NEED TO KNOW

  • New York Times bestselling author Mary Kubica is publishing her tenth book titled It’s Not Her
  • It follows Courtney Gray, a woman who hears a bloodcurdling scream in the cottage next door and finds her brother and sister-in-law dead, her niece missing and her nephew sleeping peacefully
  • Read an exclusive excerpt shared with PEOPLE, below

Mary Kubica is taking fans on a new thriller!

The New York Times bestselling author is set to release a new book called It’s Not Her with Harper Collins next year that will take fans on a nail-biting journey to uncover a new spine-chilling mystery.

The novel is set at a run-down lakeside resort in Northern Wisconsin and opens with a woman, Courtney Gray, who hears a bloodcurdling scream in the cottage next door. When she goes to investigate what caused the noise, she finds her brother and sister-in-law dead, her niece, Reese, missing and her nephew, Wyatt, sleeping peacefully and completely unharmed, according to a synopsis.

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The book then wraps readers in an “utterly gripping mystery” as the protagonist encounters unexpected twists and turns on her journey to uncover what happened the previous night. As she continues to investigate, “disturbing secrets” about her family start to emerge and she learns the town has secrets of its own.

Kubica’s new story is inspired by a true crime investigation in the 1980’s known as the Keddie Cabin murders, in which three people of the Sharp family were found dead in a cabin in northern California by a family member who had gone to a sleepover that night. A fourth family member was reported missing before their remains were later found in another county. 

Read on for an exclusive excerpt from It’s Not Her.

The cover of ‘It’s Not Her’ by Mary Kubica.

Park Row Books/HarperCollins

I’m standing at the kitchen sink, washing dishes, when I hear her scream.

My knees lock and I go suddenly upright, drawing in a sharp breath. I glance swiftly up from the hot, soapy water in the sink, losing my grip on a plate that slips from my wet hands and into the basin. Water splashes.

I stand there, rooted to the earth, listening in vain for the anguished sound to come again, or for there to be something else, something that explains it, like tires skidding, the squeal of car brakes, the resident German shepherd (the one that Cass and Mae are both afraid of) barking or Emily’s voice calling out to see if Mae is okay. But there’s nothing, only silence, which worries me as much as the scream.

Just moments ago, my niece, Mae, was here, at our little rental cottage. She and Cass had a sleepover last night, sleeping on the double bed under the slanted eaves of the loft, staying up too late watching Disney movies on DVD and gabbing about whatever 10-year-olds gab about. I fell asleep before they did, waking around 3 in the morning to check on them and finding them both asleep with the TV still on.

Before Mae left to go back to her own cottage, they stood at the front door, giggling and saying goodbye with their sticky, syrupy faces and hands. I stood in the adjoining kitchen, staring out at them, admiring their friendship. Cass and Mae are much more than cousins; they’re best friends, like sisters even. After Mae was gone, I got busy cleaning the small kitchen, asking Cass to go straighten up from their sleepover, and she had, disappearing to the upstairs loft, where the sound of Mae’s scream doesn’t reach.

I’m the only one in the cottage to hear it, and I thank God, because the sound is tortured, carrying across the property, coming in through the open windows, leaving me feeling shaken and eviscerated though I don’t know why, except I’ve never heard Mae scream like that before.

I reach for the faucet handle and turn the water off, drying my hands on a towel as I hurry toward the front door. I see Mae through the open window first, and my heart catches because she’s dashing down the hill and through the trees, back toward us, faster than her small legs can go. Her arms windmill, her hair in her eyes because the wind is pushing from behind. Halfway to me, she trips over something, her feet lifting up from the ground, sending her momentarily airborne before she falls, crashing hard onto the earth. It’s not a soft fall. The ground isn’t grass, but a bed of pine needles and dirt. It looks painful, though Mae doesn’t lie there crying as I would expect her to do, as Cass might do. Instead, she gets back up just as quickly as she went down, glancing over a shoulder in the direction of her own cottage before turning again and running to me.

I step outside, letting the screen door fall closed. Mae comes crashing into me, her arms locking around my waist. “What is it, Mae? What’s wrong?” I ask as she buries her face into my abdomen, sobbing, her hands around my back, holding tight as if wanting to disappear inside of me. My eyes sweep the property, searching for signs of something off — a car (a child predator?) pulling away or the mean German shepherd running loose again — but there’s nothing that I can see.

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The cottage where we’re vacationing is in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, over five hours north of home. It’s on a lake and is one of eight little cottages situated in hundreds of acres of woods. The lake is peaceful this morning, the only people awake besides the girls and me are fishermen in canoes, like Elliott, my husband, who woke up early this morning and left before any of us were awake, hoping to catch something to put on the grill for dinner.

I hear the slow rasp of the screen door behind me. “What happened?” Cass asks, and I turn to see her coming hesitantly out, standing unsure on the deck behind me as I hold Mae in my arms.

“I don’t know,” I say. “What happened, Mae?” I coax, bending my knees to lower myself to her height, but Mae says nothing, clinging to me, her sticky hands clasped around my neck now, tugging without meaning to on my hair, and it’s only when I peel them off with effort and hold her at an arm’s length, that I see her hands have blood on them.

Excerpted from It’s Not Her by Mary Kubica, Copyright © 2026 by Mary Kyrychenko. Published by Park Row Books.

It’s Not Her hits bookshelves in February 2026 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.