like I don't trust him either.

Yep.

Like some something is there and we find out like he is a master manipulator.

Answer for everything.

Just prepared.

Right?

Cons multiple women out of money, creating these sob stories and getting them excited about investments.

And it's just wild.

Have you ever.

Is there like somebody that comes to mind when you are reading this?

I feel like at his age, like it was hard to find the relation.

But I definitely have seen patterns of behavior similar to this in people that I've encountered.

Luckily I have not encountered someone at least that I'm aware of.

Knock on wood, right.

That this has happened to.

But I've come in contact with people like this.

And as an aside, real quick, I don't know, I don't remember if I talked to you about this, but if you watch the Great British Baking show, the only person I could think of is Paul Hollywood.

For Nick, I just could only think about soggy bottoms and like just he.

That is who I pictured Nick is because they described him as like a very like very, very attractive man for the age that he was.

And like very charming, very like flashy.

And that's just kind of the vibe that I got was like full Paul Hollywood.

I don't think it helped that I did audiobook and these are British narrators.

I think that that really sealed the deal for me.

And anyway, what about you?

Anyone as manipulative, self centered?

Have you run into that?

Probably like I can't think of anyone immediately, but there's gotta be people that I've encountered in my 30 something years of life.

I feel like it's just not on this grand of a scale.

I feel like his behaviors are like identifiable in smaller bits and pieces throughout life.

But speaking of you know, bits and pieces, there are seven identities of quote unquote, Nick.

And thank you so much to Ren Ryland reviews for putting this together.

We will link the guide in the show notes if you guys want to take a look at it for yourself.

And we are going to go through the seven different iterations of quote, unquote, Nick that we have.

So Nick Radcliffe, we first know him as Nick, who kindly reaches out to the Swan family after Patty's death.

Yes.

Then we have Alistair Gray, but Nick is also married to Martha, a florist, and they have two young children together.

And Martha just wonders why her husband keeps vanishing.

And then we have Jonathan Truscott.

But wait, he's also Jonathan and was with a woman named Tara.

She's missing and her adult daughter hates Jonathan.

And we have Justin Warshaw, who also had a relationship with Laura Germond.

Yep.

And then we have Damien Law, way back when he was married to Amanda.

They had two sons together, but Damien vanishes and is presumed dead.

And we see in some of these other relationships that he claims to have no children, by the way.

Yeah.

And he is out here procreating.

Then we have Andre, which this was like, one of the most wild storylines, but also for, like, my Easy Money song right here.

Yep.

So when he goes by Andre, it's to engage in the sex work for extra money, really, just for this poor old lady.

She's living her life, so.

No.

So then we have.

We have Simon Smith, which is.

You can take that.

Yeah.

You know, the.

Basically the Russian nesting doll of all of his identities here, who is Nick.

And he ends with Simon Smith, which we can infer is his birth name, perhaps.

Yes.

So with this book, we had, like, POV switches and like, Nyx was, like, in first person narrated narration.

Do you think that, like, increased the tension or would you have liked it all in, like, a third person?

I think that in order for this to be pulled off, we had to be in his head and we had to be like.

See, like the.

The psychopathic movements.

Yeah.

Like, pinging around and.

Not that you can't get in your.

Into someone's head with third person.

Close.

Third third person, you absolutely can understand a character's intentions, but how Nick, quote unquote, moved through life, I feel like we needed to experience.

Because even the way that he described, like, the moving through life, like how he opened doors, how he engaged with people, it was all very, like, layered and nuanced.

And I think that we would have lost a little bit without the first person pov.

And in thrillers usually, or, like, mysteries, I'm totally fine with the third all around.

But for me, like the.

I think that whatever vehicle the author chose to write it in was ultimately the best decision.

But I do think that having his in first person specifically gave us an insight to how whackadoodle this man is.

Yes.

Yeah.

It made me distrust him even more.

All right, quick, quick summary of the book.

You ready?

Yep.

Yep.

Let's do this.

All right.

Rapid fire.

All right.

I think it was pretty straightforward compared to other Lisa Jewels that we read.

I will say this was one that I would.

I kept waiting for the twist to happen.

And this is a.

This is not a diss to the book.

This is a dis to the marketing and positioning of this book.

And Hannah and I have talked about this before.

I think that publishers, marketing, however we're labeling these books.

I'm just going to double check real quick.

It's labeled as a psychological thriller.

Thriller is the main listed genre on Goodreads.

It is the first thing that comes up when you Google it.

It's listed.

Let's see where it's listed on like Barnes and Noble.

Best pick for mystery thriller suspense.

Under that.

Right.

So there's, I think, personally that did a disservice you this book because what we described it as, this is a thousand percent a domestic suspense novel.

This to me, is not a thriller.

There a thriller is defined by a mysterious twist or a shocking twist that happens.

And the way that the timelines were presented and the way that we were presented with these people, it was very, very clear early on that Nick was all of these men.

And I don't think.

I don't think that that's a bad thing.

I think that that was written that way for a reason.

It was enjoyable.

But I think that when you have the thought that you're going in to read a thriller, you are expecting a twist.

So when the twist did not happen, I was like, okay, this is a positioning problem.

This is not like a book pro like.

And this is not the first time this has happened with books that we've read.

There's been a lot of ones that are categorized as thrillers, but in my opinion are far more of a domestic suspense.

And again, I get for marketing purposes, but I think that it does the book a disservice by not positioning it correctly.

Anyway, I'm gonna get off my soapbox.

Like I said, I enjoyed it, but again, I wholly believe that this was not a thriller.

Agreed.

So a pan.

A pan.

A man named Patty Swan is killed, leaving behind a wife and three children.

About a year later, Patty's wife Nina starts dating Nick, an old friend of Patty's who reached out after the funeral.

Then Nina's daughter Ash, who's recovering from a mental health crisis and her father's death, is super skeptical of Nick and starts investigating.

And then Martha is frustrated and.

All right, I'm pausing the summary here because you guys get the gist, but I just felt so bad for Martha.

I think Martha was one of the wives that I felt the worst for because I feel like Nina, I'm like, Nina, you can't see through this.

Right?

But like, the, like, Martha's like, has a young child.

Like, she just felt so nice and kind hearted and I just felt so bad for her.

She had her floral business.

Like, it was just.

There was something about Martha that really got my heart.

And there again, this is a testament to, like, how well the characterization of Nick was written because, like, these women consistently fell for his stuff.

And obviously we are getting his pov.

We understand that this man is off his rocker, but they don't see that.

And this was a, a very in depth look at what gaslighting and manipulation can do to a person.

And yeah, this was just.

This was wild.

And yeah, to me, Martha definitely got the short end of the stick.

Also though, the, the woman that he was seeing consistently when he was moonlighting as Andre, the older woman, that also.

Got to me when he stole the money from her.

Yes.

That's when I was like, seriously, dude.

Like, she's like, like, been bankrolling you for a while and then you're just going to steal?

Like, I was.

Isn't that bad that, like, he did all of this shit?

And we were like, is there a moral, like, is there a, is there a ground level to the morality here?

And there's.

Right.

There was not.

And we were hopeful.

We were hopeful for that ground floor.

I know.

And then, I mean, really think about, like, Amanda too, just like disappearing.

Yes.

Well, and then wasn't it.

This man is just horrible.

Horrible.

And didn't he plot this like, like they fake your death sort of situation?

I can't remember exactly where it is.

It was, it was something along those lines where they have this, like, he literally paid to have his death faked.

Yeah.

And then he goes back to see her.

Yes.

And she's like, oh, my gosh.

And then it's like, hard because these women, like, truly loved him.

Right.

I think to a point.

Because it's like you have to love somebody to be able to continue on with this but then freaking Tara shows up, one of his old flames, and then she gets murdered.

Murdered.

Amanda helps hide the body.

They're like, all right, keep this on the secret.

No, this was, I'm done.

Cuckoo bananas.

And, like, the way that he wove the plot of, like, all of his lies together.

Like, he said that he worked in, like, hotels and, like, all of this investing, but he would really just, like, go to these different hotels to meet up with other women and then, like, use the money there.

And he always had an excuse for everything.

Oh, my God.

When he put the car in her name.

When he put the car in her name and didn't fudgeing, tell her, no, no, no.

This man, God, this man sucks.

But okay, horrible.

You guys get the gist?

However they did, John Tucker must die him.

They did pull all the women together, they cornered him and they were like, you confess to your sins, confess to your crimes.

And then he drowned in the water.

And I was like, that not dead.

You're telling me that man's dead?

And also they had his, like, sons running in after him to try and rescue their father, which was traumatic.

Yeah, traumatic.

Then we have Amanda at the end who helped him hide the Terra body.

She originally took Nick back, agreed to help him cover up his crime, but then at the end, when we find out that Nick is not dead, she turned this in.

Thank you.

Thank you, Amanda.

Thank you.

I really think that she had this kind of planned from the get go, I think that there wasn't like a change of heart.

I think she just got caught up in a few things and the murder didn't go according to plan, but she always was going to exact her revenge on him in some way, whether it was murder herself, which, to be honest, I would have preferred.

Yeah, just get it over with, just.

Just knock him out.

However, I respect it, I respect the just way to handle these things.

She's got two sons, she's got a sudden example, you know, And I'm gonna.

Read a couple of my lyrics.

Better man is not like a very lengthy, wordy song, so I'm just gonna read you basically this whole thing, but it's waiting, watching the clock.

It's four o', clock, it's got to stop.

Tell him, take no more.

She practices her speech as he opens the door, and it's this constant like, she, I'm going to tell him today, I'm going to leave today.

And we even had a few instances of the women saying, this is enough, Tell me where you've been.

And this man has an answer and a reason for everything.

He has receipts and receipts, proof, timelines, like, screenshots.

This man has everything prepared.

He knows he is prepared.

And first of all, I think that was the most unrealistic part of this, that a man would be that prepared.

Like, the way that he kept himself together was quite impressive.

But, yeah, I just thought this was, like, the general vibes of the book.

And also, as we get toward, like, the tail end and the women are starting to feel the abuse and where things are, like, teetering on physical, and we're.

We're getting to that moment, and it's talking to herself.

There's no one who needs to know.

In quotes, she tells herself memories back when she was bold and strong and waiting for the world to come along.

Swears she knew him now.

Swears he's gone.

Like, this cannot be the man that I married.

This cannot be the same person.

The.

Like, you've been gaslit so much that you are now gaslighting yourself into believing the lies.

Yeah, I just.

I thought it was the.

The perfect song to accompany this book.

Yeah, no, I think it's good for sure.

For my.

The rest of my lyrics, it's like, I want the easy a.

The easy money.

Easy money.

Maybe this one time, maybe tonight.

And I feel like that's just him.

Like, all right, maybe this next target.

Maybe this next target.

And, like, in one of his POVs, he's, like, stalking this girl.

And, like, I just feel like that's just hit, like, okay, where is this easy money?

Like, yes, he's prepared, and he is, like, you know, methodical about things, but he also wants, like, that easiness, right?

Like that.

How am I going to convince these women that I need their money for investment?

Or, like, how can I get this money?

Like, he pretends that he has, like, a heart condition and he needs money for rehab and all this stuff.

And then one of my other lyrics is, like, you say I fool myself, but better me, but better me than being a fool for someone else.

And I feel like that's just, like, his mindset, right?

Like, yeah, oh, I'm just going to, like, keep fooling these people.

And I.

You think you know me.

No, you don't know me.

And then later in the song, it's like, something's got to pay off.

Someone's got a break.

Someone's got a fortune they're begging me to take.

And I feel like that's.

It's just like, all right.

And, like, the song itself is, like, very much like, to me, like, interpreting, like, gambling.

And I'm just like, ah, I'm not gonna tell my wife.

Like, let's go.

Let's go to the racetracks.

Let's go here.

Let's find that easy money.

And.

And I just feel like that's Nick in the back of his mind.

Like, how.

How am I gonna get this next.

Yeah, thousands.

And my quote actually kind of goes along with that, though I have one quote in here.

Because this was just.

This was a wild ride, you guys.

And it's.

It's why I work so hard to maintain my charming exterior.

Because a chaotic hellscape beyond anyone's possible imaginings.

And that is so important why we got his first person pov.

Yep.

And my quote is, I don't understand why men don't realize how little effort is involved in making women happy and how many benefits there are to making women happy.

Oh, what a sleaze.

It doesn't take much, but.

It doesn't.

But from him.

Yeah.

All right, well, that was don't let him in by Lisa Jules.

Yes.

Don't let him in.

Don't let any of them in.

Don't let him in.

None of his seven alter egos.

Do not.

But thank you so much for letting us in and turning the pages with us this week.

Be sure to follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Patreon and join our newsletter this year to keep up with everything on the other side of the page.

Yes.

And please, please, please drop a review and a five star rating of the podcast on your preferred platform and share it with your bookish besties.

Next week, we will be giving you our thoughts on the people we meet on vacation movie.

Oh, my God, you guys, I'm so excited.

And also, I'm gonna fight all of y' all who didn't like Alex and Poppy and now you like Alex and Poppy after the movie.

Because I love Alex and Poppy.

Hannah.

I.

It's.

I know.

I never said I didn't like them, Hannah.

They are my least, least favorite.

And there's changes.

Hannah's favorite was my least favorite.

It's fine.

It's fine.

It's gonna balance anyway.

It's when.

When Happy place comes out, I will eat my words.

Hopefully, maybe, perhaps.

We'll see.

But forever and always keep reading with kindness.

Bye, everyone.

Bye.

Was there anything else you needed to add?

No.

Okay, cool.