Thrillers That Offer Something For Everyone
As Halloween season comes to an end, so too does the perfect time to pick up a thriller. Although they can be enjoyed all year round, reading a thriller around spooky season just adds to the impact. Thanks to subgenres, whether you usually read thrillers or not, there’s something for everyone. The list below contains thrillers that fall into different subgenres, have different tropes, or put a different spin on an old classic - just in time to read on Halloween night!
Lock Every Door by Riley Sager
★★★★☆ - 4.3 on Amazon
No visitors. No nights spent away from the apartment. No disturbing the other residents, all of whom are rich or famous or both. These are the only rules for Jules Larsen's new job as an apartment sitter at the Bartholomew, one of Manhattan's most high-profile and mysterious buildings. Recently heartbroken and practically homeless, Jules accepts the terms, ready to leave her past life behind.
As she gets to know the residents and staff of the Bartholomew, Jules finds herself drawn to fellow apartment sitter Ingrid, who comfortingly, disturbingly reminds her of the sister she lost eight years ago. When Ingrid confides that the Bartholomew is not what it seems and the dark history hidden beneath its gleaming facade is starting to frighten her, Jules brushes it off as a harmless ghost story—until the next day, when Ingrid disappears.
Searching for the truth about Ingrid's disappearance, Jules digs deeper into the Bartholomew's dark past and discovers that Ingrid is not the first apartment sitter to go missing.
________________________________________________________________
This is my favourite Riley Sager book. An eerie gothic, fishbowl setting combined with the creepy storyline made this a real page-turner. This is less of a "whodunnit" thriller and focuses more on the why. I don't believe that the reveal of who the main antagonist is is supposed to be overly shocking because there is more to this story than meets the eye. I liked the structure of the book, having only a few moments from the present and the majority of this story taking place in the past. Sager's writing and the setting of the Bartholomew sucks you in and creates a tense atmosphere. The history surrounding the building, the other tenants and all the odd rules made for a compelling read that I couldn't put down.
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
★★★★☆ - 4.4 on Amazon
Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in London. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.
Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.
Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him....
________________________________________________________________
This is one of my favourite thrillers of all time and I recommend this book to anyone who will listen. This was the first thriller I read with this kind of twist, so while it isn't new within the genre, it was new to me. This book is well written and makes for a compulsive read, with a slow build up to an explosive ending. The premise alone was enough to intrigue me but when the setting of a mental care facility for highly dangerous people and a psychotherapist narrator is added it became the perfect psychological thriller for me.
Verity by Colleen Hoover
Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish.
Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity's notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of what really happened the day her daughter died.
Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents would devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen's feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife's words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue to love her.
________________________________________________________________
Colleen Hoover is an extremely popular author in the romance genre and this is her first hybrid genre book. This romantic thriller was mostly enjoyed by readers who enjoy both romance and thrillers, or romance readers looking to dip their toes into another genre. For those outside of the romance community, there were mixed reviews, with some readers feeling there was too much focus on the romantic plot. This is a dark book which comes with trigger warnings but I think it's best to go into this book blind, it's more enjoyable to know as little as possible. The story is bold, all-consuming and creepy. I stayed up until the early hours of the morning reading this book and even at the end I didn't know what happened - Verity offers no solidity of truth and the reader is left to determine what is true and what isn't. If you want a story that will grip you and make you question everything you thought you knew about the book, this is the one for you.
The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware
★★★★☆ - 4.3 on Amazon
What she doesn’t know is that she’s stepping into a nightmare - one that will end with a child dead and herself in prison awaiting trial for murder.
Writing to her lawyer from prison, she struggles to explain the unravelling events that led to her incarceration. She knows she’s made mistakes. She admits that she lied to obtain the post, and that her behavior toward the children wasn’t always ideal. She’s not innocent, but she’s not guilty - at least not of murder. Which means someone else is.
________________________________________________________________
Set in an old, gothic house with smart technology this book combines a creepy haunted house with the modern world. The atmosphere is spooky with a creaking attic, objects going missing and reappearing in different places and creepy dolls. The story is set within a letter to a solicitor which is a nice touch and worked well for this novel. Not everyone liked the ending but I thought it worked well. It's the perfect book to read around Halloween.
Before I Say I Do by Vicki Bradley
It’s Julia’s wedding day. Her nerves are to be expected – every bride feels the same – but there’s another layer to her fear, one that she cannot explain to her soon-to-be husband, Mark. She’s never told him the details – and she is determined he never finds out.
As she begins down the aisle, spotting Mark in his tailored suit, she knows she is taking her first steps to happiness – her past is behind her, it can’t catch her now. Mark turns to face her . . .
But it isn’t Mark in the beautiful suit – it’s his best man.
Because Mark is missing.
And Julia’s past is closer than she thinks . . .
________________________________________________________________
This book is the author's debut novel but it's obvious that Vicki Bradley, a DC in the Met Police, knows what she is talking about. Her experience and knowledge of how procedures within the force and during investigations work help this book come to life. This book has a lot going on, with a dual POV and events from the past coming back into fruition, and while I enjoyed it, it wasn't my favourite. This is purely due to the fact that I don't love crime thrillers in general which typically follow both the main protagonist and police officers/detectives who are trying to solve the mystery. However, it's still a good book - it's well-written, has great characters, an interesting storyline and is a good, easy read, which is why it's included in this list.
The Wives by Tarryn Fisher
Thursday’s husband, Seth, has two other wives. She’s never met them, and she doesn’t know anything about them. She agreed to this unusual arrangement because she’s so crazy about him.
But one day, she finds something. Something that tells a very different—and horrifying—story about the man she married.
________________________________________________________________
This is another book on the list which has mixed reviews. A lot of people loved it, and many others thought it was a ridiculous, convoluted, melodramatic soap opera. I don't know how I feel about this story, whether I loved it or hated it, but I do know that I had a lot of fun reading it. It's fast paced, full of twists and turns and compulsively readable. Is it a little over the top? Yes. Completely ridiculous? A little bit. I haven't read a psychological thriller like this before. The first half of the story is very intriguing and entertaining but something happens midway through that turned this book from a genuinely compelling thriller into something wacky. It's almost as if the author made a list of the craziest, most ridiculous things she could think of and then wrote them all into the second half. Like I said, fun. If you start this book knowing it's a little out there and has an implausible outcome then I think, like me, you'll be very entertained.
The Passengers by John Marrs
Eight self-drive cars set on a collision course. Who lives, who dies? You decide.
When someone hacks into the systems of eight self-drive cars, their passengers are set on a fatal collision course.
The passengers are: a TV star, a pregnant young woman, a disabled war hero, an abused wife fleeing her husband, an illegal immigrant, a husband and wife - and parents of two - who are travelling in separate vehicles and a suicidal man. Now the public have to judge who should survive but are the passengers all that they first seem?
________________________________________________________________
A sci-fi thriller set in the near future, this book would easily fit in with some episodes of Netflix's Black Mirror. It has very similar themes, showing what could eventually happen if technology continues to develop at the pace it is. This is the first sci-fi thriller I read and I loved the first 80% of the book, the ending wasn't as strong in my opinion but I would still recommend it. There are some really interesting themes and conversation-starters within the book and it makes you think. What makes this stand out for me is the use of multimodal storytelling. Alongside the multiple POVs, the book includes news headlines, real-time social media polls and public reaction which makes the somewhat realistic plot feel even more like what would happen if these events transpired in real life.
Final Girls by Riley Sager
Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a horror movie–scale massacre. In an instant, she became a member of a club no one wants to belong to - a group of similar survivors known in the press as the Final Girls. Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout's knife; Sam, who went up against the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn; and now Quincy, who ran bleeding through the woods to escape Pine Cottage and the man she refers to only as Him.
________________________________________________________________
A thriller that takes inspiration from horror movies - but not in the usual sense. The term Final Girl was coined from horror movies, and is a popular trope among slasher films in particular, where the female protagonist is the last character left alive, and the one that stops, or evades, the antagonist.
Anyone who knows me knows that my favourite movie genre is horror so it was almost guaranteed that I would enjoy a thriller inspired by slasher films of the genre. The book follows Quincy through a dual timeline, we get flashbacks from her past as she remembers more about the night of the massacre she survived while also uncovering things that are happening in current time. This was one of the first Sager books I read and it instantly made him an Auto-Buy author for me, I didn't predict any of the twists and isn't that the whole point of a thriller? If you want a book to keep you on edge and surprise you Final Girls could be for you.
Comments
Post a Comment