83 books like The Girl Who Left

This psychological thriller is one where Oprah could stand in front of all its characters and say, “You made a bad choice! And you made a bad choice!”

It’s a slow-burn kind of story that eventually blew my mind so much I gasped—audibly. I liked that the book gives readers a chance to see a scenario where the choices made aren’t excusable, but are still wrapped into a deliciously entertaining and slightly disturbing story.

This book had me hooked from the very beginning, it is exciting and shocking.

Many books can have slower chapters than others but there were no slow chapters in this book. The ending was not super predictable like some thriller books can be, and the characters were rich with great background stories.

I devoured this book and if you read one thriller book this year then make sure it is this one. The MC is a detective who is being taunted by a serial killer and the story felt current and not outdated. I am a fan of Criminal Minds and Psychology and if you are too then give this book a read.  

This book is a coming of age, thriller book that blew me away. I had no idea what the book was about when I read it and I did not even know which genre it was.

The storyline flicks between the past and present with the present chapters giving you a sneak peek into a troubled relationship between a lesbian couple. The past chapters are full of unanswered questions, heartache, and some truly shocking experiences.

The book is gripping and deep, it feels like you are inside the MCs mind. The traumatic life experiences she is forced to go through alongside becoming an adult is probably fascinating to others. I felt I could identify with many of the experiences so I enjoyed reading it for a comforting reason. The shocking ending is truly beautiful and satisfying.

This book is a suspense thriller that has a theme of family drama and substance abuse.

As an advocate for mental health and addiction recovery I found this book a very worthwhile read. I found it hard to put the book down, the depth of the characters and their experiences were fearful. I assume the writer has drawn from personal experience as the storyline is too tragic to be completely fabricated.

The MC lives with her family in a household that walks on eggshells due to an alcoholic father. The story is rich and compelling with a great educational side of it that really does help others to understand issues surrounding alcoholism and mental health. 

Henry Paget, first Marquess of Anglesey, was a quintessential nobleman of his time. One of my very favorites reads, this biography by his descendent, the seventh Marquess, draws on letters and family lore to tell his story in detail: his grand tour, his military and diplomatic service, and best of all, his scandalous adultery, divorce, and remarriage. At about forty years of age, he fell deeply in love with Wellington’s sister-in-law. Her husband divorced her in England, and then the parties traveled to Scotland so that Paget’s wife could divorce him there. The story includes all the drama of divorce in the era: the action for “criminal conversation,” the ecclesiastical divorce, and a necessary duel to preserve the honor of the adulteress’s family name. 

When Pamela Petro traveled to Lampeter, Wales for the first time to enroll in a year-long master’s degree program, she had no idea that the open vista of sheep pastures and low hills around the town would strike a chord in her—she found herself nodding as if she was in agreement with the landscape—or that she would spend the rest of her life returning to Wales from the various American cities where she made a life as a writer and a teacher. The Long Field takes us on a journey through time and ideas as well as of places. 

The book masterfully weaves together the accounts of various trips to Wales and elsewhere, the childhood spent in suburban New Jersey where, in spite of the family she loved and was loved by, Ms. Petro was overcome by a desire not to stay in one place, and most important of all,… show more.

This is another historical novel set in my favourite time period AD 600’s, this time in Powys. The main character is Heledd – a peace-weaver bride, she is human, flawed, compelling, and courageous. The background detail is vivid and well researched, but what I love most about this book is the lyrical style of writing, which may almost give the reader the sense that the story is being sung,  reflecting with feeling and humanity, the real Anglo-Saxon poetry that has come down to us. Here is a powerful sense of sadness, regret, and gathering doom, lifted by moments of pure joy – a true lament!

Not only is this a heartfelt evacuee story, it’s also a brilliant mystery. When Jimmy and his brother, Ronnie, are sent to the Welsh countryside to escape the bombings, Jimmy is angry at the adults responsible – “They think they know everything but all they do is leave or make wars or send their children away.” The boys eventually warm to their kind foster parents, but some of the villagers aren’t so welcoming. When Jimmy finds a skull in a hollow tree, he has no idea how it’s tied to an unsolved mystery, and the reader has no idea how it will figure in this story’s gripping, satisfying, and emotional conclusion. 

Written in the 1950s by a museum curator-geologist, Sunken Cities is one of the earliest expositions of ‘myth and legend’ and their plausible geological meanings. The author marries his deep knowledge of Welsh traditions about submerged places with contemporary geological understandings. Of course, geology was transformed the following decade but North’s book remains insightful and grounded in ways that many more recent accounts are not. If I lived in Wales, I would be off every weekend with it in hand!

M. Wynn Thomas is the foremost literary critic writing in Wales today, and a writer I particularly admire.

He pioneered the concept of ‘Welsh writing in English’ as distinct from ‘Welsh writing’ (in Welsh), honouring the bilingual culture of Wales. Thomas’s twelve poems are selected from three key periods of Welsh history, the Middle Ages, the pre-modern period, and our own time.

Each poem is read in the context of its social and political background, educating us about the politics of Welshness, the cultural assumptions written into the literature, and above all what it means to be Welsh in a nation that is not a state.

This is such an elegant and original way to foreground the creativity of Welsh poets alongside the cultural forces that shaped them.