If You Knew Her Book Review

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This is my book review for If You Knew Her by Emily Elgar. It is a psychological suspense novel that flashes back and forth between points of view.

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An international bestseller about a young woman fighting for survival.

Book Summary:

Alice is a nurse at St. Catherine’s Hospital, where she cares for patients in comas.

Frank is one of her coma patients. He has locked-in syndrome. What no one knows is that he can see and hear everything going on around him.

A young woman named Cassie Jenson is brought into the hospital. She is in a coma after a hit-and-run. Alice thinks she looks familiar.

She soon finds herself digging into Cassie’s life, who she is, and what brought her to the hospital. Why would someone want to hurt this woman?

Meanwhile, Frank hears someone talking around Cassie, whose bed is near his, and he realizes that she and her unborn baby are in danger. Frank knows what’s going on, but he can’t tell anyone due to locked-in syndrome.

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What is Locked-In Syndrome?

Locked-in syndrome (LiS) is a rare neurological disorder where a person experiences total paralysis of nearly all voluntary muscles while remaining fully conscious, alert, and cognitively intact.

The Main Characters:

• Cassie Jensen: A young woman who appears to have a perfect life, including a loving husband and a beautiful home. After she is found unconscious following a hit-and-run, troubling questions emerge about her past and the secrets she has kept.
• Alice Marlowe: The chief nurse caring for Cassie. Alice feels an unusual connection to her patient and becomes increasingly determined to discover who Cassie really is.
• Frank: Another hospital patient who has locked-in syndrome. He can see and hear what happens around him but cannot communicate. He realizes Cassie’s life may still be in danger, and he has information that could change everything.

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If You Knew Her by Emily Elgar is a psychological thriller that explores secrets, deception, and the hidden lives people lead behind closed doors. It draws readers into a mystery where first impressions can mislead, and the truth is more complicated than it first appears.

I couldn’t put this book down. I read it in two evenings. The ending was totally unexpected.

The story has the kind of suspense that makes you question how well we can ever really know another person. Beneath ordinary lives lie secrets, complicated relationships, and events that can change everything.

If you enjoy psychological thrillers involving family secrets and mysteries told through multiple characters’ perspectives, If You Knew Her may appeal to you.

It is Emily Elgar’s debut novel, originally published in 2017 in the UK and in 2018 in the United States.

About the Author: Emily Elgar

I’m an 80s child and grew up mostly in the West Country, but I’ve had spells in New York, London, and Southern Africa. I now live in East Sussex with my husband and our cat, A-Dog.

I started taking writing seriously when I was accepted into the Faber Academy’s six-month novel-writing course in 2012. At the time, I was a support worker for male, female, and transgender sex workers in London.

I took the course because I love writing, not because I was necessarily seeking a career change. It felt too audacious to transform myself into a novelist! After some knocks, I wrote, in a frenzy at 4 am one morning, what is now the preface to If You Knew Her. From the off, it felt different from everything I’d written before. The words galloped out of me.

I met my agent, the brilliant Nelle Andrew, soon after the course finished. Nelle sent an early draft of If You Knew Her to publishers, and in October 2014 I signed a contract with the fantastic Lucy Malagoni at Little, Brown.

What followed was an intense but enjoyable two years of completely reworking the book. The result is If You Knew Her. I really hope you enjoy it.