100 books like The Family Remains

I loved this book because it caught me completely off guard with just how dark and twisted it turned out to be. The twist was shocking and unexpected, and the characters' motives and the depths of depravity they went to to get what they wanted were just mind-blowing.

Liz Nugent is a master at these types of psych thrillers, and I am such a huge fan. 

If I’d written this list a year ago, I probably couldn’t have found a way to include Megan Abbott, even though she’s one of my favorite writers.

Though setting is important to her work, it’s rarely given the place-based specificity we find in her newest novel, Beware the Woman, set in the wilderness of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I’ve vacationed in the UP and it truly is a wild place, the perfect background for this story of a pregnant woman spending an increasingly creepy week with the husband and father-in-law she’s not sure she can trust.

The woods that crowd around the family’s remote home seem threatening at first, but then come to offer the promise of escape from a domestic environment with its own set of perils. As in all these novels, setting is more than a scenic backdrop. It’s the world the reader lives in, and a crucial element… show more.

Everyone knows Agatha Christie’s most famous novels but when you dig a little deeper, you start to really uncover her genius. 

The Hollow is slow, careful, and spectacularly mature for a genre novel.  Legend has it that Christie didn’t like her detective, Hercule Poirot, so maybe that’s why she stuck him in such a difficult situation. A murder occurs right before his eyes, and the killer is there, holding a gun. 

The killer has motive, opportunity, and, of course, Poirot watched her do it.  But why is the gun the wrong caliber? And why is everyone except the murderer acting so suspicious?  

This one plays against convention, so even when you think you know what is going to happen next, you probably don’t.

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.

When it comes to Constance Greene, I hardly know where to begin.

She’s certainly the oldest and most deadly character in fiction writing today. I say she’s the oldest because she’s trapped in the body of a thirty-something-year-old woman even though she was born in 1873, long story.

She appears as a supporting character in multiple novels, as the love interest of Detective Aloysius Pendergast, but she is so much more than that. She’s eloquent, brilliant, and does not succumb to emotional distress under any threat of death.

In Blue Labyrinth, eight highly trained mercenaries pursue her and none of them live to tell the tale. At her most ruthless, she can kill with any tool at her disposal and she is loyal to the man she loves.

Everyone can relate to an unlikeable employer. I love a beautiful home and a perfect life. This book has it all. It’s beautiful and horrific at the same time.

If you love descriptive narrative, this is the book for you. It has some house porn and high fashion. Frieda paints the perfect picture and then unravels the unsavory truths.

The housemaid is damaged yet likable. There is nothing like rooting for the underdog, and the housemaid is just that person. I loved this book.

If, like me, and like the White Queen in Alice through the Looking Glass, you can believe six impossible things before breakfast, then you will certainly love this book. What you think is going on—is not. This is a book that turns all your assumptions upside down. You won’t be able to predict the ending: it’s beyond anything you could have guessed. And the characters are complex, enigmatic, yet real. You’re in for a wild journey. Highly recommend.

This was my first book by Colleen Hover because the blurb immediately appealed to me.

I love stories about female writers. I immediately sympathized with her unsuccessful career and was happy that she received an exciting job offer. And then immediate skepticism that everything couldn't be going smoothly there. The fear came slowly and made me look ever deeper into the abyss.

I read the book before going to sleep, which meant I stayed up late.

This was the first Lisa Jewell mystery I read. When I finished it, I went on to read several more. Kim is thirty-nine and raising her grandson Noah because her daughter Tallulah has disappeared. She and her boyfriend Zach, who lived with Kim, have gone out for the evening and never returned home. The police discover they ended up spending the evening with a group of young people from a nearby school. As the story progresses, we learn more about these young people and about Tallulah's secret relationship with their leader, a volatile woman. And finally we find out what happened that fateful night.

The Lake House was recommended to me because the style of writing and the themes of the story have been compared to my own books. I especially enjoy the techniques of interweaving present-day stories with tales from the past and employing multiple perspectives. Kate Morton’s characters are always well-developed, and her descriptions provide atmospheric depth. The country lake home, Loeanneth—beautifully described in its prime—is an abandoned, crumbling estate decades later. Family secrets abound and having two unrelated mysteries at work brings texture to the story. As a writer, I do appreciate when one of the main characters is an author, and I enjoyed observing Alice Edevane's approach to her writing life. Be patient as the mystery twists and builds. You won’t be disappointed!