It's Not Cliché At All: 'Don't Let Her Stay' by Nicola Sanders Book Review

Don't Let Her Stay
by Nicola Sanders

Spoilers ahead…you’ve been warned.

What led me to this novel? I honestly can’t remember, but it’s been months since I purchased it, and two days ago, I figured, well, since there aren’t any new good movies to watch, I may as well give this a read, and boy oh boy! I finished not too long ago and had to sit with it.

THE STORY

If you’ve ever seen the movie, ‘The Invisible Man,’ then you can recall the opening scene where our main character, Cecilia Kass, played by the talented Elisabeth Moss, is escaping her abusive ex-boyfriend Adrian. Well, ‘Don’t Let Her Stay’ parallels a similar opening sequence, except our main character, Joanne, is with her 3-month-old child Evie—praying that she stays quiet long enough for them to escape. But what are they escaping from is the real question? We are then taken back 3 weeks prior to learn just how the story unfolds.

In a beautiful large estate, in the middle of nowhere, some distance from the bustling London streets, resides Richard and Joanne, a married couple who recently welcomed the birth of their daughter, Evie. Joanne is a bored housewife who spends her time trying to butter up her housemaid Roxanne, who is anything but interested in a conversation.

Her loving husband Richard is typically at work, arriving home late some days as he expresses to his wife that his boutique is working hard on a new portfolio. One afternoon as Joanna excitedly awaits the mailman—the highlight of her days—she notices a strange letter addressed to her husband; she’s curious, no doubt, contemplating if it’s from his newly single ex-fiancée. But as the story progresses, we learn through Richard that the letter is actually from his estranged daughter, Chloe, to whom he hasn’t spoken to or seen for the past 18 months.

Chloe expresses her deep interest in meeting her new baby sister, Evie, to which Richard happily obliges after giving her a call to arrange her visit. Joanne is skeptical but hides her concerns, considering her husband has made little to no mention of his eldest daughter. Chloe then arrives, and things begin to go awry.

Chloe is taunting Joanne—whenever they're alone she is rude, dismissive, unkind, and often making empty threats to her stepmother. However, in the presence of her father, she is sweet, kind, cheerful, and at one point Joanne begins to feel she's going crazy. Is Chloe really this innocent child, or is she the pioneer of some nefarious plot to drive a wedge between her father and Joanne?

Joanne, determined to learn the truth about her stepdaughter, sets off on her own to do some digging. This is where she learns the truth about Richard’s ex-wife and his other daughter, Sophia. His ex-wife died in an apparent suicide only months after their daughter was found dead in her crib. It was all too much for Joanne to digest, believing her stepdaughter to be a murderer who is mentally unstable or a deeply traumatized victim.

As we dive deeper, we’re taken on an adventure; the story is a page-turner, no doubt, as the truth slowly unravels, and as the reader, it’s hard to know who you should be rooting for. At one point, I was going to tuck the book away as I began to feel like it was going to be a cliché ending once the mentioning of life insurance policies came into play. I mean, we’ve seen hundreds of movies on Lifetime covering this topic, and that story has been told to death.

However, this is where ‘Don’t Let Her Stay’ earns its place among one of the most intriguing psychological thrillers on the market. The ending is gripping and terrifying; playing out like a movie you would watch in theaters and then anticipate its release onto streaming because it’s something you would have no problem revisiting.

MY TAKEAWAY

Overall, I adored this book from start to finish and am so glad that I stuck it out to the end. It was gripping, and the pacing was impeccable. The character development, the twists and turns, the reveal at the end, it was all done perfectly. As I was reading, I could tell at certain parts just how excited the author was because there was a difference in their story block structure.

But the book is simply so good that I did not mind those minor mistakes. I was able to distinguish the past from the present because of how dedicated I was to completing the novel and learning the truth about Chloe.

Nicola does an excellent job at building her main character and making us, the readers, feel empathetic towards her—Joanne has an innocence to her, and throughout the story, you can tell that she is just trying to be amicable and please everyone around her but she doesn’t know who to believe or what for that matter.

Her anxiety is surely out of this world, which adds to the beauty of this novel. I want Joanne to succeed, after all she’s been through; she deserves it—I don’t say that quite often about other characters in books. 8/10

by Riley Cook