Gripping Psychological Thrillers Display
Psychological thrillers often take you on a reading rollercoaster: their suspenseful plots are filled with twists, unreliable narrators, and themes of deception and betrayal. The best ones keep you guessing and on the edge of your seat until the very last page, when you gasp out loud at that ending! Here are some suggestions for your next gripping read:
"Nightwatching" by Tracy Sierra was scarier than some horror that I've read! This locked room suspense novel can be read in a single sitting because once you start it, you won't want to stop. "Home alone with her young children during a blizzard, a mother tucks her son back into bed in the middle of the night. She hears a noise--old houses are always making some kind of noise. But this sound is disturbingly familiar: it's the tread of footsteps, unusually heavy and slow, coming up the stairs. She sees the figure of a man appear down the hallway, shrouded in the shadows. Terrified, she quietly wakes her children and hustles them into the oldest part of the house, a tiny, secret room concealed behind a wall. There they hide as the man searches for them, trying to tempt the children out with promises and scare the mother into surrender. In the suffocating darkness, the mother struggles to remain calm, to plan. Should she search for a weapon or attempt escape? But then she catches another glimpse of him. That face. That voice. And at once she knows her situation is even more dire than she'd feared, because she knows exactly who he is--and what he wants." You will definitely want to read this one during the daytime unless you're really brave!
Ashley Powers is the number one female podcaster in the U.S., thanks to her popular podcast "Crime Junkie." Her debut novel "All Good People Here" is twisty, chilling, and intense. "Everyone from Wakarusa, Indiana, remembers the infamous case of January Jacobs, who was discovered in a ditch hours after her family awoke to find her gone. Margot Davies was six at the time, the same age as January-and they were next-door neighbors. In the twenty years since, Margot has grown up, moved away, become a big-city journalist. But she's always been haunted by the fear that it could've been her. And the worst part is, January's killer has never been brought to justice. When Margot returns home to help care for her uncle after a diagnosis of early-onset dementia, it all feels like walking into a time capsule. Wakarusa is exactly how she remembered-genial, stifled, secretive. Then news breaks about five-year-old Natalie Clark from the next town over, who's gone missing under eerily similar circumstances. With all the old feelings rushing back, Margot vows to find Natalie and solve January's murder once and for all. But the police, the family, the townspeople-they all seem to be hiding something. And the deeper Margot digs into Natalie's disappearance, the more resistance she encounters, and the colder January's case feels. Could the killer still be out there? Could it be the same person who took Natalie? And what will it cost to finally discover what truly happened that night?"
"What Lies In the Woods" by Kate Marshall is a novel about friendship, secrets, betrayal, and lies. "Naomi Shaw used to believe in magic. Twenty-two years ago, she and her two best friends, Cassidy and Olivia, spent the summer roaming the woods, imagining a world of ceremony and wonder. They called it the Goddess Game. The summer ended suddenly when Naomi was attacked. Miraculously, she survived her seventeen stab wounds and lived to identify the man who had hurt her. The girls' testimony put away a serial killer, wanted for murdering six women. They were eleven when they sent a killer to prison. They were heroes. And they were liars. For decades, the friends have kept a secret worth killing for. But now Olivia wants to tell, and Naomi sets out to find out what really happened in the woods--no matter how dangerous the truth turns out to be."
"The Confessions of Frannie Langton" is Sara Collins's debut novel. It's a historical psychological thriller that moves between a Jamaican plantation and Georgian London. "All of London is abuzz with the scandalous case of Frannie Langton, accused of the brutal double murder of her employers, renowned scientist George Benham and his eccentric French wife, Marguerite. Crowds pack the courtroom, eagerly following every twist, while the newspapers print lurid theories about the killings and the mysterious woman being tried at the Old Bailey. The testimonies against Frannie are damning. She is a seductress, a witch, a master manipulator, a whore. But Frannie claims she cannot recall what happened that fateful evening, even if remembering could save her life. She doesn't know how she came to be covered in the victims' blood. But she does have a tale to tell: a story of her childhood on a Jamaican plantation, her apprenticeship under a debauched scientist who stretched all bounds of ethics, and the events that brought her into the Benhams' London home--and into a passionate and forbidden relationship. Though her testimony may seal her conviction, the truth will unmask the perpetrators of crimes far beyond murder and indict the whole of English society itself."
You'll find these and other twisty reads in our "Gripping Psychological Thrillers" display. For additional title suggestions, see the lists below:
