Book picks similar to
Don't Believe Her by Jane Heafield
psychological-thriller
bloodhound-books
mystery
thriller
Everything You Want Me to Be
Mindy Mejia - 2017
But Hattie wants something more, something bigger, and ultimately something that turns out to be exceedingly dangerous. When she’s found brutally stabbed to death, the tragedy rips right through the fabric of her small-town community.It soon comes to light that Hattie was engaged in a highly compromising and potentially explosive secret online relationship. The question is: Did anyone else know? And to what lengths might they have gone to end it? Hattie’s boyfriend seems distraught over her death, but had he fallen so deeply in love with her that she had become an obsession? Or did Hattie’s impulsive, daredevil nature simply put her in the wrong place at the wrong time, leading her to a violent death at the hands of a stranger?Full of twists and turns, Everything You Want Me to Be reconstructs a year in the life of a dangerously mesmerizing young woman, during which a small town’s darkest secrets come to the forefront…and she inches closer and closer to death.Evocative and razor-sharp, Everything You Want Me to Be challenges you to test the lines between innocence and culpability, identity and deception. Does love lead to self-discovery—or destruction?
Penpal
Dathan Auerbach - 2012
Before long, it was adapted into illustrations, audio recordings, and short films; and that was before it was revised and expanded into a novel!How much do you remember about your childhood?In Penpal, a man investigates the seemingly unrelated bizarre, tragic, and horrific occurrences of his childhood in an attempt to finally understand them. Beginning with only fragments of his earliest years, you'll follow the narrator as he discovers that these strange and horrible events are actually part of a single terrifying story that has shaped the entirety of his life and the lives of those around him. If you've ever stayed in the woods just a little too long after dark, if you've ever had the feeling that someone or something was trying to hurt you, if you remember the first friend you ever made and how strong that bond was, then Penpal is a story that you won't soon forget, despite how you might try.
No Exit
Taylor Adams - 2017
No help for miles. What would you do?On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Colorado. With the roads impassable, she’s forced to wait out the storm at a remote highway rest stop. Inside are some vending machines, a coffee maker, and four complete strangers.Desperate to find a signal to call home, Darby goes back out into the storm . . . and makes a horrifying discovery. In the back of the van parked next to her car, a little girl is locked in an animal crate.Who is the child? Why has she been taken? And how can Darby save her?There is no cell phone reception, no telephone, and no way out. One of her fellow travelers is a kidnapper. But which one?Trapped in an increasingly dangerous situation, with a child’s life and her own on the line, Darby must find a way to break the girl out of the van and escape.But who can she trust?
Don't Leave Me Alone
Kyla Sharp - 2022
But so does she.Leah and her husband Ben move to a gorgeous timber cottage in the hills, convinced a change of scenery can fix their marriage. She’ll finally get pregnant. He’ll remain faithful.But Ben is called back to the city for work.Leah is devastated, and all alone in a big, old cabin in the middle of nowhere. Then she starts hearing things at night.Her fears are founded when she finds a threatening note, convinced it’s targeted at her. But she needs to prove to Ben that she’s grounded enough to be a mother, so she keeps her fears a secret.Leah must figure out who’s taunting her. Alone.Does it have to do with the chilling history of her house?Is her husband keeping tabs on her from afar?What about her creepy hillbilly neighbor? Or the handsome one who owns a winery?Leah discovers her husband had more secrets than she thought. But also that she can’t keep her own secrets hidden forever, either.For fans of chilling psychological and domestic thrillers, this page-turner will keep you up until 4 a.m. reading on a wild ride to discover all the surprising twists and turns.
The Heights
Louise Candlish - 2021
Its roof terrace is so discreet, you wouldn’t know it existed if you weren’t standing at the window of the flat directly opposite. But you are. And that’s when you see a man up there—a man you’d recognize anywhere. He may be older now, but it’s definitely him. But that can’t be because he’s been dead for over two years. You know this for a fact. Because you’re the one who killed him.
The Lies We Told
Camilla Way - 2018
Recent evidence suggests that Luke had a stalker, and Clara worries that he's been kidnapped. Then Luke's older sister, Emily, who vanished twenty years ago, suddenly reappears.Emily wants to help Clara with her search for Luke, but she refuses to talk about what happened--even though it nearly destroyed her family when she vanished. And the deeper Clara digs into Luke's mysterious disappearance, the more convinced she is that the two incidents are connected.
Copycat
Alex Lake - 2017
The other, she has never seen. But everything in it is accurate. Recent photos of her and her friends, her and her husband, her and her kids. Even of her new kitchen. A photo taken inside her house.She is bemused, angry, and worried. Who was able to do this? Any why?But this, it soon turns out, is just the beginning. It is only now–almost as though someone has been watching, waiting for her to find the profile–that her problems really start…
The Accident
Linwood Barclay - 2011
Adding to the tragedy, the police claim Sheila was responsible.Glen knows it’s impossible; he knew his wife and she would never do such a thing. When he investigates, Glen begins to uncover layers of lawlessness beneath the placid surface of their suburb, secret after dangerous secret behind the closed doors.Propelled into a vortex of corruption and illegal activity, pursued by mysterious killers, and confronted by threats from neighbors he thought he knew, Glen must take his own desperate measures and go to terrifying new places in himself to avenge his wife and protect his child.Bold and timely, with the shocking twists and startling insights that have become trademarks of this new master of domestic suspense, The Accident is a riveting triumph, a book that moves at a breathless pace to a climax no one will see coming.
Three Perfect Liars
Heidi Perks - 2020
Despite her close relationship with the agency’s powerful CEO, Harry Wood, she feels sidelined—and outmaneuvered—as she struggles to balance the twin demands of work and motherhood. Mia was only supposed to be a temporary hire at Morris and Wood, but she’s managed to make herself indispensable to everyone. Everyone, that is, except Laura. If people only knew why she was so desperate to keep her job, they might not want her to stay. Janie gave up everything to support her husband and the successful agency he runs. But she has her own dark secret to protect…and will go to any lengths to keep it safe. With signature prose lauded as “breathtaking” and “bone-chilling” by USA TODAY bestselling author Cristina Alger and plenty of shocking twists and turns, Three Perfect Liars is an unputdownable thriller for fans of Watching You and The Couple Next Door.
Not My Mother
Miranda Smith - 2021
When a baby is snatched from her mother’s arms, the whole country knows about it. I knew about the parents left lying by the swimming pool, the open window in the nursery. But I never dreamed it had anything to do with me.Today, my beautiful daughter turned one. We were unwrapping gifts and blowing out candles when the knock came at the door, and they took my mother away.The police say she’s not really my mother. That she stole me, thirty years ago.When I visit her, desperate for answers, she looks me in the eye, and says nothing. I can barely breathe. Is my whole life a lie?I have to find out, but the more I learn, the more scared I become. And soon I start to wonder, am I losing my grip on reality or is my own daughter in terrible danger?An absolutely gripping psychological thriller, perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn, Ruth Ware and Lisa Jewell.
The Two Lila Bennetts
Liz Fenton - 2019
And one of those decisions has split her life in two. Literally.In one life, she’s taken hostage by someone who appears to be a stranger but knows too much. As she’s trapped in a concrete cell, her kidnapper forces her to face what she’s done or be killed. In an alternate life, she eludes her captor but is hunted by someone who is dismantling her happiness, exposing one secret at a time.Lila’s decorated career as a criminal defense attorney, her marriage, and her life are on the line. She must make a list of those she’s wronged—both in and out of the courtroom—to determine who is out to get her before it’s too late. But even if she can pinpoint her assailant, will she survive? And if she does, which parts of her life are worth saving, and which parts must die? Because one thing’s for certain—life as Lila Bennett knew it is over.
What Happened That Night
Susanna Beard - 2017
She’s in hospital. Her best friend is dead.WHAT HAPPENED?Lisa holes up in a remote country cottage, plagued by guilt and flashbacks: how did their assailant know them? Why were they attacked? And what really happened that night?With only vague memories of the event, she cuts herself off from friends and family, spending her days wandering the hills with her dog, Riley.Lisa realises there's another truth still hidden to her, a truth she can't escape from. A truth that may have been right in front of her all along.
Her Guilty Secret
Emily Maine Cavanagh - 2021
There is so much I’ve been keeping from them. Just for this weekend, for our long-awaited college reunion, I want to put all that aside and have some fun. But it wasn’t my secrets I should have been worried about. It was theirs. When Ada draws truth, she can’t meet my eye. “Ivy…” she begins and then stops. Before saying something that I immediately wish she could take back. But of course she can’t, not now.The worst thing is no one else seems as shocked. I realise they have let me think I was to blame all these years. Perhaps I never knew my closest friends to begin with. Maybe we were never actually friends all… A gripping, emotional drama about the complexities of friendship and what truly lies beneath the image of a perfect life. Fans of Liane Moriarty, Kerry Fisher and Sally Hepworth will be hooked from the very first page.
You Have to Believe Me
Sunday Tomassetti - 2019
Every day on her way home from work, Dove Damiani drives past her ex-house, where her ex-husband lives with her ex-dog and her ex-yoga instructor, next to her ex-neighbors and the ex-life she once affectionately described as “frighteningly perfect.” To outsiders, Dove is bitter and resentful. The divorce left her alone, with nothing but a set of car keys and 50% of a paltry savings account. So when the lifeless body of her former husband is discovered in the birch grove outside Dove’s apartment on what would have been their fifth wedding anniversary, investigators waste no time making Dove a person of interest. She swears she didn’t do it. She’s never so much as killed a spider in her thirty-four years. But as evidence mounts against her, Dove finds herself questioning her memory, her sanity, and finally—her innocence.
Malignant
Anita Waller - 2018
Together they get a flat but their peace is short-lived when Claudia is diagnosed with a terminal illness.Being a good friend, Heather takes on caring for Claudia but a lethal meeting with James, Claudia’s ex-husband, results in someone dying.
As life for Claudia and Heather begins to unravel, the answer to their problems becomes clear… it’s murder.