His & Hers was quite the dark and twisty ride! Let’s do a quick plot summary of the book and then we will move to my Spoiler Review for His & Hers by Alice Feeney, now a 2026 streaming series on Netflix. I will also discuss the book of His & Hers vs. the Netflix movie and answer your questions and mine!
Spoiler Review for His & Hers by Alice Feeney
Table of Contents:
- Here is my spoiler-free review of His & Hers which has some content warnings.
- Plot Summary for His & Hers
- The Ending of His & Hers Explained
- Who was the killer in His & Hers by Alice Feeney?
- My thoughts on NEW 2026 Netflix Adaptation of His & Hers: how was His & Hers changed in the Netflix adaptation?
- Questions About His & Hers
Plot Summary for His & Hers by Alice Feeney
Anna has been filling in as a newsreader for a colleague on maternity leave. When the colleague returns, Anna goes back to being a reporter.
A dead body is found in the woods near Blackdown, the small town where Anna grew up.
Anna is sent to report on the case. The town holds sad memories for Anna of her infant daughter, who died. Anna is now a high-functioning alcoholic with memory issues.
Jack, Anna’s ex-husband and a police inspector, is assigned to the murder case. His marriage to Anna fell apart after their daughter died.
Victim 1: Rachel
Jack realizes that the murder victim is Rachel, a woman he slept with the night before.
Rachel and Anna were friends from high school. Rachel was a mean girl who groomed and sexually abused Anna. She and her friends Helen and Zoe also cruelly bullied Catherine, a fellow student.
A friendship bracelet like the one that Anna and four other girls wore in a photo taken on Anna’s sixteenth birthday is found in Rachel’s mouth.
Jack finds Rachel’s missing phone and shoes in his car and has no idea how they got there. He hides them and tells no one.
Get ready for…. a lot more murders!
Victim 2: Helen
Helen, also pictured in the birthday photo, is found murdered with a friendship bracelet in her mouth.
Victim 3: Zoe
Jack’s sister Zoe (yes, also in the photo) gets murdered next.
Anna remembers the occasion of the photo: Rachel planned a party for Anna’s sixteenth birthday with drugs provided by Helen.
Rachel invited men to the party who tried to force themselves on the impaired girls, including Catherine, who was assaulted by multiple men. Anna did nothing to help her.
Anna figures out that Catherine is now known as Cat Jones (the colleague Anna was filling in for).
Cat is married to Richard, Anna’s cameraman, with whom Anna had an affair.
Victim 4: Cat?
Anna goes to Catherine’s childhood home and finds her seemingly hanged and Richard clinging to life.
But Cat is not dead. Buckle up!
Cat comes after Anna, who flees into the woods.
Anna finds her mother (who has been suffering from dementia): lost and confused.
Anna’s mom is rambling about killing Anna’s father years ago and says that Priya, Jack’s deputy, knows everything.
Meanwhile, Priya and Jack are looking for Anna and find Richard, dead. Priya thinks Jack is responsible for his murder and tries to arrest him, but he gets away.
Jack finds Anna and her mother in the woods.
Priya arrives and shoots Jack. Anna and her mother run but Cat appears, stabbing Anna’s mom and screaming at Anna for ruining her life.
Then Anna and her mom get away and escape in an abandoned car. But Anna accidentally hits Cat with the car.
Anna decides that Cat must have been behind the murders, as revenge for the bullying and the sexual assault.
Cat is still not dead until Priya shows up and shoots her.
Anna picks up the knife in the woods and hides it. She wants to protect the killer.
Six months later. Anna’s mother is in a care home. Anna gets Cat’s BBC presenter job back. Jack is raising Olivia and he and Anna seem to be mending their relationship.
The Ending of His & Hers Explained!
Well, there were a LOT of twists…
Anna’s mom is the killer!
In her killer POV, Anna’s mom confesses that she is the killer. She killed Anna’s father in self defense and buried him in the garden.
Also, she was faking her dementia. When she found a journal entry Anna wrote (and tried to burn) about the horrifying events at her sixteenth birthday party, she blamed Rachel, Zoe and Helen for taking Anna away from her, as Anna fled town after the incident.
Anna’s mom also hated Jack for sleeping with Rachel so she planned to murder Rachel and blame Jack (she’s planted the evidence in his car).
But when she saw Anna and Jack together she changed her plan: she’d murder the three women and put the blame on Cat.
So Anna’s mom murdered Rachel, Zoe and Helen, then kidnapped Cat’s daughters and told her she’d release them … if Cat committed suicide.
But Cat, who was a knot-tying expert, faked her death, then came after Anna in the woods.
In her confession, Anna’s mom suggests that police officer Priya suspects her (either of her husband’s murder or of killing the women.)
Olivia visits her grandmother, who is making a friendship bracelet for someone who keeps coming around: Priya!
So maybe she won’t get away with it… or maybe she will!!
Open ending aargh!!!
The NEW 2026 Netflix Adaptation of His & Hers!
- The six-episode series is OUT NOW and stars Jon Bernthal (Walking Dead) and Tessa Thompson (Dear White People)
Major Changes from the Book to the Netflix Adaptation of His & Hers
First off, a content warning: episode six has a hard-to-watch depiction of sexual assault.
- The setting has been moved from Blacksown, a village in the UK, to Dahlonega, Georgia, a small town that is northeast of Atlanta and close to the Chattahootchee National Forest. This was the biggest adjustment for me, but if you haven’t read the book, I think you’ll enjoy the Southern location!
- Instead of being white and British, Anna and her mother are Black and American in the show.
- Cat Jones is renamed Lexy in the Netflix show, I suppose to better hide her identity.
- Thankfully, Zoe’s horrible animal abuse was also left out the show. I’ll discuss why Anna married Jack below, but YES it’s a bit weird that Anna married Jack without she mentioned to him that Zoe was a mass torturer of cats and used their fur for “craft projects” … including Anna’s beloved cat, KitKat.
- Rachel’s husband’s character was expanded a lot for the show.
- In the book, Anna is a very morally gray character and Jack is a pretty good guy.
- In the show, this is reversed: Anna is a victim (more on that below) and Jack goes to CRAZY and unethical lengths to conceal the fact that he slept with Rachel.
- In the book, Anna’s mother has aggressive cancer.
How was Anna’s character changed from His & Hers (the book) to the Netflix series?
- I wrote this post in 2020 and so it was interesting to me that my main issue with Anna (detailed below) has been changed! Anna is no longer a “girl on the train and off the rails” character drinks who too much and has memory issues.
- In the book, Anna and Rachel had a teenage hookup relationship that isn’t entirely consensual on Anna’s part. Was Rachel grooming Anna for her parties or just being a bully? I don’t know, but it was disturbing.
- In the show, Anna was the one sexually assaulted, not Cat. Her mother finds an old camcorder video of the assault (not sure why/how Anna had that) and decides to seek revenge on the girls who watched Anna’s assault and did nothing. This makes Anna’s mother’s motive that much stronger.
How was Cat’s character changed in the Netflix show?
- In the book, Cat was the bullying/assault victim. She was a more sympathetic character in the book.
- In the book, Cat did not kill her sister Amanda (due to Cat emptying her inhaler as revenge for Amanda calling her fat). Her sister did die of an allergic reaction on a boat, but I don’t think Cat had anything to do with it.
Was the killer the same in the Netflix show as in the His & Hers book?
- Yes, but the show made the killer’s motive more streamlined: In the book, Anna’s mother (the killer) is angry at Jack for sleeping with Rachel, and, as described above, is angry at all the girls for driving her daughter out of town. She says “Killing Rachel brought my daughter home to me. Killing Helen and Zoe helped keep her close. Killing Cat Jones meant Anna got her job back.”
- In the show, Anna’s mother found a videotape of Anna’s assault. (Anna was an aspiring reporter and had made lots of tapes, including one about her birthday. She’d been filming the party but put her camera down to save Cat from the guys. Then she got filmed being assaulted.) Helen then vowed to get revenge for her daughter.
Did Priya solve the case in the show?
- No. #TeamPriya! I love her character so much, and liked the part about Priya figuring out that Anna’s mom did it but they took that out in the show. Also the creepy part about Helen having a friendship bracelet all ready for Priya.
More Questions About His & Hers
Why did Anna marry Jack when his sister Zoe was such a terrible person, and why did she never tell him what Zoe and the girls did?
No explanation for this either in the book or the show. Jack appears in the book when Anna and the girls are teens and seems like a nice guy. Then Anna and Jack reconnect in London and Anna doesn’t mention that (in the book) Zoe is a creepy animal abuser.
Why does Zoe (in the show) insist to Jack that she will be killed next, why doesn’t he believe her, and why does he leave her alone to get murdered?
I agree that this is strange BUT my take is that Jack really loves Anna. He wants her back. He doesn’t want her (or anyone) to know that he slept with Rachel and he’s so busy trying to cover that up (to a ridiculous degree) that he doesn’t really worry about Zoe. Do you have thoughts? Leave them in comments!
My Thoughts About His & Hers: Book Version
Who did you think the killer was in His & Hers? SO many suspects: Anna, Jack, the mysterious Catherine Kelly. Even Richard, possibly.
Pretty early on, I decided the killer WAS Anna’s mother (since it seemed way too obvious that the killer was either Jack or Anna.)
But I changed my mind after I figured out (a bit before Anna realized it) that Catherine Kelly was now Cat Jones.
So I was truly surprised when the book suggested that Cat was the killer and THEN have Anna’s mother confess to the crimes.
How do you feel about unreliable narrators?
I feel like Gone Girl (then Girl on the Train) started the trend of the unreliable and very unlikeable narrator, and Anna fell into that category for me.
- Anna sat back when Rachel horribly bullied Catherine.
- Anna said nothing about Zoe’s animal abuse or Catherine’s sexual assault, even years later.
- She had such hatred for Cat Jones for returning to a job that was rightfully hers.
- At one point when Anna figures out that Cat is Catherine she says, “she must have hated us all very much.” Um, you think?
So for Anna to get a happy ending was a bit of a disappointment. Hopefully she’ll stop drinking and get her life on track.
Join Our Discussion of His & Hers!
What did YOU think? Please tell me in comments.
If you loved His & Hers (or the show) please read Rock Paper Scissors and join our very long and interesting Spoiler Discussion for Rock Paper Scissors
I also have a Spoiler Discussion for what might be the most frustrating and discussable Alice Feeney book: Sometimes I Lie!
Daisy Darker is one of my favorite Alice Feeney books, though opinions vary. Here’s my Spoiler Discussion for Daisy Darker.
Yes, I also have a spoiler discussion for Good Bad Girl. I think this is my least favorite of her books.
hi! just finished it too and omg that ending was a lot. i’ve been thinking about it and here’s my take.
amber and claire were definitely two different people. claire had the perfect life, loving parents, and nana, while amber came from a neglectful, messed up background. i feel like amber was not just obsessed with claire. she wanted to be her. over time, the lines between them blurred so much that even amber might have believed she was claire.
the diary entries do not feel like amber’s real memories. they read more like she rewrote her past using claire’s life as a template. i do not know if it was intentional or if it just happened over time, but i do not think amber was ever satisfied with her own life. instead of accepting that, she basically turned herself into claire.
madeline frost being investigated is huge. if amber was claire, there would not even be an investigation, which proves claire was real. but another thing that proves it is nana. amber made it her mission to get revenge on madeline for claire. if claire and amber were the same person, why would amber even care. this is where it gets tricky because the lines between their childhoods start to blur. claire was the one with loving parents, but amber rewrote her past so much that even she might believe she was the one who had that life.
by the end of the book, i do not think amber really won. like yeah, she got what she wanted but claire is still in her head. whether it is guilt, trauma, or something even darker, she is stuck. no matter how much she tries, claire is never really gone.
Is this comment about Sometimes I Lie???
Thanks so much for sharing all this – your take is so interesting. This is a book I keep thinking about!!
Yes, it makes so much sense that the lines between them were blurred and you have convinced me that Amber is real.
Oh yes! Sorry, I posted this on the wrong spoiler. I was just enjoying reading the comments and different perspectives. I came back to share my thoughts after thinking about it more!
No worries! I can move it over if you like. I really appreciated your take as this book is my Roman Empire….