Book picks similar to
The Life She Wants by J.M. Hewitt


thriller
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psychological-thriller
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Deadly Little Lies


Stephanie DeCarolis - 2021
    A loving husband, a career as an attorney, and a cozy apartment in Manhattan to call home.But when she gets a message from an old college friend, her blood runs cold. Remember me?ONE DEADLY LIEJuliana drops her phone as though she’s been scalded. The name Jenny Teller shines out from the screen… but Jenny can’t have sent that message.Because Jenny is dead.Juliana’s other college friends have all received the same message. The four of them are the only ones who know the truth about the night Jenny died. It’s a secret they have kept buried for fifteen years.WHO DO YOU TRUST?With ‘Jenny’ now blackmailing them and threatening to expose their secret, only one thing is certain. Someone else knows the truth about that night… or one of them is lying.

Blind Date


Wendy Clarke - 2021
    Her divorce came as such a shock and she’d been feeling lost and lonely, but that didn’t mean she was desperate to date again. It was a terrible day at work that made her say yes: it could be a bit of fun, a distraction at least. What did she have to lose?When Mel meets Malik, she knows instantly that they could have more than just a fling. She tells him her deepest, darkest secrets and it doesn’t make him run away. He makes her feel wanted for the first time in years, and when she wakes up in his bed in the early hours she feels completely content.Until she notices that he’s no longer lying beside her.She’s tangled up in his sheets alone in his bedroom and she can’t remember how she got there.And then she hears the metallic scrape of a key in the door and realises that Malik has locked her in. Is her dream man going to turn into her worst nightmare?Thrilling and gripping until the final page, Blind Date is a dark and unsettling story about deception and how much we can trust the people we love. For fans of Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train and anything by Lisa Jewell.

Every Little Secret


Sarah Clarke - 2022
    Only she knows about the cracks in her picture-perfect life… and the huge secret behind them. After all, who can she trust?Her brother Josh is thousands of miles away, and he and Grace have never been close – he was always their parents’ favourite.Her best friend Coco walked away from her years ago, their friendship irreparably fractured by the choices they’ve made.And her husband Marcus seems like a different man lately. Grace can’t shake the feeling that he’s hiding something.But when her seven-year-old daughter makes a troubling accusation, Grace must choose between protecting her child and protecting her secret… before she loses everything.

The Parents


Claire Seeber - 2021
    But it’s not long before I realise: I should have never made friends with them…I knew it wouldn’t be easy for my kids to adjust when we moved to a tiny village where they didn’t know a soul. But after the death of my husband, we needed a fresh start.Suddenly, we’re outsiders. I know the only way we’ll be accepted is if I throw myself into my new life, so when my son joins a local club, I volunteer to help along with the other parents.Before moving here, I didn’t know people like this really existed; their lives seem too perfect to be real. Although my own life couldn’t be more different, they welcome me into the fold. For the first time since my husband died, I feel like I made the right decision for my family…That is until I overhear something that tells me these other parents aren’t as perfect as they seem. Something that turns my world upside down again.My secret has already ruined my life once. I thought the truth had died with my husband… I should have known that it wouldn’t be buried for long.A completely addictive page-turner about the secrets and lies hiding beneath seemingly perfect lives. Fans of Big Little Lies, Lisa Jewell and Louise Candlish will be absolutely hooked by this pacey read with a jaw-dropping twist you just won’t see coming.

The Perfect Family Man


M.M. DeLuca - 2021
    Now my husband’s vanished, too.I wish I could say that the tragedy of little Jack disappearing brought me and Nate closer together. But my husband is more distant from me now than he’s ever been. Perhaps that’s why I don’t ask him exactly where he’s going when he sets off on another business trip.Or perhaps I was too distracted by the woman moving in across the street with bouncing blonde hair and a cherubic toddler boy. He reminds me so much of the child I lost. But his mother doesn’t seem to properly watch him. And I can’t be sure, but I’m sure Nate and this woman share a look of recognition before he leaves.The first day Nate’s away, things feel okay, even though I know when he returns we’re going to have to discuss what I found in his coat pocket. But one day turns into two, and then three. I don’t want to seem like the crazy wife, but I have to call his work and ask what’s going on. And that’s when they tell me the shocking truth.Nate hasn’t worked for the company in six months.Once I’ve found this lie, it’s hard not to pick at the scab of our marriage, see what other secrets lie beneath his apparent love for me. By the end of the week, I hope I might finally learn the truth about my husband, about the woman across the street, and about what really happened to my little boy.

The Pretty One


Clare Boyd - 2021
    If my pretty little sister never came home again, I’d finally be free from the terrible secret we share…Anna is a wonderful mother. She gave up a career she loved to stay home with her children and her kind, polite daughters, Nell and Ivy, are a credit to her. As is Bay, her stepdaughter, whom Anna adores as much as her own two girls. But everything changes the day Anna’s middle daughter’s beauty catches the eye of a stranger in a café…Quiet, sensitive Nell doesn’t want to have her face on a billboard for all to see. But she knows her family desperately needs the money, and perhaps it would be nice to have her mother’s full attention for the first time since Bay arrived? Could this be the escape from her stepsister’s twisted games Nell has been longing for?But the moment Nell steps in front of a camera, the devastating secret she and Bay have been keeping breaks the surface – and the bonds of this close-knit family forever. But with both Nell and Bay insisting they’re innocent, can either girl really be trusted?As Anna’s perfect blended family unravels around her, she is forced to pick a side. To save one daughter, Anna must betray another. Choosing the wrong girl will be more dangerous than anyone could ever have imagined…An unputdownable read-all-night family drama that explores the dark consequences of sibling rivalry and the heart-wrenching emotional cost of keeping secrets from those you love. Perfect for fans of Big Little Lies, Little Fires Everywhere and My Dark Vanessa.

Ten Days


Mel Sherratt - 2021
    As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I slowly start to recognise my surroundings: the small hole in the door and a narrow window allowing only a small chink of light. The jewellery given to me by my loving husband is gone and I am wearing someone else’s clothes. The room is exactly as the first woman described. And the second. And the third… It’s then I know, I am the fifth woman to be taken.Just days before, I had interviewed the third victim for the local paper. Her story was the same as those before her: an ordinary woman, locked away for ten days then released with no explanation, and nothing – nothing she could think of – to link her to the others. Throughout the ordeal, her abductor stayed eerily silent.I tell myself I’ll be safe; that I can brave the loneliness and survive just like the others. But as the days pass, I can’t help thinking of the fourth victim who is still missing.And then I hear the voice coming through the door. ‘You said everything would be fine. But it wasn’t was it?’ It is then that I realise. If I am to make it out alive, I need to revisit a dark secret of my own that I have spent a lifetime trying to forget.An absolutely unputdownable psychological thriller with a truly brilliant twist, perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell, T.M. Logan and C.L. Taylor.This book was previously titled Invisible Victim.

The Perfect Couple


Jackie Kabler - 2020
    Since then, their relationship has been like something out of a dream. But one Friday evening, Gemma returns home to find Danny is nowhere to be seen.After two days with no word from her husband, Gemma turns to the police. She is horrified with what she discovers – a serial killer is on the loose in Bristol. When she sees the photos of the victims she is even more stunned…the victims all look just like Danny.But, the detectives aren’t convinced by Gemma’s story. Why has no one apart from Gemma seen or heard from Danny in weeks? Why is there barely a trace of him in their flat? Is she telling them the truth, or are there more secrets and lies in this marriage than meets the eye?

The Baby Shower


S.E. Lynes - 2022
    She slides her hand under her blouse. And then I see something impossible. She isn’t pregnant…She bursts into my life like a storm, and nothing is the same again. She seems so perfect, with her lilting laugh and her beautiful face. One by one, I watch as my friends fall under her spell.Only I seem to suspect something. Only I see that her smiles don’t reach her cold, furious eyes. And when I’m accused of things I didn’t do, when my home is vandalized, I know she’s behind it. But she only lets her mask slip when no one is looking, so if I say anything, I’ll look crazy.So when the baby shower comes around I’m there, sitting on a velvet sofa in a posh hotel room, surrounded by balloons. We share gifts, we pour small glasses of champagne, and she beams, her bump just visible under her bright red shirt.But that afternoon, I finally learn the unbelievable truth.There is no baby…

I Invited Her In


Adele Parks - 2018
    Mel and Abi were best friends back in the day, sharing the highs and lows of student life, until Mel’s unplanned pregnancy made her drop out of her studies.Now, seventeen years later, Mel and Abi’s lives couldn’t be more different. Mel is happily married, having raised her son on her own before meeting her husband, Ben. Now they share gorgeous girls and have a chaotic but happy family home, with three children.Abi, meanwhile, followed her lover to LA for a glamorous life of parties, celebrity and indulgence. Everything was perfect, until she discovered her partner had been cheating on her. Seventeen years wasted, and nothing to show for it. So what Abi needs now is a true friend to lean on, to share her grief over a glass of wine, and to have some time to heal. And what better place than Mel’s house, with her lovely kids, and supportive husband…This dark, unsettling tale of the reunion of long-lost friends is thoroughly gripping exploration of wanting what you can’t have, jealousy and revenge from Sunday Times bestseller Adele Parks.

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.

The Perfect Stepmother


Karen King - 2021
    ‘And to be a mother to Emma too, of course.’ Her gaze flickered to Lily’s sister, but only Lily saw her expression momentarily change – from warm and loving to something else. Something Lily didn’t trust…Lily has always had a simple dream: to be happy like her parents were. Content in their sweet suburban home, nothing in life had phased her mother and father, not even when they’d had a ‘surprise’ second child, Emma, nearly twenty years after Lily.But their love story was cut tragically short, when – after a devastating battle with cancer – Lily’s mother died. Lily was heartbroken, but also desperately worried about her grieving dad, not to mention five-year-old Emma.So Lily is shocked and concerned when he suddenly decides to remarry, less than a year after her mother’s death. It feels far too soon, and Lily finds herself furious with him – and his new wife, Maria, who can apparently do no wrong. She seems madly in love with Lily’s dad and instantly bonds with Emma.It’s only Lily who can’t trust her.Who won’t trust her.And when Emma goes missing – could Lily be right? What if the greatest danger to them all is the woman now living in their family home?A totally gripping and unmissable psychological suspense novel about dark family secrets, perfect for fans of Shalini Boland, Claire McGowan and Gone Girl.

One In Three


Tess Stimson - 2020
    One of them killed him . . .Louise has had to watch her husband, Andrew, start a new family in the four years since he left her. The ‘other woman’ is now his wife – but Louise isn’t ready to let Caz enjoy the life that was once hers, or to let go of the man she still loves.As Louise starts to dig into Caz’s past, the two women’s pretence of civility starts to slip. But in trying to undermine each other, they discover more about the man they both married.And when Andrew is murdered at a family party, both women are found standing over the body.And when Andrew is murdered during the anniversary celebrations, both women are found standing over the body.It’s always the wife. But which one?

The Teacher


Katerina Diamond - 2016
    It meant the end.As Exeter suffers a rising count of gruesome deaths, troubled DS Imogen Grey and DS Adrian Miles must solve the case and make their city safe again.But as they’re drawn into a network of corruption, lies and exploitation, every step brings them closer to grim secrets hidden at the heart of their community.And once they learn what’s motivating this killer, will they truly want to stop him?SMART. GRIPPING. GRUESOME.This is a psychological crime thriller in a class of its own.WARNING: Most definitely not for the faint-hearted!

The Girl Who Came Back


Kerry Wilkinson - 2017
    Now she’s back… or is she?When six-year-old Olivia Adams disappeared from her back garden, the small community of Stoneridge was thrown into turmoil. How could a child vanish in the middle of a cosy English village?Thirteen years on and Olivia is back. Her mother is convinced it’s her but not everyone is sure. If this is the missing girl, then where has she been - and what happened to her on that sunny afternoon?If she's an imposter, then who would be bold enough to try to fool a child’s own mother – and why?Then there are those who would rather Olivia stayed missing. The past is the past and some secrets must remain buried.