72 books like The Players

Who doesn’t enjoy an escape room experience? I’m a sucker for games where you have to solve clues under pressure – but only a time pressure – not the life-or-death kind!

This story delves into the dark and twisted world of corporate greed and through a supposed team-building escape room challenge we are taken on a suspenseful journey with the trapped investment bankers as they realise it’s not your standard game. The stakes are high, and the tension is almost unbearable!

This novel features some truly unlikeable characters, but as they are forced to confront their own secrets and inner demons, I was completely entertained and enthralled by them.

With a creepy cover and an endorsement from Stephen King, this novel immediately grabbed my attention.

I’d say this was a psychological thriller with a crime element and a dose of horror and that mix really drew me into this book and kept me trapped within its pages. Together with the nostalgic 80s thread, this read is down as one of my all-time favourites.

The seemingly innocent chalk stick figures the kids leave for each other like a secret game only they can decode, begin to appear on their own with a more sinister message. A bone-chilling read!

Now, I’m not a fan of gory movies, so to begin with, when Eeny Meeny gave me Saw vibes I almost closed the book.

I’m glad I didn’t because not only did I enjoy the building tension, but I loved the character of DI Helen Grace in this, her first outing.

The victims in the sadistic game being played in this novel are pitted against each other in a ‘you’ or ‘me’ scenario, with their captor forcing them to make a decision. I’m intrigued with how people who are ultimately trying to survive a situation make morally tough choices, so this was a fascinating exploration and made me question: what would I do?

This story centres on four friends who met and forged their friendship at boarding school where they played a lying game – targeting others and gaining points for an elaborate lie successfully believed. These were sometimes harmless… but sometimes not. 

Years later, summoned by one of the friends, they reunite. A buried secret from their past now threatens to resurface. I thought this was an intense read with the tension slowly building and with some great revelations that kept me turning the pages. I love the way the author paints such a vivid, atmospheric picture so you can become fully immersed in the story.

"Reader, I murdered him." Yes, those are among the opening lines of this reimagining of Jane Eyre’s story. I was immediately hooked! Jane Steele is a sensitive orphan who suffers at the hands of a spiteful aunt. I have a weakness for orphans and misfits, and at first Jane put me in mind of Cinderella. But the story quickly turns dark. After fleeing her grim life and making her way by penning criminals’ last confessions, she learns her aunt has died and she may be the heir to the home left behind. But there’s a complication—her childhood home has a new master, Mr. Thornfield, who happens to be seeking a governess. Anxious to know if she is Highgate's true heir, Jane takes the position and falls in love with the mysterious Charles Thornfield. Thus begins a dangerous dance between her and her master. I loved this book!

Annika Bengtzon is another strong woman reporter working in a man’s world. She’s married to a man very involved in his own career. They have two children and Annika struggles to balance chasing after a story with looking after the kids and keeping house. Most women can relate to her very real pressures and will empathize with all that she goes through on the home front. I liked her tenacity and intelligence and almost reckless pursuit of a killer. Marklund is Swedish and I enjoy learning more about the country—another cold, northern setting. Her character develops over the series with gritty crimes at the centre of the stories.

In this gripping courtroom drama, an explosion in Miracle Creek, Virginia, destroys the business of South Korean immigrants Pak and Young Yoo and puts their daughter Mary into a monthslong coma. As arguments mount against the woman accused of starting the fire, Young struggles with a question many immigrants must face. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought her child to the US, where Mary struggles as a teenager and where she was almost killed. The tension between the two generations resonated with me as a parent and immigrant. As Young hopes to discover who caused the explosion that killed two other people, she must also help Mary imagine a future in their adoptive country.

I love a great mystery and I adore fantastic characters.

That’s why A Spoonful of Murder is so high on my list. It’s cozy crime with attitude. Having a detective story that doesn’t feature any actual detectives is the challenge for all cozy crime writers.

And J.M. Hall does this with such verve, vigour, and lightness of touch that you find it impossible not to fall in love with Liz, Pat, and Thelma.

There’s a wonderful fraternity amongst us cozy crime writers and I’m very lucky to count Mr. Hall as a friend. He makes me want to be a better author, just to keep up with him!

This is a psychological thriller with a difference. This story appears to be one thing and is, in fact, something else. Following the path of a struggling working mother with post-natal depression, we see the world through her paranoid eyes.

What I really enjoyed about this book is the unexpected twists and turns. Is she really imagining this, or did she see that little girl on the platform? It makes you question everything, including the motives of those surrounding the main character (always a good thing!). It is a masterpiece of misdirection and an unreliable narrator.

I’ve read other books by Lisa Jewell, but none as all-involving as this one. The story had me hooked from the word go, and the audiobook production quality was outstanding, with ‘Netflix Coming Soon’ trailers helping ground events in the everyday.

There are so many twists and turns that I defy anyone to claim they saw the ending coming. Jewell gets under the skin of a downtrodden wannabe whose life is a literal mess and her birthday twin–a woman who seemingly has it all. Spoiler alert (natch): she doesn’t.