Book picks similar to
Isolation by Sarah K. Stephens


psychological-thriller
thriller
abandoned
4-domestic-psychological-thrillers

The First Day of Spring


Nancy Tucker - 2021
    "That was all it took for me to feel like I had all the power in the world. One morning, one moment, one yellow-haired boy. It wasn't so much after all."Meet Chrissie... Chrissie is eight and she has a secret: she has just killed a boy. The feeling made her belly fizz like soda pop. Her playmates are tearful and their mothers are terrified, keeping them locked indoors. But Chrissie rules the roost -- she's the best at wall-walking, she knows how to get free candy, and now she has a feeling of power that she never gets at home, where food is scarce and attention scarcer.Twenty years later, adult Chrissie is living in hiding under a changed name. A single mother, all she wants is for her daughter to have the childhood she herself was denied. That's why the threatening phone calls are so terrifying. People are looking for them, the past is catching up, and Chrissie fears losing the only thing in this world she cares about, her child.

Keep Her Safe


Sophie Hannah - 2017
    What if she's not dead?Pushed to the breaking point, Cara Burrows flees her home and family and escapes to a five-star spa resort she can't afford. Late at night, exhausted and desperate, she lets herself into her hotel room and is shocked to find it already occupied — by a man and a teenage girl.A simple mistake at the front desk... but soon Cara realizes that the girl she saw alive and well in the hotel room is someone she can't possibly have seen: the most famous murder victim in the country, Melody Chapa, whose parents are serving natural life sentences for her murder.Cara doesn't know what to trust — everything she's read and heard about the case, or the evidence of her own eyes. Did she really see Melody? And is she prepared to ask herself that question and answer it honestly if it means risking her own life?

Dark Places


Gillian Flynn - 2009
    She survived—and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, the Kill Club—a secret secret society obsessed with notorious crimes—locates Libby and pumps her for details. They hope to discover proof that may free Ben. Libby hopes to turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club—for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started—on the run from a killer.

48 Hours


J. Jackson Bentley - 2010
    The text on Josh Hammond’s BlackBerry was blunt and chilling. Surely it must be a joke, but when Josh is attacked in broad daylight and people around him start to die he knows that his blackmailer is deadly serious. Can Josh raise the money, can his attractive new bodyguard protect him, who is blackmailing him and why? He has 48 hours to find out. The first novel in the acclaimed City of London Thriller series is a hit which will enthral everyone who knows and loves its London settings.

The Prettiest One


James Hankins - 2015
    Desperate to learn the truth about where she’s been and what has happened to her but terrified of what she may find, Caitlin embarks on a search for answers. Her journey takes her from the safe suburban world she knows to a seedy town she’s never heard of, where a terrible truth from her past lies hidden—a truth she can’t quite remember yet can’t completely forget.

Girls of Brackenhill


Kate Moretti - 2020
    It’s been seventeen years, and though desperate to start a new life with her fiancé, Hannah is compelled to question the events of her last summer at Brackenhill.When a human bone is found near the estate, Hannah is convinced it belongs to her long-lost sister. She launches her own investigation into that magical summer that ended in a nightmare. As strange happenings plague the castle, Hannah uncovers disturbing details about the past and startling realizations about her own repressed childhood memories.Fueled by guilt over her sister’s vanishing, Hannah becomes obsessed with discovering what happened all those years ago, but by the time Hannah realizes some mysteries are best left buried, it’s too late to stop digging. Overwhelmed by what she has exposed, Hannah isn’t sure her new life can survive her old ghosts.

After the Silence


Louise O'Neill - 2020
    When morning broke Nessa Crowley's lifeless body lay in the garden, her last breath silenced by the music and the thunder.The killer couldn't have escaped Inisrun, but no one was charged with the murder. The mystery that surrounded the death of Nessa remained hidden. But the islanders knew who to blame for the crime that changed them forever.Ten years later a documentary crew arrives, there to lift the lid off the Kinsellas' carefully constructed lives, determined to find evidence that will prove Henry's guilt and Keelin's complicity in the murder of beautiful Nessa.In this bold, brilliant, disturbing new novel Louise O'Neill shows that deadly secrets are devastating to those who hold them close.

The Moonlight Child


Karen McQuestion - 2020
    Through her neighbor's kitchen window, she sees what appears to be a little girl washing dishes late at night. But the Fleming family doesn't have a child that age, and even if they did, why would she be doing housework at this late hour?It would be easy for Sharon to just let this go, but when eighteen-year-old Niki, a former foster child, comes to live with Sharon, she notices suspicious activity at the Flemings' house as well. When calling social services doesn't result in swift action, the two decide to investigate on their own.

Pact of Silence


Linda Huber - 2021
    Yet Luke's manner suggests something odd is afoot, something that Emma can't quite fathom.Too many secrets, not enough truthsEmma works hard to settle into her new life in the Yorkshire countryside, but a chance discovery increases her suspicions. She decides to dig a little deeper...Be careful what you uncoverWill Emma find out why the locals are behaving so oddly? Can she discover the truth behind Luke's disturbing behaviour? Will the pact of silence ever be broken?

The Patient


Steena Holmes - 2019
    In the confidential setting of therapy, her patients share their anxieties and fears. Now, with a string of murders in town putting her on edge, Dani’s own worries come close to eclipsing her patients’. In each case, the pattern is the same: parents killed while their children sleep blissfully unaware in their beds. Her best friend, Detective Tami Sloan, is the only person she has confided in.Dani believes that there’s still a secret one patient has yet to share. But which one? Behind a familiar face is a stranger who’ll do anything to hide their worst compulsions. The anxiety brings Dani to her own therapist’s office, seeking counsel and comfort. But what is she willing to risk, and how much closer must she get, to stop them?

The First Wife


Jill Childs - 2020
    ‘What happened to you, Lucy? Can you tell me?’ When Sophie’s life falls apart, she accepts an invitation from a childhood friend, Caroline, to visit her family’s beautiful beach house, situated at the mouth of an isolated cove, miles from the nearest town. The silence is broken only by the rhythmic crash of the waves against the jagged black rocks below. But when Sophie arrives, she finds her friend much changed. Caroline – who used to be so warm and confident – is secretive and on-edge, spending long, unexplained hours away from her family. And then there’s Caroline’s little daughter Lucy – who stopped speaking soon after they moved in. Caroline assures Sophie that it’s only a phase, but Sophie thinks Lucy looks a little uncared for, a little afraid… Then one night Sophie is woken by a scream and runs to find Lucy, out of bed and at the attic window, staring in terror at the view below. When Sophie goes to look, her blood runs cold… What secrets hide behind closed doors in this isolated house by the sea? A compelling domestic drama from the USA Today bestselling author of Gracie’s Secret. Perfect for fans of Big Little Lies and The Couple Next Door.

The Playdate


Louise Millar - 2012
    Everyone does it. Until the day it goes wrong.Single mother Callie has come to rely heavily on her best friend Suzy. But Callie suspects Suzy's life isn't as simple as it seems. It's time she pulled away - going back to work is just the first step towards rediscovering her old confidence. So why does she keep putting off telling Suzy about her new job?

Here and Gone


Haylen Beck - 2017
    When she's pulled over by an unsettling local sheriff, things soon go awry and she is taken into custody. Only when she gets to the station, her kids are gone. And then the cops start saying they never saw any kids with her, that if they're gone than she must have done something with them... Meanwhile, halfway across the country a man hears the frenzied news reports about the missing kids, which are eerily similar to events in his own past. As the clock ticks down on the search for the lost children, he too is drawn into the desperate fight for their return.

The Sixes


Kate White - 2011
    With taut prose evocative of Laura Lippman’s Life Sentences and Dennis Lehane’s Moonlight Mile, White paints the sinister picture of a quiet Pennsylvania college town left shaken after a mysterious death precipitates a cascade of evil events on campus. When new teacher Phoebe Hall undertakes the dangerous quest of uncovering the truth behind the ghastly recent happenings, her investigation will send her into the clutches of a deadly secret society—the Sixes—and unearth the dark relics of her own long-buried past.

The Downstairs Neighbor


Helen Cooper - 2021
    Three Families. Countless Secrets.From her downstairs apartment in suburban London, Emma has often overheard the everyday life of the seemingly perfect family upstairs–Steph, Paul and teenage daughter Freya–but has never got to know them. Until one day, she hears something that seizes her attention: Freya has vanished and the police are questioning Steph and Paul about their life. Do either of you have any enemies? Anyone who might want to harm or threaten you?The effects of Freya’s disappearance ripple outward, affecting not just her parents, but everyone who lives in the building, including Emma and local driving instructor Chris, who was the last person to see the teenager before she went missing. Each character’s life is thrown into sharp focus as devastating mistakes and long-held secrets are picked apart and other crimes come to light–including a child gone missing 25 years before, and a shocking murder–that make clear that the past never stays where we leave it, and that homes can be built on foundations of lies.