Book picks similar to
The Affair by Emma Kavanagh


short-stories
crime
short-story
fiction

The Darkest Secret


Alex Marwood - 2016
    Coco is three years old. When identical twin Coco goes missing during a family celebration, there is a media frenzy. Her parents are rich and influential, as are the friends they were with at their holiday home by the sea. But what really happened to Coco?Over two intense weekends - the first when Coco goes missing and the second twelve years later at the funeral of her father - the darkest of secrets will gradually be revealed... Taut, emotive and utterly compelling, an unputdownable 'ripped from the headlines' novel that you will want to talk about with everyone you know.

3 a.m.


Nick Pirog - 2013
    Henry Bins is awake for one. He wakes up each day at 3 a.m. then falls asleep at 4 a.m. Life is simple. Until he hears the woman scream. And sees the man leave the house across the street. But not just any man. The President of the United States.

Blood Bath (Seven Jack Nightingale Short Stories)


Stephen Leather - 2014
    Blood Bath is a short story written by bestselling author Stephen Leather, accompanied by six more short stories written by fans inspired by the cover and title.

Beneath the Skin


Caroline England - 2017
    But you do.‘Antonia, Antonia. My name is Antonia.’It’s been her name for many years. But sometimes, like tonight, she forgets.Antonia has a secret. A secret so dark and so deep that she can barely admit it to herself. Instead, she treats herself to Friday night sessions of self-harm while her husband David is at the pub, and her best friend Sophie is drinking too much wine a few doors down.Nobody close to her knows the truth about what the teenage Antonia saw all those years ago. No-one, that is, except her mother. But Candy is in a care home now, her mind too addled to remember the truth. Antonia is safe. Isn’t she?The lies start small. They always do. But when the tightly woven story you’ve told yourself begins to unravel, the truth threatens to come to the surface. And then what’s going to happen?

White Bodies


Jane Robins - 2017
    Felix and Tilda seem like the perfect couple: young and in love, a financier and a beautiful up-and-coming starlet. But behind their flawless facade, not everything is as it seems. Callie, Tilda's unassuming twin, has watched her sister visibly shrink under Felix's domineering love. She has looked on silently as Tilda stopped working, nearly stopped eating, and turned into a neat freak, with mugs wrapped in Saran Wrap and suspicious syringes hidden in the bathroom trash. She knows about Felix's uncontrollable rages, and has seen the bruises on the white skin of her sister's arms. Worried about the psychological hold that Felix seems to have over Tilda, Callie joins an Internet support group for victims of abuse and their friends. However, things spiral out of control and she starts to doubt her own judgment when one of her new acquaintances is killed by an abusive man. And then suddenly Felix dies--or was he murdered? A page-turning work of suspense that announces a stunning new voice in fiction, White Bodies will change the way you think about obsession, love, and the violence we inflict on one another--and ourselves.

Do Not Disturb


Claire Douglas - 2018
    There she sets up her new home with her husband and two young daughters, and goes into business with her difficult mother managing a guesthouse in the Brecon Beacons. But when the guesthouse is ready to be occupied, Kirsty encounters the last person she ever expected to see: her estranged cousin Selena. It has been seventeen years since they last talked—when Selena tore everything apart between them.Why has she chosen now to walk back into Kirsty's life? Is Selena running from something too? Or is there an even darker reason for her visit?As Kirsty becomes increasingly concerned for the safety of her daughters, her dream home begins to feel like her worst nightmare.Kirsty knows that once you invite trouble into your home, it can be murder getting rid of it . . .

Dark Tide


Elizabeth Haynes - 2012
    She’s found the perfect vessel: Revenge of the Tide. She already feels less lonely; as if the boat is looking after her.But the night of her boat-warming party, a body washes up, and to Genevieve’s horror, she recognizes the victim. She isn’t about to tell the police, though; hardly anyone knows about her past as a dancer at a private members’ club, The Barclay. The death can’t have anything to do with her. Or so she thinks...Soon, the lull of the waves against Revenge feels anything but soothing, as Genevieve begins to receive strange calls and can’t reach the one person who links the present danger with her history at the club. Fearing for her safety, Genevieve recalls the moment when it all started to go wrong: the night she saw her daytime boss in the crowd at The Barclay...Dark, sexy, and exquisitely chilling, Dark Tide is another superb mystery from acclaimed rising star Elizabeth Haynes.

The Choice


Alex Lake - 2020
    A cracking read’ John Marrs, bestselling author of The One‘Opens with a nightmare scenario and races to a gripping, horribly tense ending – I think I actually stopped breathing several times. Loved it! Jackie Kabler, author of The Perfect Couple A kidnap…Matt Westbrook only turned his back for a moment. But when he looks around, his car – with his three young children inside – has vanished.A ransom…Panicked, Matt assumes a car thief has got more than he bargained for, but then he starts to receive text messages: This is a kidnap. If you want to see your children again, you will exchange them for your wife.A choice…Matt and his wife Annabelle are horrified. They can’t involve the police, or their children will be killed. Which means they have to choose: Annabelle, or their children. Either option is unthinkable. But one is inevitable. And they have only hours to make their decision…The gripping new thriller you won’t be able to put down!What Netgalley reviewers are saying about The Choice‘Alex Lake is at the top of the game. An electrifying read of 2020’‘Brilliant! Loved it. The way the story unfolds kept me at the edge of my seat’‘Oh my goodness what a rollercoaster of a read, just brilliant, full of twists and turns and I was gripped from the very first page’‘This is the must read thriller of 2020 no question’‘This book hooked me from page one and kept me gripped right to the end’‘The revelation was shocking and the last bits of the book were really tense and exciting’‘My heart was pounding and this only served to make me read faster!!!’

Haunted in Death


J.D. Robb - 2006
    The hot club in the 1960s, it is now reported to be haunted?and cursed. Lieutenant Eve Dallas is called there to investigate the apparent murder of Radcliff Hopkins, its new owner and the grandson of the man who made Number Twelve a cultural icon. Several bullets from a banned gun end his dream of returning the building to its former glory. With everyone around her talking about the supernatural, pragmatic Eve won't let rumors of ghosts distract her from hard evidence. The case becomes even more bizarre when it appears to be linked to the suspicious disappearance of a rock star eighty-five years ago. As Eve searches for the connection, logic clashes with the unexplainable. She may be forced to face the threat of something more dangerous than a flesh-and-blood killer.Duration: Approximately 180 min.

I Let You Go


Clare Mackintosh - 2014
    It all happened so quickly. She couldn't have prevented it. Could she?In a split second, Jenna Gray's world descends into a nightmare. Her only hope of moving on is to walk away from everything she knows to start afresh. Desperate to escape, Jenna moves to a remote cottage on the Welsh coast, but she is haunted by her fears, her grief and her memories of a cruel November night that changed her life forever.Slowly, Jenna begins to glimpse the potential for happiness in her future. But her past is about to catch up with her, and the consequences will be devastating . . .

The Dinner Guest


B.P. Walter - 2021
    One would never leave.Matthew: the perfect husband.Titus: the perfect son.Charlie: the perfect illusion.Rachel: the perfect stranger.Charlie didn’t want her at the book club. Matthew wouldn’t listen.And that’s how Charlie finds himself slumped beside his husband’s body, their son sitting silently at the dinner table, while Rachel calls 999, the bloody knife still gripped in her hand.Agatha Christie meets Donna Tartt in this nerve-shredding domestic noir thriller that weaves a sprawling web of secrets around an opulent West London world and the dinner that ends in death.

Christmas Shoppe Magic


Juliette Hill - 2012
    Now Sophia’s alone, and she can’t help but wonder. Will the magic be gone, or will this year’s love be even stronger? Brew a cup of tea, grab a Christmas cookie, and prepare for a treat. You won’t want to miss this one!

Dear Neighbour


Anna Willett - 2020
    Amy is impressed by their sophistication, wealth, and love for one another and in turn they somewhat adopt her when Amy’s relationship with her boyfriend deteriorates rapidly.Jobless, often absent and clearly up to no good, Zane is jealous and increasingly abusive. His hold over the shy Amy has been strong, yet cracks are beginning to show.When a policeman knocks on her door one innocuous day, it is the start of series of events that will make the two households clash together in a fatal entanglement.Zane will see an opportunity and greed will get the better of him, but are their new neighbours quite the easy targets they appear to be?Amy is in the middle of it all and someone is going to get killed.

Keep You Close


Karen Cleveland - 2019
    But when the FBI starts investigating the kid she thought she knew, will she jeopardize her own career at the Bureau to keep her child safe? From the New York Times bestselling author of Need to Know. . . .Stephanie Maddox makes tough decisions every day. She has her hands full heading the FBI's Internal Investigations division, policing wrongdoers within the Bureau. But, as a single mother, the most important thing in her life is her teenage son Zachary, who's anxiously awaiting college acceptance letters. So when she discovers a gun concealed in Zach's room, her world reels. And then an FBI agent on the domestic terrorism squad shows up at her door and utters three devastating words: "It's about Zachary..."Has she been wrong about her near-perfect son? Is Zach embroiled in something criminal--something deadly? And, if so, what is her greater duty: To protect him? Or to betray him?

The Weight of Lies


Emily Carpenter - 2017
    But Meg knows that the glow of their very public life hides a darker reality of lies, manipulation, and the heartbreak of her own solitary childhood. Desperate to break free of her mother, Meg accepts a proposal to write a scandalous, tell-all memoir.Digging into the past—and her mother’s cult classic—draws Meg to Bonny Island, Georgia and an unusual woman said to be the inspiration for the book. At first, island life seems idyllic, but as Meg starts to ask tough questions, disturbing revelations come to light…including some about her mother.Soon, Meg’s search leads her to question the facts of a decades-old murder. She’s warned to leave it alone, but as the lies pile up, Meg knows she’s getting close to finding a murderer. When her own life is threatened, Meg realizes the darkness found in her mother’s book is nothing compared to the chilling truth that lurks off the page.