Here are 100 books that In the Blood fans have personally recommended if you like
In the Blood.
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I’m a certified crime junkie beginning with Helter Skelter and, more recently, FBI profiler Jack Douglas’ Mindhunter. This genre is a passion, but here’s the kicker, I started my writing journey in Western historical romance. I know, right? Then I had this wild idea: a psychologist who’s got a secret – her mother is a notorious serial killer on death row, and someone is imitating her crimes. Just like that A Killer’s Daughter was born! Now I’m always reading and listening to thrillers and true crime podcasts. Check out my newsletter to see what’s grabbing me.
I had the opportunity to listen to Karin Slaughter speak at the Bouchercon Conference in St. Pete, Florida and this was her new release.
The book sounded wonderful, and my signed copy is on my keeper shelf. Pieces of Her has a crazy, explosive opening and breakneck pace with questions that pile on questions, and we hold on for dear life. I was so enthralled by this story that I bought a second copy for a friend and put it in her hands saying, “You have to read this.” She loved it and so did Netflix because it is now a series.
I’ve been obsessed with murder mysteries and psychological thrillers for as long as I can remember. My father’s bookshelves were full of anthologies on serial killers, which piqued my curiosity at a very early age (probably too early, but we’re not here to judge my dad’s parenting skills, okay?). As I familiarized myself with the likes of Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, and John Wayne Gacy, I became enthralled by the psychology behind what makes people commit heinous acts. Now as an author myself, these same stories fuel my inspiration and keep me motivated to write books that further explore the darker side of human nature.
One of the most gripping stories I’ve read in a long time, this book sticks with you long after you put it down. I raced through it in less than six hours, unable to put it down until I reached the end, which, of course, I never saw coming.
From the vivid descriptions to the expertly crafted characters to the unrelenting suspense, I was blown away by this book and absolutely cannot wait to read more work by this author. What surprised me the most were the moments of comic relief which at times were enough to get me to laugh right out loud, even with all the dark drama going on. I can’t wait to dive into another of Freida’s fabulous stories!
Don't miss the New York Times and USA Today bestseller and addictive psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist that’s burning up Instagram and TikTok--Freida McFadden’s The Housemaid is perfect for fans of Ruth Ware, Lisa Jewell, and Verity.
Every day I clean the Winchesters’ beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.
I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies…
I’m a certified crime junkie beginning with Helter Skelter and, more recently, FBI profiler Jack Douglas’ Mindhunter. This genre is a passion, but here’s the kicker, I started my writing journey in Western historical romance. I know, right? Then I had this wild idea: a psychologist who’s got a secret – her mother is a notorious serial killer on death row, and someone is imitating her crimes. Just like that A Killer’s Daughter was born! Now I’m always reading and listening to thrillers and true crime podcasts. Check out my newsletter to see what’s grabbing me.
This book had me completely fooled. I didn’t see the ending coming but found it completely believable and just so delicious.
Unraveling the clues, deciding what is truth and what is lies was just so much fun. The ending surprised and delighted me. This is just a wonderful read, all around, or in my case an audiobook that had me listening at every opportunity.
One million sold: "A tantalizing premise . . . twists at every turn . . . [A] masterful debut about betrayal and justice" by a New York Times-bestselling author (Samantha M. Bailey, #1 national bestselling author of Watch Out for Her).
Optioned by Picture Perfect Federation for development as a film or TV series
Sarah Morgan is a successful and powerful defense attorney in Washington D.C. As a named partner at her firm, life is going exactly how she planned. The same cannot be said for her husband, Adam. He's a struggling writer who has had little success in his…
I’m a certified crime junkie beginning with Helter Skelter and, more recently, FBI profiler Jack Douglas’ Mindhunter. This genre is a passion, but here’s the kicker, I started my writing journey in Western historical romance. I know, right? Then I had this wild idea: a psychologist who’s got a secret – her mother is a notorious serial killer on death row, and someone is imitating her crimes. Just like that A Killer’s Daughter was born! Now I’m always reading and listening to thrillers and true crime podcasts. Check out my newsletter to see what’s grabbing me.
I think I picked this one up in a bookstore because of the back cover blurb. I found the writing much more in the literary fiction category which is to say it is beautiful and very well written.
What I especially appreciated in this story was the way the setting, the Bottoms, became such an important feature. Really, the setting is a character all its own and I appreciated learning about a place that was so specific and different from where I was raised.
That is not to say that the twist did not take me completely unaware because they definitely did.
The Great Depression, East Texas. The woods are thick, the rivers wild, the weather ripe with tornadoes, and the Crane family, like most families in that neck of the woods, are eking out a thin living. When young Harry Crane discovers a mutilated body bound to a tree with barbed wire in the river bottoms, the underbelly of East Texas is exposed. Whites fear a renegade Negro. Blacks fear a vengeful massacre, or, if the killer is white, that the law will let him slip through their fingers. Harry believes the murderer is the Goat Man, an East Texas monster…
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.
I’m a BIG Greg Iles fan—he (in my opinion) writes a lot like Stephen King, but instead of horror, leans more into the twisty-thriller category that I find electrifying.
For those unfamiliar with Iles’ work, this book is a great place to start, as it has the right amount of everything that makes a great read: twists and turns, a likable protagonist in an awful situation, and page-turning goodness that will keep you glued to the couch. It explores the dark side of obsession, giving this story that "erotic" label that pushed me toward my new genre.
What if someone you loved - who you believed was murdered - came back into your life? This high-octane chiller from the No.1 New York Times bestseller 'gets under your skin, and then burrows deep' (Stephen King).
A secret from the past could destroy his future...
Mallory Gray Chandler was the quintessential Southern Belle. She loved John Waters with a seething passion that threatened to destroy them both, until he ended the relationship. She was later found raped and murdered on a New Orleans pier.
A decade later, a single word uttered by the stunning Eve Sumner turns John's world…
I wasn’t a sporty teen, but I discovered rock climbing in my twenties and that later inspired my first novel, The Art of Holding On and Letting Go. I’m also a social worker, and even though my main character Cara is a competitive climber and the book features gripping (ha!) rock climbing scenes, the story is about much more – love and loss, finding home, the transformative power of nature. Sports and athleticism (or lack thereof) are something we can all relate to. What a great starting point for exploring our multi-faceted lives.
Welcome to the sweet romance of Isa, a dancer, and Alex, a baseball player, teenagers in New York with very different upbringings. Isa is a blonde, half-Cuban/half white, private school girl from a well-off family that’s falling apart behind the scenes. Alex is Dominican, attends public school, and divides his time between his divorced parents. He’s also a secret poet and leaves his poems for Isa to find on the subway train where they first met. Both have professional sports potential, but the reality is more complicated. The couple navigates challenges with their families and neighborhoods, including mental health and gangs, and you’ll be rooting for them the entire time. The author has a beautiful poem in the Rhyme and Rhythm anthology that I mentioned above.
Family and class differences threaten the love of two teens in this contemporary YA romance
When private school student Isabelle Warren first meets
Dominican-American Alex Rosario on the 1 train, she remembers his green
eyes and gentlemanly behavior. He remembers her long ballet dancer's
legs and untroubled happiness, something he feels belongs to all rich
kids. As the two grow closer in and out of the subway, Isabelle learns
of Alex's father, who is hell-bent on Alex being a contender for the
major leagues despite Alex's desire to go to college and become a poet.
Alex learns about Isabelle's Havana-born…
I do not remember a time when I wasn’t captivated by stories about adolescence. This was the case when I myself was a teenager—when I sought in these overwrought sagas the sort of sentimental melodrama that eluded the banality of my own life—but curiously it’s no less true at thirty, for reasons that are fundamentally the same but somehow more urgent. Becoming an adult is an exercise in hardening; to grow up is to forget what it’s like to be beholden to one’s own autobiographical romance.The following titles offer a respite from the cynicism that is adulthood; as a writer and a human, I'm forever in their debt.
This is another novel written expressly for teenagers, and all the better for it.
Inflected by the author’s own autobiographical experiences—like Craig, the novel’s narrator, Vizzini spent a week in a psychiatric hospital as a teenager—It’s Kind of a Funny Story was the first work of fiction I’d read that articulated the adolescent experience through the language of mental health. It was here that I learned “depression” isn’t an abstracted emotion but the very real neurochemical imbalance that impels Craig to call the suicide hotline after abandoning his SSRIs.
There’s an uncanny familiarity to the circumstances of Craig’s breakdown—namely in how he struggles to remain above water at a famously rigorous college preparatory high school—and a fundamental earnestness to his story’s confessions that gilds even its grimmest moments with a fifteen-year-old's sense of impressionable wonder.
Like many ambitious New York City teenagers, Craig Gilner sees entry into Manhattan’s Executive Pre-Professional High School as the ticket to his future. Determined to succeed at life—which means getting into the right high school to get into the right college to get the right job—Craig studies night and day to ace the entrance exam, and does. That’s when things start to get crazy.
At his new school, Craig realizes that he isn't brilliant compared to the other kids; he’s just average, and maybe not even that. He soon sees his once-perfect future crumbling away. The stress becomes unbearable and…
The stories of investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell have helped put four Klansmen and a serial killer behind bars. His stories have also helped get two people off Death Row. The author of Race Against Time, Mitchell is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and a winner of more than 30 other national awards, including a $500,000 MacArthur “genius” grant. After working for three decades for the statewide Clarion-Ledger, Mitchell left in 2019 and founded the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit that exposes corruption and injustices, investigates cold cases, gives voice to the voiceless, and raises up the next generation of investigative reporters.
Nellie Bly was one of the great muckraking reporters in American history. She pretends to be insane and is admitted to the “mad house.” Along the way, she exposes the horrible treatment of those suffering from mental illness, but of her treatment in a boarding home, where spoiled beef was served.
Many at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Roosevelt Island suffered no mental illness; they simply didn’t know how to speak English, she wrote. “I left the insane ward with pleasure and regret—pleasure that I was once more able to enjoy the free breath of heaven; regret that I could not have brought with me some of the unfortunate women who lived and suffered with me, and who, I am convinced, are just as sane as I was and am now myself.”
Her reporting led to a grand jury investigation and reforms inside the asylum.
Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887) is a book by American investigative journalist Nellie Bly. For her first assignment for Joseph Pulitzer's famed New York World newspaper, Bly went undercover as a patient at a notorious insane asylum on Blackwell's Island. Spending ten days there, she recorded the abuses and neglect she witnessed, turning her research into a sensational two-part story for the New York World later published as Ten Days in a Mad-House.
Checking into a New York boardinghouse under a false identity, Bly began acting in a disturbed, unsettling manner, prompting the police to be summoned. In a…
I’m Mona Simpson, the author of seven novels. I grew up with a mentally ill parent who struggled to support me, her only child, as a single mother. I saw firsthand the toll living in the world cost her. One of my first experiences of adulthood was a sense of relief in discovering that staying above water was manageable, even easy. Walking home from my first real job, seeing all the other people’s backs and legs hurry ahead of me, I liked being one of the many. I wondered if my mother could have ever felt that ease if there had been an alternative.
In 1995, in the attic of a decommissioned mental hospital in New York State, a curator of New York State Museum, a local volunteer, a psychiatrist/ documentarian, and a photographer found a trove of suitcases, doctor’s bags, steamer trunks with Chinese motif, housekeys, photographs, earrings, belts, upright ladies Saratoga trunks (“so named because they could hold enough clothes for an entire summer season in the resort town of Saratoga Springs.")
The researchers ventured further into the hospital's now vacant sites, an abandoned bowling alley, and its burial grounds. Finally, they obtained permission to get a few hours with the medical records, which were stored in an abandoned hospital building contaminated with asbestos and lead, requiring them to don protective gear and booties.
Their hope was to bring the forgotten patients who’d spent years in the institution back to life. This book and its intricate details haunted me. There are so…
"The Lives They Left Behind is a deeply moving testament to the human side of mental illness, and of the narrow margin which so often separates the sane from the mad. It is a remarkable portrait, too, of the life of a psychiatric asylum--the sort of community in which, for better and for worse, hundreds of thousands of people lived out their lives. Darby Penney and Peter Stastny's careful historical (almost archaeological) and biographical reconstructions give us unique insight into these lives which would otherwise be lost and, indeed, unimaginable to the rest of us." --Oliver Sacks "Fascinating...The haunting thing…
When I started writing my novelA Better Heart, the focus was not on fathers and sons, but from the moment the narrator’s estranged father walked through the door, I knew their relationship would drive the story. As a reader, I enjoy following characters as they navigate the potholes of their lives, and family often present the biggest holes. Our primary relationships are with our parents, and their influence is a big part of who we become as adults. Exploring that bond often makes great fiction. My father died of cancer ten years ago. In writing about fathers and sons, perhaps I’m trying to imagine a different ending.
The Risk Poolshows the importance of accepting and loving our fathers for who they are instead of resenting them for who they never could be. Sam Hall, the irresponsible wreck of a dad in this warm-hearted and funny book, is by any definition a terrible father, yet his relationship with his son Ned feels real in ways that most fictionalized father-son relationships don’t. Forced to care for Ned when Ned’s mother is hospitalized with mental illness, Sam introduces his son to pool halls, bars, bookies, drunks, and the occasional petty crime. Though aware of his father’s many faults, Ned can’t help but be charmed by Sam’s easy-going life, and even when Sam disappears for years, the bond remains strong.
The Risk Pool is a thirty-year journey through the lives of Sam Hall, a small-town gambling hellraiser, and his watchful, introspective son Ned. When Ned's mother Jenny suffers a breakdown and retreats from her husband's carelessness into a dream world, Ned becomes part of his father's seedy nocturnal world, touring the town's bars and pool halls, struggling to win Sam's affections while avoiding his sins.
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