The First Time I Saw Him: The unputdownable thriller from the bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me - A Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick

Laura Dave

Jan 2026 · Random House

About this eBook

Get ready to be gripped by the edge-of-your seat new mystery thriller and long-awaited follow-up to the bestselling Richard and Judy Book Club pick, The Last Thing He Told Me.

*A REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB SELECTION!*
*AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*
*NOW A MAJOR APPLE TV SERIES – The Last Thing He Told Me. Season Two, based on The First Time I Saw Him, out now!*


'I could not stop flipping the pages' Reese Witherspoon
‘Out of this world... Five stars' Jennifer Garner
'Action-packed and deeply felt... incredible’ Mary Kubica, bestselling author of Local Woman Missing

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HE DISAPPEARED. NOW HE’S BACK. AND THEY HAVE TO RUN.

Five years ago, Hannah’s husband Owen vanished without a trace, leaving Hannah and her stepdaughter Bailey to piece together a new life from the wreckage.

When Hannah spots Owen at her Los Angeles exhibition – silent, watching – she knows immediately that the danger they once escaped has found them again.

Then comes the message:

‘GET OUT OF THE HOUSE. NOW’

Hannah and Bailey are forced to go on the run in a relentless race to keep their past from catching up with them, pursued by enemies they cannot see and haunted by questions that have never been answered.

Why has Owen returned? Who is hunting them?

And can they finally uncover the truth before it destroys them all?

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Praise for Laura Dave and The First Time I Saw Him:

‘Clever, compulsive and twisty as hell. Cancel all your plans before you start this one, I had to remind myself to breathe during the final, devastating pages’ CHRIS WHITAKER, bestselling author of All the Colours of the Dark, on The Last Thing He Told Me

'Powerful, intense and beautifully observed' T.M. LOGAN, bestselling author of The Holiday

‘You won’t want to miss this one’ HARLAN COBEN, bestselling author of Nobody's Fool

‘It’s gripping, twisty, exhilarating, and utterly unputdownable. Five blazing stars from me!’ 5-star reader review

‘Wow, I couldn't put this book down!’ 5-star reader review

‘Oh my word. This much-anticipated book is everything I had hoped for and more’ 5-star reader review

‘This book has fantastic pacing and will keep you up all night’ 5-star reader review

‘Pure adrenaline’ 5-star reader review

‘A truly gripping psychological thriller!’ 5-star reader review

‘One of the best books I have read this year’ 5-star reader review

Ratings and reviews

Didn't love it. A lot of jumping around in time and people.

About the author

Laura Dave is the global number one bestselling author of several novels, including The Last Thing He Told Me and Eight Hundred Grapes. Her novels have been translated into thirty-eight languages, and six of them, including The Night We Lost Him, have been optioned for film and television. She resides in Santa Monica, California.