Here are 100 books that Gray After Dark fans have personally recommended if you like
Gray After Dark.
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I love feeling scared in a controlled situation—like on my couch with a soft blanket and a book—so horror thrillers are my jam. I absolutely love it when a female protagonist is so smart and courageous that I genuinely don’t know what I would do differently. This gives me someone to truly root for. Over time, I’ve discovered all the ways scary books help me manage my anxiety. Reading about all my worst fears but knowing I can set the book down if I need to is empowering. (Spoiler alert: I never set the book down.)
When a horror thriller can straddle mystery and true crime and stick the landing like this book does, I’m in.
I was immediately invested in Liz’s journey back to her hometown. I love the reunion trope, but what Liz comes up against is so strange and intriguing that I knew after the opening I wasn’t putting this one down until I devoured this book. Her inner strength and determination to solve the town’s big mystery had me cheering for her every step of the way.
RECOMMENDED BY GILLIAN FLYNN ON THE TODAY SHOW • A young Black girl goes missing in the woods outside her white rust belt town. But she's not the first—and she may not be the last. . . .
“I read this thriller that is Get Out meets The Vanishing Half in one night.”—BuzzFeed
“Extraordinary . . . A terrifying tale of fears and hatreds generated by racism and class inequality.”—Associated Press
EDGAR® AWARD FINALIST • BRAM STOKER® AWARD FINALIST • SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD NOMINEE • PHENOMENAL BOOK CLUB PICK
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Esquire, Vulture, PopSugar,…
I love feeling scared in a controlled situation—like on my couch with a soft blanket and a book—so horror thrillers are my jam. I absolutely love it when a female protagonist is so smart and courageous that I genuinely don’t know what I would do differently. This gives me someone to truly root for. Over time, I’ve discovered all the ways scary books help me manage my anxiety. Reading about all my worst fears but knowing I can set the book down if I need to is empowering. (Spoiler alert: I never set the book down.)
The best thing I can say about this book is that I cried three separate times while reading it. When a horror thriller can pull that level of emotion out of me, it instantly becomes a fave.
Our MC, Brynn, has to decide whether to trust a father who has let her down her whole life while also trying to survive an apocalypse. (This is a fresh take on the apocalypse trope, for sure!)
The pacing is high-octane, Brynn’s emotional journey is compelling, and this book is highly underrated, IMO.
It’s just an average night at the Ink Tank, the tattoo shop in Austin, Texas, where Brynn works as a tattoo artist. After a long shift, all she wants to do is head home, pop a few pills from the fresh bottle of Roxicodone in her jacket pocket, and slip into a nice buzz. Her plans crumble when she’s abducted by her convict father, Alan, and forced into the road trip from hell: a cross-country trek to the Rocky Mountains and the shelter he built years ago to protect his family from the monsters living in his head, the monsters…
I love feeling scared in a controlled situation—like on my couch with a soft blanket and a book—so horror thrillers are my jam. I absolutely love it when a female protagonist is so smart and courageous that I genuinely don’t know what I would do differently. This gives me someone to truly root for. Over time, I’ve discovered all the ways scary books help me manage my anxiety. Reading about all my worst fears but knowing I can set the book down if I need to is empowering. (Spoiler alert: I never set the book down.)
I instantly fell in love with this book's MC, Rowena. She’s just so stinking relatable, and when her world starts to spiral into a dark hell, a la Black Mirror, she has to decide who she is going to believe in order to save herself and her baby girl.
The whole time I read this one, I wondered what I would do. Who would I believe if I were her? I love that feeling of being suspended in dread and the unknown as I read a thriller. This one delivered that for me.
"The best thriller of the year! This book absolutely left me aghast." —Netgalley reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
A new marriage. A perfect home. A machine that says it's all a lie.
Rowena Snyder has the life she's always wanted. So why is everything falling apart?
Moving to the suburbs was supposed to be easy. Instead, Rowena struggles with panic attacks, a husband who wants her on medication, and the isolation of new motherhood. Then a suspicious house fire at her baby’s birthday party threatens to send her over the edge.
When Rowena's husband brings home a product in beta testing at his…
I love feeling scared in a controlled situation—like on my couch with a soft blanket and a book—so horror thrillers are my jam. I absolutely love it when a female protagonist is so smart and courageous that I genuinely don’t know what I would do differently. This gives me someone to truly root for. Over time, I’ve discovered all the ways scary books help me manage my anxiety. Reading about all my worst fears but knowing I can set the book down if I need to is empowering. (Spoiler alert: I never set the book down.)
I listened to this book on a too-short road trip and had to immediately buy the e-book so I could finish it ASAP.
Naomi is one of the most sympathetic but badass characters I’ve read. I love the small-town secrets trope, and this book had me guessing so much that, at one point, I truly had no idea what would happen. I was creeped out the entire time.
Twenty-two years ago, Naomi Shaw believed in magic. She and her two best friends, Cassidy and Olivia, spent that summer roaming the woods, imagining a world of ceremony and wonder - the Goddess Game. The summer ended suddenly when Naomi was attacked. Miraculously, she survived her seventeen stab wounds and lived to identify the man who had hurt her. The girls' testimony put away a serial killer, wanted for murdering six women. They were heroes.
And they were liars.
The day she learns that Alan Michael Stahl has died in prison, Naomi gets a call from Olivia. For decades, the…
A self-confessed anxiety disorder nerd, I have a deeper level of understanding beyond the textbooks and training. I grew up in Manchester, UK, and was once diagnosed with crippling anxiety; suffering from panic attacks, agoraphobia, health anxiety, and generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), as well as intrusive thoughts, obsessive-compulsive behaviours, and all the other fun stuff that comes with a nasty anxiety condition. I’m now a qualified psychotherapist and it is my mission to help as many people as I can recover from anxiety disorder and live happy, healthy lives.
What is so great about this book is you certainly do not need to be a therapist to read it and gain an incredible amount of understanding about what it means to live with and overcome an anxiety disorder. It is precisely because it was written for therapists in mind that I would encourage anyone suffering from anxiety disorders to read it. Why? Because it approaches it from the perspective of someone who is there to offer guidance and support rather than the one living with anxiety themselves. Sometimes, it’s this third part perspective that can really help distance ourselves from the disorder in order to help ourselves overcome it. It’s a must-read.
What Every Therapist Needs to Know About Anxiety Disorders is an integrated and practical approach to treating anxiety disorders for general psychotherapists. What is new and exciting is its focus on changing a patient's relationship to anxiety in order to enable enduring recovery rather than merely offering a menu of techniques for controlling symptoms. Neither a CBT manual nor an academic text nor a self-help book, What Every Therapist Needs to Know About Anxiety Disorders offers page after page of key insights into ways to help patients suffering from phobias, panic attacks, unwanted intrusive thoughts, compulsions and worries. The authors…
I’ve always adored mysteries. My dad has the entire collection of Agatha Christie books, but even before I read those, I worked through his ancient original hardbacks of Enid Blyton's Famous Fivebooks and the less well-known Malcolm SavilleLone Pineseries. I love getting totally engrossed in a series, so I really get to BE the main character–I am one of four siblings, and when I wasn’t too busy reading, we were the Famous Five. I was George. I think I still am, to be perfectly honest–she was fiery, passionate, loved her dog, and wanted to serve justice and out the bad guys. What a role model!
Is this a cozy mystery? I’m saying yes, but honestly, it’s so good I’d squeeze it into any genre just so I can talk about it. It has a crime, a small community, a couple of bumbling policemen, a locked room, a bunch of people trying, amateurishly, to solve a crime, and a lot of ‘keep the reader guessing’ elements.
So far, so cozy. It also has a lot of anxious people and explores their unhappy and complicated lives in a hilarious, satirical tone. It is also just a little bit sad, as well as funny and happy, so, all right, it probably isn’t really a cozy mystery, but it’s been one of the best listens on my audiobook library so far this year–I’ve already listened to it twice in 2024, and it’s only July.
The funny, touching and unpredictable No. 1 New York Times bestseller, now a major Netflix TV series
'A brilliant and comforting read' MATT HAIG 'Funny, compassionate and wise. An absolute joy' A.J. PEARCE 'A surefooted insight into the absurdity, beauty and ache of life' GUARDIAN 'I laughed, I sobbed, I recommended it to literally everyone I know' BUZZFEED 'Captures the messy essence of being human' WASHINGTON POST
From the 18 million copy internationally bestselling author of A Man Called Ove _______
It's New Year's Eve and House Tricks estate agents are hosting an open viewing in an up-market apartment when…
As a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist, I have dedicated my life to understanding and healing the wounds of trauma and stress. My passion comes from witnessing the power of blending neuroscience with therapy in my personal and professional life. The resilience and healing I see daily inspire me. My work empowers individuals to reclaim their mental health and build resilient minds. This curated book list reflects my commitment to accessible, actionable tools for self-healing and growth. I believe mental health is a human right, though access to therapy is a privilege. These authors offer empowering, insightful works to put healing into everyone’s hands.
This book offers a practical and holistic approach to managing anxiety. I love that this book has actionable coping strategies and mindfulness techniques designed to calm the mind and body. Seponara’s compassionate and accessible writing provides readers with tools to address anxiety in their daily lives.
Her emphasis on empirically grounded tools from cognitive behavioral therapy combined with self-care exercises and holistic healing resonates deeply with my own approach to mental health. Seponara’s personal anecdotes and professional insights make the book relatable and motivating.
This guide has been a valuable resource for my clients, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to take control of their anxiety and improve their overall well-being.
Discover practical, natural, on-the-go solutions for combating anxiety with this must-have guide.
How can you begin holistically tackling your anxiety whenever the moment strikes? In The Anxiety Healer's Guide licensed counselor and creator of the Instagram account @TheAnxietyHealer Alison Seponara brings her expertise and commitment to healing anxiety to the world. While the journey toward recovery might look different for everyone, this portable resource is full of concrete activities, tools, and techniques that have been scientifically proven to calm the sympathetic (fight-or-flight) nervous system and give sufferers a better sense of control over their minds and bodies.
I had depression when I was young, but I didn’t know what that meant or what to do about it. So much of mental health is invisible and nobody knew. I didn’t have the language to explain how I felt, or to ask for help, and I didn’t know how to find out. Any book that could have helped me jump those hurdles would have been incredibly valuable. Children relate to stories, characters, metaphors and pictures more than words. Giving children the tools to explore how they feel in ways they can relate to is really important. I wouldn’t want anyone else to feel as alone as I did.
I will not mince words: this book is silly. It follows a very simple formula of describing the symptoms of anxiety, general worry, and stress alongside photographs of birds. The funny expressions candidly captured on the bird’s faces somehow seem to always illustrate the specific situations and emotions being described in the text more perfectly than I even could as a professional illustrator. It’s really good fun and would be an especially great resource for a parent/carer/teacher to read along with an anxious child - jumping off and discussing how they relate to what the birds look like they’re feeling as they go.
Life as a bird can be stressful! From worrying about airplanes, windows, and getting enough worms to eat, it is clear that birds can be anxious beings. Through a light-touch, quizzical depiction of bird behaviour, All Birds Have Anxiety uses colourful images and astute explanations to explore with gentle humour what it means to live with anxiety day-to-day, and how to begin to deal with it.
Following the style of the best-selling All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome and All Dogs Have ADHD, wonderful colour photographs express the complex and difficult ideas related to anxiety disorder in an easy-to-understand way. This…
I am immersed in the topic of brain and mental health every single day. I love devouring books on the topic because it helps me personally with my diagnosed bipolar depression. I know what it’s like to attempt suicide and to live with chronic thoughts that can be overwhelming. So, reading books like these helps me better balance my brain health, and they help me offer hope to others to whom I can recommend these kinds of books. As host of the Hinesights Podcast, where I interview folks in the field of mental health from all walks of life, being able to put a list like this together is a gift.
I loved Jay Glazer's book because it perfectly puts together how to defeat anxiety and depression through hard work, determination, and grit.
I appreciated how he lays out his heartfelt story of trauma, survival, and triumph over adversity. Jay’s writing captured me at my core and touched my heart. It will move anyone who reads it to find hope and elicit change.
We all face obstacles-physical, emotional, between the ears. The good news is that everything we have fought back against can empower us, IF WE KNOW HOW TO USE IT. My obstacles happen to be anxiety and depression. I call it living in the gray, and I've been mired in it my whole life. To be honest, it sucks. But I have also recently recognized that this same gray that has held me down has also empowered me to make my wildest dreams come true. You have probably overcome many of your own obstacles, but you;ve been too close…
I have lived with anxiety all my life – it’s a real bugger. At school, I would worry about wearing the wrong shoes or forgetting my shorts for football. Anxiety can be paralyzing and often coupled with its BFF depression, which I have too. Nice eh? I also know that when you face up to anxiety and start swearing at it, not letting it rule you, understand what it is and how useless it is, things start to get easier. It’s not about getting rid of anxiety, it’s about managing it, not letting it rule you. That’s what my book does, with a large dollop of humour thrown in to help things.
I really like how accessible this book is. A great mix of personal stories from the author who lives with anxiety and tools and techniques to try. It’s friendly and helpful and not full of jargon or complicated exercises that make you feel more exhausted. You can come back to the tips and tricks at different points and try them again if they haven’t worked the first time. You feel like the author understands what you’re experiencing and is here to help – like a wise Uncle might do when you’re struggling.
Having spent years trying different strategies to manage my anxiety, I feel I’ve been around the anxiety block a few times! I’ve learned a lot of simple, yet powerful, tips and tricks that really work to overcome anxiety….. and I know they can work for you too.
From my first panic attack in my twenties, through the pre and post natal anxiety of my 30’s, I fought, studied and researched anxiety. Now, through evaluating therapies and studying neuroscience research, I have cracked the code to understanding and challenging my anxious brain to live…
