Book picks similar to
My Perfect Wife by Clare Boyd


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Our Little Lies


Sue Watson - 2018
    A beautiful townhouse on the best street in the neighbourhood. Three bright children who are her pride and joy. Sometimes her past still hurts: losing her mother early, growing up in foster care. But her husband, Simon, is always there. A successful surgeon, he’s the envy of every woman they’ve ever met. Flowers, gifts, trips to France: nothing is too good for his family. Then Simon says another woman’s name. The way he lingers on it, Caroline , gives Marianne a shudder of suspicion, but she knows it’s nothing – she can’t entertain this flash of paranoia. In the old days, she’d have distracted herself by excelling at work, but Marianne left her glamorous career when she married. She’d speak to a friend, but she’s too busy with her children and besides, Simon doesn’t approve of the few she has left. It’s almost by accident that Marianne starts to learn more about Caroline. But once started, she can’t stop, because what she finds makes her wonder: is the question she should be asking not ‘should she be jealous’, but... ‘should she be scared?’ Fans of The Girl on the Train and I Let You Go, who are looking for a dark, gripping psychological thriller with a final twist to put their jaw on the floor, will love Our Little Lies.

The Mother's Fault


Nicole Trope - 2021
    But when I look up, he’s gone. I call the police, my hands shaking so much that I hit the wrong digits twice. ‘My son is missing.’When the police turn up, I’m trapped in the web of my lies.I have hidden the truth from eight-year-old Riley, my little boy who loves climbing trees and always has scraped knees. I have hidden my secret from everyone.Riley knows his father is dead but he has no idea why. He doesn’t know his dad’s real name, and there are no pictures in the house. Not a single person knows what happened eight years ago.I love my son more than anything but the truth is, I have always feared for him. When the first gift arrived in our mailbox, wrapped in blue paper with silver stars, I realised I was right to be afraid.Now, I can see the question in the detectives’ eyes. Am I a mother with a missing child or a mother with a lot to hide? I need them to save my son – but how much can I tell them without losing him forever?

The Starter Wife


Nina Laurin - 2019
     Local police have announced that they're closing the investigation of the suspected drowning of 37-year-old painter Colleen Westcott. She disappeared on April 11, 2010, and her car was found parked near the waterfront in Cleveland two days later, but her body has never been found. The chief of police has stated that no concrete evidence of foul play has been discovered in the probe.I close the online search window, annoyed. These articles never have enough detail. They think my husband's first wife disappeared or they think she is dead. There's a big difference. My phone rings, jarring me away from my thoughts, and when I pick it up, it's an unknown number. The only answer to my slightly breathless hello is empty static. When the voice does finally come, it's female, low, muffled somehow. "Where is it, Claire? What did you do with it? Tell me where it is."A woman. A real flesh-and-blood woman on the other end of the phone. She's not just in my head.A wave of panic spreads under my skin like ice water. It's Colleen."Laurin knows how to ratchet up the suspense." --Publishers Weekly

The Perfect Roommate


Minka Kent - 2018
    I know what she did.

Date Night


Samantha Hayes - 2019
    Inside, the TV is on and a half-eaten meal waits on the table. My heart stops when I find our little girl is alone in the house and our babysitter, Sasha, is missing…Days later, when I’m arrested for Sasha’s murder and torn away from my perfect little family, I’ll wish I had told someone about the threatening note I received that morning.I’ll hate myself for not finding out who the gift hidden inside my husband’s wardrobe was for.I’ll scream from the rooftops that I’m innocent – but no one will listen.I will realise I was completely wrong about everything that happened that night…But will you believe me?

Behind Every Lie


Christina McDonald - 2020
    Eva was found unconscious down the street. She can’t remember what happened but the police are highly suspicious of her.Determined to clear her name, Eva heads from Seattle to London—Kat’s former home—for answers. But as she unravels her mother’s carefully held secrets, Eva soon realizes that someone doesn’t want her to know the truth. And with violent memories beginning to emerge, Eva doesn’t know who to trust. Least of all herself.Told in alternating perspectives from Eva’s search for answers and Kat’s mysterious past, Christina McDonald has crafted another “complex, emotionally intense” (Publishers Weekly) domestic thriller. Behind Every Lie explores the complicated nature of mother-daughter relationships, family trauma, and the danger behind long-held secrets.

A Stranger on the Beach


Michele Campbell - 2019
    But her husband is lying to her and everything in her life is upside down, so when the stranger, Aiden, shows up as a bartender at the same party where Caroline and her husband have a very public fight, it doesn't seem like anything out of the ordinary.As her marriage collapses around her and the lavish lifestyle she's built for herself starts to crumble, Caroline turns to Aiden for comfort...and revenge. After a brief and desperate fling that means nothing to Caroline and everything to him, Aiden's obsession with Caroline, her family, and her house grows more and more disturbing. And when Caroline's husband goes missing, her life descends into a nightmare that leaves her accused of her own husband's murder.

Dirty Little Secrets


Jo Spain - 2019
    Money, success, privilege - the residents have it all. Life is good.There's just one problem.Olive Collins' dead body has been rotting inside number four for the last three months. Her neighbours say they're shocked at the discovery but nobody thought to check on her when she vanished from sight.The police start to ask questions and the seemingly flawless facade begins to crack. Because, when it comes to Olive's neighbours, it seems each of them has something to hide, something to lose and everything to gain from her death.

The Couple at No. 9


Claire Douglas - 2021
    Until the bodies were found . . . BODIES FOUND UNDER PATIOWhen pregnant Saffron Cutler moves into 9 Skelton Place with boyfriend Tom and sets about renovations the last thing she expects is builders uncovering a body - two bodies, in fact.POLICE INVESTIGATEForensics indicate the bodies have been buried at least thirty years. Nothing Saffy need worry herself over. Until the police launch a murder investigation and ask to speak to the cottage's former owner - her grandmother, Rose.OWNER QUESTIONEDRose is in a care home and Alzheimer's means her memory is increasingly confused. She can't help the police but it is clear she remembers something.A KILLER AT LARGE?As Rose's fragmented memories resurface, and the police dig ever deeper, Saffy fears she and the cottage are being watched.What happened thirty years ago?Why did no one miss the victims?What part did her grandmother play?And is Saffy now in danger?

Lie Still


Julia Heaberlin - 2013
    Pregnant with her first child, Emily just wants to start over. But as she is drawn into a nest of secretive Texas women—and into the unnerving company of their queen, Caroline Warwick—Emily finds that acceptance is a very dangerous game. It isn’t long before Caroline mysteriously disappears and Emily is facing a rash of anonymous threats. Are they linked to the missing Caroline? Or to Emily’s terrifying encounter in college, years earlier? As the dark truth about Caroline emerges, Emily realizes that some secrets are impossible to hide—and that whoever came for Caroline is now coming for her.

I Don't Forgive You


Aggie Blum Thompson - 2021
    Allie's desperate to make a good first impression. Then she's framed for murder.It all starts at a neighborhood party when a local dad corners Allie and calls her by an old, forgotten nickname from her dark past. The next day, he is found dead.Soon, the police are knocking at her door, grilling her about a supposed Tinder relationship with the man, and pulling up texts between them. She learns quickly that she's been hacked and someone is impersonating her online. Her reputation--socially and professionally--is at stake; even her husband starts to doubt her. As the killer closes in, Allie must reach back into a past she vowed to forget in order to learn the shocking truth of who is destroying her life.

Pretty Guilty Women


Gina LaManna - 2019
    Four Confessions. One Murder.Something has gone terribly wrong at the Banks wedding. A man is dead. Four different women rush to offer confessions, each insisting that they committed the crime -- alone.Ginger is holding her family together by a thread, and this wedding weekend is not the fabulous getaway she anticipated.Kate has enough money to buy her way out of anything. Well, almost anything.Emily can't shake her reputation or her memories, and she's planning to drown this whole vacation in a bottle.Lulu's got ex-husbands to spare, and another on the way -- as soon as she figures out what the devil the current husband is up to behind her back.Why would they confess to the same murder? Only they know -- and they're not telling. This page-turning novel explores the depths of friendship and the truths we love to ignore.

The Girl Before You


Nicola Rayner - 2019
    As a politician and now a TV personality, George Bell’s reputation as a ladies’ man precedes him. But when Alice falls pregnant, her unease becomes an obsession.And there’s one ex in particular she can’t get out of her head, a beautiful student who went missing before they finished university: Ruth.When Alice thinks she see Ruth on a train, she can’t shake the feeling there’s more to the disappearance than George has told her. But does she really want to know what her husband has been up to behind her back all these years?

The Bones of You


Debbie Howells - 2015
    Soft‑petalled flowers that go to seed. The resolute passage of the seasons. Swallows that fly thousands of miles to follow the eternal summer.Children who don’t die before their parents.When Kate receives a phone call with news that Rosie Anderson is missing, she’s stunned and disturbed. Rosie is eighteen, the same age as Kate’s daughter, and a beautiful, quiet, and kind young woman. Though the locals are optimistic—girls like Rosie don’t get into real trouble—Kate’s sense of foreboding is confirmed when Rosie is found fatally beaten and stabbed.Who would kill the perfect daughter, from the perfect family? Yet the more Kate entwines herself with the Andersons—graceful mother Jo, renowned journalist father Neal, watchful younger sister Delphine—the more she is convinced that not everything is as it seems. Anonymous notes arrive, urging Kate to unravel the tangled threads of Rosie’s life and death, though she has no idea where they will lead.Weaving flashbacks from Rosie’s perspective into a tautly plotted narrative, The Bones of You is a gripping, haunting novel of sacrifices and lies, desperation and love.

What It Seems


Emily Bleeker - 2020
    Lonely, punished for the slightest offense, her only distraction comes from watching the Feely family’s online videos. They’re an affectionate vlogging quintet and an internet sensation. Most important, they are Tara’s mental refuge. Then the opportunity arises for them to be something more. When Tara accepts an internship with the close-knit clan, they’re her escape.Daring to run away, and defying Mother’s rules, Tara is welcomed into the loving fold. But the more Tara gets to know them, the more she realizes that not everything is as it seems. As secrets slowly surface, the image of the perfect family begins to crack. For Tara, it’s another trap.To claim a life of her own, she’ll need a new escape plan. Because as the show’s popularity explodes, reaching even more fascinated viewers, Tara can’t shake the feeling that Mother is among their ranks. She’s watching. She’s waiting. She’ll never let her go.