Here are 96 books that Did I Say You Could Go fans have personally recommended if you like
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As a reader and a writer, I am drawn to the darker side of human nature. Dysfunctional families, toxic relationships, liars, murderers, bring on the bad. An avid reader of horror and thrillers, I love a jaw-dropping twist. I aim for that feeling in my own novels, opening up reader questions and slowly delivering satisfying answers until the final big reveal. While inside my head is very dark and murdery, outside I live a very normal, law-abiding life, in Tampa with my husband, our four kids, and two dogs.
John Marrs is one of my favorite authors, and this book is what got me hooked on his work. This is not your typical thriller, or your typical plot. So buckle up because you are in for a ride. You think you’ve read about dysfunctional families? Wait until you meet Maggie and Nina. Just your run-of-the-mill mom and daughter, hanging out, eating dinner, until mom gets sent back to the attic where she’s chained and being held captive—um what?! Dark, disturbing, with unreliable narrators, it’s everything I love in a domestic thriller and more.
Nina can never forgive Maggie for what she did. And she can never let her leave.
They say every house has its secrets, and the house that Maggie and Nina have shared for so long is no different. Except that these secrets are not buried in the past.
Every other night, Maggie and Nina have dinner together. When they are finished, Nina helps Maggie back to her room in the attic, and into the heavy chain that keeps her there. Because Maggie has done things to Nina that can't ever be forgiven, and now she is paying the price.
I inherited a love of puzzles from my mother, and we still share crossword clues, looking for answers. I also shared her love of reading mysteries and trying to solve crimes, from the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew to Agatha Christie and Sue Grafton. So, when I started writing, it was only natural that I create my own literary puzzles. Add in an ingrained sense of justice–so often missed in society–and I love it when the bad guy (or gal) gets their comeuppance. I also love the mental workout I get when I need focused logic to puzzle out the ending before the final pages.
I was hooked from the moment young Daisy Darker–she of the “broken heart”–introduced me to her grandmother’s tidal island family home, complete with a wall of clocks. I generally prefer first-person novels like this, and Daisy’s perspective kept this story moving. A bizarre cast of characters navigate questionable relationships–family…yes? No?–from Daisy’s unique point of view that eventually crumbles into the sea. And the mysterious messages that show up on the kitchen blackboard each morning…what a puzzle! Too bad I couldn’t solve it before the end.
I’m sure Feeney must have given readers some clues along the way that I managed to miss, so I’ll likely re-read this one when my teetering #TBR pile isn’t quite so high.
*INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* "Alice Feeney is great with TWISTS and TURNS." —Harlan Coben
The NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR of Rock Paper Scissors returns with a locked-room mystery when a family reunion leads to murder in a delightfully twisty and atmospheric thriller, as seen on the TODAY show.
“A dysfunctional family meets Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None with a truly gasp-inducing twist. This is the book you've been looking for.” —Catherine Ryan Howard, bestselling author of 56 Days
Daisy Darker was born with a broken heart. Now after years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire…
When I was 27, I thought it would be fun to write. I have no formal training, yet I have found success through reading exposure and trial and error for 30 years. Changing my voice was hard, but reading these books helped me define the kind of story I wanted to tell in my new novel, Missed Connection. Erotic thrillers truly are a guilty pleasure for me.
Witty writing is important to me both as a writer and a reader, and Palahniuk’s prose is sharp, aggressive, and biting, with more wit than most writers know what to do with. It’s a hard feat as a writer to be witty and aggressive and still maintain the flow of the story, and Palahniuk does it over and over, with this book being a stand out for me.
Not too many books can make me laugh out loud, shudder, cringe, and keep turning the pages like this one did.
Misty Wilmot has had it. Once a promising young artist, she’s now stuck on an island ruined by tourism, drinking too much and working as a waitress in a hotel. Her husband, a contractor, is in a coma after a suicide attempt, but that doesn’t stop his clients from threatening Misty with lawsuits over a series of vile messages they’ve found on the walls of houses he remodeled.
Suddenly, though, Misty finds her artistic talent returning as she begins a period of compulsive painting. Inspired but confused by this burst of creativity, she soon finds herself a pawn in a…
As a reader and a writer, I am drawn to the darker side of human nature. Dysfunctional families, toxic relationships, liars, murderers, bring on the bad. An avid reader of horror and thrillers, I love a jaw-dropping twist. I aim for that feeling in my own novels, opening up reader questions and slowly delivering satisfying answers until the final big reveal. While inside my head is very dark and murdery, outside I live a very normal, law-abiding life, in Tampa with my husband, our four kids, and two dogs.
Revenge is sweet, or is it? Claire has a bone to pick with Hannah, who she blames for ruining her life. She infiltrates Hannah’s picture-perfect life by posing as a housekeeper. All that glitters isn’t gold, and when Claire moves in with Hannah, her husband, and their newborn, she discovers she’s not the only one with secrets. I can blame a few sleepless nights on this book, as I furiously flipped pages to get to the end.
She's a liar. She's a stalker. She's in your house.
When Claire sees Hannah Wilson at an exclusive Manhattan hair salon, it's like a knife slicing through barely healed scars. It may have been ten years since Claire last saw Hannah, but she has thought of her every day, and not in a good way. So Claire does what anyone would do in her position—she stalks her.
Hannah is now Mrs. Carter, living the charmed life that should have been Claire's. It's the life Claire used to have, before Hannah came along and took it all…
Complex relationships have been the heart of my career. I have a BA in sexual anthropology from Concordia University in Montréal and a Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne. My debut novel, Weekend Friends, was published by Post Hill Press in 2023. My nonfiction book, Sex Drive: In Pursuit of Female Desire, was published by Allen & Unwin in 2012. Themes I like writing about include friendship, desire, conflict, healing, and love. I have published short stories and poetry and have written for publications such as the Huffington Post and Daily Life. I appear on TV and give talks, including a TEDx talk. My work has been featured in a National Geographic documentary.
Oh, Celeste Ng is a terrific writer. The story follows Mia and her daughter, Pearl—enigmatic newcomers to town—whose lives become entangled with Mrs. Richardson and her seemingly perfect family. The relationships between the mothers and their teenage children ignite a firestorm of intrigue. I love Ng's nuanced critique of female friendship.
"Witty, wise, and tender. It's a marvel." -Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train and A Slow Fire Burning
"To say I love this book is an understatement. It's a deep psychological mystery about the power of motherhood, the intensity of teenage love, and the danger of perfection. It moved me to tears." -Reese Witherspoon
From the bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You and Our Missing Hearts comes a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their…
I'm a fourth-generation “Mainer” and the mother of two boy “wolves,” and I have a deep well of respect for boys and their imaginations in the masculinized culture we swim in. I've seen how much rich thinking is going on in the inner lives of boys. The teenage boy rendered in literature can be a stock character, and I was determined to give them more respect on the page and to explore what’s not said between boy moms and their sons that deeply connects them. I teach widely and write non-fiction as well as fiction and am a founder of a creative writing center in Portland, Maine for kids called the Telling Room.
This is the Mother of all boy mom books. It’s required reading for anyone learning to speak boy. Equal parts despair—Lamott is a single mom who sometimes wants to leave her crying boy outside on the stoop—and equal parts gut punches of hilarious wisdom and ardor about boy life and mom devotion.
This is the journal of the birth of Anne Lamott's son Sam, and their first year together. Coping with being a recovering alcoholic and a single mother, Anne had to face the fact that her best friend since childhood was dying of cancer.
Ever since I was a young girl, I have fallen deeply into the pages of novels that feature strong female characters, with Anne of Green Gables and Little Women capturing my imagination early. As an Australian, I’ve also always enjoyed books set here but anywhere where I can walk in a relatable character's shoes is fine by me. The magical experience of being immersed in ‘her’ world, feeling what she feels, relating to her, being frustrated with her, celebrating with her, loving with her…what are books if not gifting us such experiences? Every book I have penned has been based on this ideal, an intimate experience, a close relationship. A BFF.
Yes, she is one of ‘the’ Moriartys, and this surprise shift away from her usual young adult fiction works is more than worthy of her famous surname. This book is sublime, whimsical, dreamy, chatty, fun, sad, joyous, and all with a sense of surreality that you strangely and completely enjoy. I found myself swept away as the lead character, Abigail, seeks to find answers to the tragedy that has haunted her since she was young and oh, how I walked that path with her. The strange retreat she is on will keep you guessing and the sweetness of her story will stay with you long after the final page.
'Author Jaclyn is the sister of Liane Moriarty (Big Little Lies) and has the same talent for great plots. This unusual novel tugs at the heartstrings.' - Good Housekeeping
Twenty years ago, Abigail Sorenson's brother Robert went missing one day before her sixteenth birthday, never to be seen again. That same year, she began receiving scattered chapters in the mail from a mysterious guidebook, whose anonymous authors promised to make her life soar to heights beyond her wildest dreams.
These missives have remained a constant in Abi's life - a befuddling yet oddly comforting…
As someone who grew up agnostic and somehow ended up an Episcopal Church lady, I’m intrigued by writers who deal with Christian belief respectfully without leaving their sense of humor behind. I don’t believe that faith is required to be moral—my nonreligious parents are more principled than many Christians I know—but I like to see characters work out that tension between what we’re taught in Scripture, what we believe or want to believe, and how we actually live it out in daily life (sins and all). I especially enjoy watching this happen in that peculiar petri dish of personalities that is any local church.
This is the story of a divorced mom who rents her downstairs apartment to a Catholic monk whose spiritual well has run dry twenty-three years into his vocation, leading him to walk away. I love disgruntled, disillusioned Mike, who can’t help being a stand-up guy, and whose ongoing, sometimes combative correspondence with a former colleague tracks the vagaries of his spiritual life. I love Rebecca and the way she handles insane emotional and practical responsibilities and somehow keeps on going. Most of all, I enjoy the understated, wry way these two fall in love. Farrington’s prose style is beautifully transparent, and he’s intelligent and funny about Christian belief and practice and about romance. There is also a good sequel, The Monk Upstairs.
Rebecca Martin is a single mother with an apartment to rent and a sense that she has used up her illusions. I had the romantic thing with my first husband, thank you very much, she tells a hapless suitor. I'm thirty-eight years old, and I've got a daughter learning to read and a job I don't quite like. I don't need the violin music. But when the new tenant in her in-law apartment turns out to be Michael Christopher, on the lam after twenty years in a monastery and smack dab in the middle of a dark night of the…
Ever since I was a child the world has fascinated me. I’ve grown up with a deep love of reading and passion for the natural world, so much so that this often inspires both my writing and my artwork. As an artist and writer I seek to showcase the wonder and magic in the world. I have been able to draw upon ancient legends for inspiration into how people’s minds worked in the deep past and use it to enrich my writing further to cement the stories into our world and become more tangible. As a part-time adventurer, it’s only natural that my novels should be that.
I recommend this book not only for its gripping storyline but for its fascinating take on Irish mythology and seamless blend into our world too! I loved the characters, especially Cedar, the main protagonist in the book as she's thrown into the deep end and has to adapt pretty quickly to survive and save her daughter! And if you're like me and like to work out how it ends, there's enough here to keep you guessing. I certainly didn't see that coming!
It's been seven years since the love of Cedar McLeod's life left with no forwarding address. All she has left of him are heart-wrenching memories of happier times and a beautiful six-year-old daughter, Eden. Then, one day, Eden opens her bedroom door and unwittingly creates a portal that leads to anywhere she imagines.
But they're not the only ones who know of Eden's gift, and soon the child mysteriously vanishes.
Desperate for answers, Cedar digs into the past and finds herself thrust into a magical world of Celtic myths, fantastical creatures, and bloody rivalries. Teaming up with the unlikeliest of…
My usual answer, when someone asks me where I live in Philadelphia, is: “Have you seen the Rocky movies, where he’s running through that open fruit/vegetable market? I’m three blocks from there.”I’ve called Philadelphia home for more than 20 years. I’m clearly a big fan, having now written four books about the city. I include a reference to the city’s most famous fictional character in my children’s alphabet book Philadelphia A to Z. In More Philadelphia Murals and the Stories They Tell, I got to tell stories about the country’s largest public art program. In This Used To Be Philadelphia, I told the then and now stories of dozens of city locations.
I didn’t know this book was considered “young adult” until my teenage niece pointed out that she’d been assigned the book in school. Yes, protagonist Emoni is a senior in high school, but she’s an old soul. She has to be, given the challenges she faces as a teen mother and a mixed-race woman. Emoni is strong and inspiring and determined, but her greatest gift is cooking. When Emoni makes a meal, her amazingness gets into the food and brings joy to its eaters. I love magical realism and this reminded me of Like Water for Chocolate, another novel in which she who prepares a meal infuses it with emotion.
Emoni struggles, but she is surrounded by love and she gives it in return to the grandmother who raised her and the daughter she conceived as a high school freshman. Emoni has dreams of cooking school but she’s also…
From the author of THE POET X comes a sumptuous prose novel, perfect for fans of Angie Thomas' On the Come Up, Justin Reynolds' Opposite of Always and Nicola Yoon
Ever since she got pregnant, seventeen-year-old Emoni's life has been about making the tough decisions - doing what has to be done for her young daughter and her grandmother. Keeping her head down at school, trying not to get caught up with new boy Malachi. The one place she can let everything go is in the kitchen, where she has magical hands - whipping…
