Here are 100 books that The Broken Girls fans have personally recommended if you like
The Broken Girls.
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I'm the author of over 15 novels written for kids, teens, and adults across several genres. The thing all my books have in common is that they are sad and they are dark. My most recent novel is my most distilled, compressed delivery of deliciously dark sadness yet! Oddly, I'm rarely sad in real life. My daughter suggested that I write books to get the darkness out of my head and onto the page, which I think is very insightful (she is my kid, after all). I enjoy the beauty in the breakdown, I savor the sublime catharsis of tragedy, and I want to share that perspective with everyone.
I really don't know how Catriona Ward manages to balance the languid sadness and unrelenting tension so well.
Ward's profound empathy for every single character, no matter how flawed, is what twists your heart. At the same time, you feel as though you're on a roller coaster barreling at breakneck speed through pitch-black tunnels.
I wasn't always sure I understood what was going on from moment to moment, and that seems very much by design because, wow, what a twist! And the deeply felt depiction of the characters never made me feel like I was truly lost. I will indulge a great deal of mystery as long as it is presented by such a steady and skillful hand.
"The buzz...is real. I've read it and was blown away. It's a true nerve-shredder that keeps its mind-blowing secrets to the very end." ―Stephen King
Winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel! A World Fantasy Award Finalist! An Indie Next Pick! A LibraryReads Top 10 Pick! A Library Journal Editors' Pick! STARRED reviews from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly! Named one of the "50 Best Horror Books of All Time" by Esquire!
"Brilliant....[a] deeply frightening deconstruction of the illusion of the self." ―The New York Times
Catriona Ward's The Last House on Needless Street is a shocking…
I’ve read crime fiction since I was a kid, starting with Nancy Drew and the mystery magazines—Alfred Hitchcock, Mike Shayne, and Ellery Queen. While in elementary school, I wrote mystery short stories, which my sister illustrated, and we sold them on the street corner for 25 cents apiece. In the nineties, I devoured novels by Patricia Highsmith, Ruth Rendell, and P.D. James. The 2000s introduced another generation of favorite authors, including Belinda Bauer, Chris Whitaker, and Tana French. I love too many to name! My current passion is for novels that I can really sink my teeth into, with complex characters hiding dark secrets.
The first line had me hooked: “It would be inaccurate to say that my childhood was normal before they came.”
That one sentence fired up my imagination, and the story kept me turning the pages late into the night. Libby, an adoptee, unexpectedly inherits a once-grand mansion in London’s Chelsea, only to discover it comes with a grim family history that’s nothing like the fanciful one she’d imagined.
I’m particularly drawn to novels like this one, with multiple narrators and intertwining timelines.
'I swear I didn't breathe the whole time I was reading it. Gripping, pacy, brilliantly twisty.' CLARE MACKINTOSH
'Creepy, intricate and utterly immersive: an excellent holiday read.' GUARDIAN
'A twisty and engrossing story of betrayal and redemption.' IAN RANKIN ____________________________
FROM THE #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THEN SHE WAS GONE
In a large house in London's fashionable Chelsea, a baby is awake in her cot. Well-fed and cared for, she is happily waiting for someone to pick her up.
In the kitchen lie three decomposing corpses. Close to them is a hastily scrawled note.
I love exploring old homes. Whether I’m on a historic house tour, an estate sale, or a real estate open house, I love seeing the glimpses of the people who once occupied the home. When my mom passed away, I hired an estate sale organizer to help me clear out her house and became fascinated with the estate sale business. What a great way to peek into other people’s houses and lives and perhaps discover their darkest secrets! That’s how I started writing my Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series.
A once-elegant Victorian mansion in London has been chopped up into individual “bed-sit” apartments occupied by a quirky assortment of tenants, each with his or her own secrets. The enjoyment of this book lies in the claustrophobic atmosphere of the house and the unbearable tension of wondering how each tenant will escape the killer in their midst.
No. 23 has a secret. In this bedsit-riddled south London wreck, lorded over by a lecherous landlord, something waits to be discovered. Yet all six residents have something to hide. Collette and Cher are on the run; Thomas is a reluctant loner; while a gorgeous Iranian asylum seeker and a 'quiet man' nobody sees try to stay hidden. And watching over them all is Vesta - or so she thinks. In the dead of night, a terrible accident pushes the neighbours into an uneasy alliance. But one of them is a killer, expertly hiding their pastime, all the while closing…
I have a close girlfriend who was once involved with a man she wanted to marry. The trouble was, the guy was always hanging out with this other woman who he’d known since childhood. Just friends, he said. Nothing going on. Ha! The shenanigans they got up to were unbelievable, and extremely upsetting to my girlfriend, who eventually broke up with the cad. Her unlucky experience got me interested in the psychology of the love triangle, and why some people remain mired in these dead-end relationships. My reading jam is anything twisty and suspenseful, and what’s more fraught than a three-way competition for someone’s affections.
Ron Burley has a rule against messing around with married women, but lovely Lavender has convinced him to break it. Their steamy affair sets someone off, but it isn’t Lavender’s clueless husband—it’s Marta, Burley’s clingy childhood friend and ex-lover.
Hoping to win Burley back, Marta dangles a lucrative job offer. Though he’s sorely tempted, Burley’s afraid to trust her due to the sketchy circumstances surrounding their bitter breakup years ago; but this might be his only chance to get back at her for what she did. Meanwhile, Lavender has become suspicious of Burley’s romantic history, and…
"Gripping and unforgettable suspense-think North Country, New York noir laced with dark humor. Don't plan on setting this fast-paced thriller down until you read the last page!" –Cam Torrens, author of Stable
Jealousy can be deadly.
Longtime bachelor Ron Burley has a rule against messing around with married women in his rural upstate New York town, but sassy, lovely Lavender has convinced him to break it. Their steamy affair sets someone off, but it isn't Lavender's clueless husband-it's Marta, Burley's clingy childhood friend and ex-lover.
Marta knows Burley is on the verge of going broke, so she secretly tries to…
I love exploring old homes. Whether I’m on a historic house tour, an estate sale, or a real estate open house, I love seeing the glimpses of the people who once occupied the home. When my mom passed away, I hired an estate sale organizer to help me clear out her house and became fascinated with the estate sale business. What a great way to peek into other people’s houses and lives and perhaps discover their darkest secrets! That’s how I started writing my Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series.
A young woman desperate for a second chance accepts a position as a nanny which comes with lodging in the pool house behind the family’s main house. The pool house is nicer than any place she’s lived recently, but she soon starts hearing strange noises and the little boy she’s watching starts drawing pictures that become creepier and more detailed as time goes on. I loved the flawed but kind heroine and cheered for her to figure out what happened in that pool house and what’s going on with the seemingly normal family who hired her. A real page-turner!
NATIONAL BESTSELLER · OPTIONED FOR NETFLIX BY A PRODUCER OF THE BATMAN
“I loved it." —Stephen King
From Edgar Award-finalist Jason Rekulak comes a wildly inventive spin on the supernatural thriller, for fans of Stranger Things and Riley Sager, about a woman working as a nanny for a young boy with strange and disturbing secrets.
Mallory Quinn is fresh out of rehab when she takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy.
Mallory immediately loves it. She has her own living space, goes out for nightly runs, and…
I’ve always loved dark stories. There is something especially human about being lured by that part of us we bury. How secret desires and thoughts get teased out in ways we don’t really experience in real life. Which is why I write suspense novels. Sometimes you just want to go there! Here are some books that I find hit that fix.
I’m going even further back with this one. Unusual pick certainly, a YA novel from 1989 that I stole off my sister’s shelf circa 1994.
I was ten and ready for something darker than The Baby-Sitters Club. This was one of those early reads that made me want to write in the first place. The first real suspense book that had me staying up late, wondering how does one create a story like this? I still have that book, tattered and sitting on my shelf as a reminder of that first spark.
Christopher Pike is able to write stories to young readers in a timeless way. The nostalgia and sheer thrill from this story about a young woman who finds herself dead after falling four stories will bring you back to nights with covers over your head. Did she jump or was something more sinister behind her death? Only her…
In this harrowing thriller from bestselling author Christopher Pike, a teen girl must solve the mystery of her own murder before the killer strikes again.
After a night spent out with friends, Shari Cooper wakes up in her bed not sure how she got home. And things only get stranger when her family acts like she’s not even there. Nothing Shari says gets a response and nothing she does can get someone to even glance at her. Then the hospital calls.
Shari’s mom starts to cry. The blood drains from her dad’s face. And still no one will tell her…
I am Peter C. Bradbury, and it was reading the books of P.G. Wodehouse that attracted me to the career of being a butler. I have also always loved murder mysteries, so when I started writing, I combined those aspects into my first book. I chose these particular books because of the details and the subjects. I was a butler for over twenty years in the UK and the USA, and it annoys me when household staff are incorrectly portrayed. I love movies like Gosford Park and series like Upstairs Downstairs and Downton Abbey. The butler sees and hears everything, so I like the writers who know that.
I loved this book because I worked in hotels before I became a butler, and the protagonist is a maid. You can walk into many situations in a hotel room, so a murder mystery is no big stretch. I love hotel or rich home dramas, especially if they portray the staff correctly. Domestic staff are generally likable, meticulous, quiet, and honest. This is a really nice, cozy murder mystery.
*THE NO.1 NEW YORK TIMES & SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER *WINNER OF THE NED KELLY AWARD FOR BEST INTERNATIONAL CRIME FICTION *A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK AT BEDTIME PICK
'An escapist pleasure' SUNDAY TIMES 'Delightful' GUARDIAN 'An instantly gripping and delightful whodunnit' STYLIST 'Smart, riveting, and deliciously refreshing ' LISA JEWELL
I grew up on a steady diet of Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown. Then, in a plot twist that surprised exactly no one, I became an English teacher, a librarian (did you know you can recommend books for a LIVING???), and an author. I love books where the sleuth must not only solve the case at hand, but also wrestle with some sort of ongoing personal problem–bonus points if they can simultaneously pull the curtain back on societal issues and make me feel like I’m getting to experience life in a place where I don’t actually live (I’m looking at you, London and L.A.).
I enjoyed being along for this wacky ride as Finlay accidentally gets herself hired as a contract killer, disposes of a body, and navigates the criminal underworld–all while raising her two small children and dealing with her infuriating ex-husband. There’s a love triangle in this book, but the relationship I enjoyed most was the friendship that develops between Finlay and Vero, her former nanny turned partner in crime.
This story is completely absurd, laugh-out-loud funny, and very suspenseful.
"Getting the job done" for one single mom takes on a whole new meaning in Finlay Donovan is Killing It.
One of Suspense Magazine's "Best Thrillers of 2021" One of New York Public Library's Best Books of 2021 Nominated for the Left Coast Crime 2022 Lefty Award for the Best Humorous Mystery
“Funny and smart, twisty and surprising.”—Megan Miranda
Finlay Donovan is killing it . . . except, she’s really not. She’s a stressed-out single-mom of two and struggling novelist, Finlay’s life is in chaos: the new book she promised her literary agent isn’t written, her ex-husband fired the nanny…
I’m an undying, relentless, optimistic champion of right winning over wrong, of justice prevailing over injustice, and of good people and animals (especially horses) being protected, championed, and loved. And I know from experience that all of this is seldom easy when the stakes are high. Couple that with my love of horses, especially Thoroughbreds, and you might understand that I admire main characters who are committed to protecting the innocent and bringing the bad guys to justice, whether that’s in the human or the equine world. And I love learning almost as much as I love people with character, heart, and courage. These books, I think, check all these boxes.
As with William Kent Krueger, I love all of Sandford’s Prey novels (and there are a lot!). This is the first one I read, and I guess I got hooked because I want to be—if I’m honest—either one of the main characters that persist through his books, and that appear in this one. Virgil Flowers is a lithe, laid-back, really smart guy who has long hair and wears band T-shirts; absolutely not the sort of person you’d associate with the U.S. Marshals Service, yet there he is! (He also has his own series, good for us!). Lucas Davenport is his boss, and Lucas is big, ruthless, and very rich—and loves hunting bad guys. But what I think I’m drawn to most is that he says exactly what he thinks, gets the job done by any means possible, and does not brook fools. At all. And, as I said, I am…
Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers join forces on a deadly maritime case like no other...
An off-duty Coast Guardsman is fishing with his family when he calls in some suspicious behaviour from a nearby boat. The slick craft has stopped to pick up a surfaced diver, who was apparently alone, without his own boat, in the middle of the ocean. None of it makes sense, and his hunch is proved right when all three Guardsmen who come out to investigate are shot and killed.
They're federal officers killed on the job, which means…
I like to write about everyday people who—whether by overconfidence or desperation—are motivated to solve crimes that hit close to home. My first novel Girl, 11 is about a true crime podcaster investigating a serial killer who terrorized her town decades earlier, and my newest book Lay Your Body Downis about an ex-fundamentalist Christian who returns to her insular community to expose the church’s secrets and uncover the truth of who killed the man she once loved. Normal people can and do solve mysteries before police—and even when detectives are involved, they rely on members of the community. Those are the stories I love to tell.
I was lucky enough to read an early copy of this book, and I am blown away at how Jesse Sutanto continues to smash both her novel concepts and character voices out of the park!
Vera Wong herself is the ultimate amateur sleuth, but she is not reluctant whatsoever. When a dead body turns up in her tea shop, Vera Wong—the most wonderfully grandmotherly non-grandmother—decides the police aren’t up to the task of realizing the young man was murdered, obviously, and so she decides to hunt down the suspects and interview them herself.
Vera is at turns heartwarming and hilarious, infuriating, and delightful. Told through the perspective of Vera and all her murder suspects, this book will keep you guessing until the end—and might just charm your socks off.
A lonely shopkeeper takes it upon herself to solve a murder in the most peculiar way in this captivating mystery by Jesse Q. Sutanto, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties.
Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady—ah, lady of a certain age—who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to.
What I look for in a book is something that triggers my serious side. So be it if that removes a whole range of fantasy books or those that merely titillate. Because I’ve traveled a lot, ‘feasible fiction’ is what I write and what I look for in other books. A story might be entirely fictitious, but as long as it’s not far-fetched, has a cast of realistic characters, an international or historic location, and keeps me on my toes to the very end, that’s great. If it’s got some politics and science thrown in, that’s even better. I hope my list lives up to expectations.
C. J. Sansom, a historian, died just recently, but he’s left a legacy of historical crime novels based around the time of Henry VIII. The main character is a charismatic, hunchbacked lawyer called Matthew Shardlake.
If, like me, you like books with strong characters, then, together with Sansom’s skill at weaving in the sights, sounds, smells, political shenanigans, and countless characters of Tudor England, Tombland is a fantastic read. It’s a long book (800 pages), so take your time on it, but I think this is historical crime fiction at its best.
Tudor England is brought vividly to life in Tombland, the seventh novel in C. J. Sansom's number one bestselling Shardlake series, for fans of Hilary Mantel and Philippa Gregory.
'When it comes to intriguing Tudor-based narratives, Hilary Mantel has a serious rival' - Sunday Times 'Sansom has the trick of writing an enthralling narrative. Like Hilary Mantel, he produces densely textured historical novels that absorb their readers in another time' - Andrew Taylor, Spectator
The Sunday Times Number One Bestseller
England, 1549: Two years after the death of Henry VIII, England is sliding into chaos . . .
