100 books like The Prediction

By Faith Gardner,

Here are 100 books that The Prediction fans have personally recommended if you like The Prediction. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Book cover of Jackal

Steph Nelson Author Of The Final Scene: A Thriller

From my list on unputdownable horror thrillers with badass female protagonists.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love feeling scared in a controlled situation—like on my couch with a soft blanket and a book—so horror thrillers are my jam. I absolutely love it when a female protagonist is so smart and courageous that I genuinely don’t know what I would do differently. This gives me someone to truly root for. Over time, I’ve discovered all the ways scary books help me manage my anxiety. Reading about all my worst fears but knowing I can set the book down if I need to is empowering. (Spoiler alert: I never set the book down.)

Steph's book list on unputdownable horror thrillers with badass female protagonists

Steph Nelson Why did Steph love this book?

When a horror thriller can straddle mystery and true crime and stick the landing like this book does, I’m in.

I was immediately invested in Liz’s journey back to her hometown. I love the reunion trope, but what Liz comes up against is so strange and intriguing that I knew after the opening I wasn’t putting this one down until I devoured this book. Her inner strength and determination to solve the town’s big mystery had me cheering for her every step of the way.

Oh, and I did not see that ending coming, OMG.

By Erin E. Adams,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Jackal as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

RECOMMENDED BY GILLIAN FLYNN ON THE TODAY SHOW • A young Black girl goes missing in the woods outside her white rust belt town. But she's not the first—and she may not be the last. . . .

“I read this thriller that is Get Out meets The Vanishing Half in one night.”—BuzzFeed

“Extraordinary . . . A terrifying tale of fears and hatreds generated by racism and class inequality.”—Associated Press

EDGAR® AWARD FINALIST • BRAM STOKER® AWARD FINALIST • SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD NOMINEE • PHENOMENAL BOOK CLUB PICK

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Esquire, Vulture, PopSugar,…


Book cover of Gray After Dark

Steph Nelson Author Of The Final Scene: A Thriller

From my list on unputdownable horror thrillers with badass female protagonists.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love feeling scared in a controlled situation—like on my couch with a soft blanket and a book—so horror thrillers are my jam. I absolutely love it when a female protagonist is so smart and courageous that I genuinely don’t know what I would do differently. This gives me someone to truly root for. Over time, I’ve discovered all the ways scary books help me manage my anxiety. Reading about all my worst fears but knowing I can set the book down if I need to is empowering. (Spoiler alert: I never set the book down.)

Steph's book list on unputdownable horror thrillers with badass female protagonists

Steph Nelson Why did Steph love this book?

I could not set this book down for the life of me, and my anxiety was through the roof the entire time. (Clearly, I loved it haha.)

This thriller opens with an explosion of unrivaled suspense. It features some of my favorite tropes: kidnapping, survival, captivity, and creepy men in the woods (Deliverance movie, anyone?). Plus, it’s about Miley, an Olympic biathlete whose survival chops are next level.

The best part? It’s inspired by a true story.

By Noelle West Ihli,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Gray After Dark as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A merciless wilderness. A harrowing attack. A desperate escape.

When a tragic accident sidelines Miley's dreams of Olympic gold, she takes a summer job at a mountain guest lodge. The Frank Church Wilderness is remote, but it’s the perfect place to train and recover. Local lore about a staffer who died years ago doesn’t scare her.

But it should.

Miley’s plans take a terrifying detour when she’s abducted during a morning run. Held captive in a desolate off-grid cabin, she’ll have to use her athletic prowess, cunning mind, and courage to survive. But as the nightmare at the cabin escalates,…


Book cover of Feeders

Steph Nelson Author Of The Final Scene: A Thriller

From my list on unputdownable horror thrillers with badass female protagonists.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love feeling scared in a controlled situation—like on my couch with a soft blanket and a book—so horror thrillers are my jam. I absolutely love it when a female protagonist is so smart and courageous that I genuinely don’t know what I would do differently. This gives me someone to truly root for. Over time, I’ve discovered all the ways scary books help me manage my anxiety. Reading about all my worst fears but knowing I can set the book down if I need to is empowering. (Spoiler alert: I never set the book down.)

Steph's book list on unputdownable horror thrillers with badass female protagonists

Steph Nelson Why did Steph love this book?

The best thing I can say about this book is that I cried three separate times while reading it. When a horror thriller can pull that level of emotion out of me, it instantly becomes a fave.

Our MC, Brynn, has to decide whether to trust a father who has let her down her whole life while also trying to survive an apocalypse. (This is a fresh take on the apocalypse trope, for sure!)

The pacing is high-octane, Brynn’s emotional journey is compelling, and this book is highly underrated, IMO.

By Caleb Stephens,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Feeders as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

It’s just an average night at the Ink Tank, the tattoo shop in Austin, Texas, where Brynn works as a tattoo artist. After a long shift, all she wants to do is head home, pop a few pills from the fresh bottle of Roxicodone in her jacket pocket, and slip into a nice buzz. Her plans crumble when she’s abducted by her convict father, Alan, and forced into the road trip from hell: a cross-country trek to the Rocky Mountains and the shelter he built years ago to protect his family from the monsters living in his head, the monsters…


Book cover of What Lies in the Woods

Steph Nelson Author Of The Final Scene: A Thriller

From my list on unputdownable horror thrillers with badass female protagonists.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love feeling scared in a controlled situation—like on my couch with a soft blanket and a book—so horror thrillers are my jam. I absolutely love it when a female protagonist is so smart and courageous that I genuinely don’t know what I would do differently. This gives me someone to truly root for. Over time, I’ve discovered all the ways scary books help me manage my anxiety. Reading about all my worst fears but knowing I can set the book down if I need to is empowering. (Spoiler alert: I never set the book down.)

Steph's book list on unputdownable horror thrillers with badass female protagonists

Steph Nelson Why did Steph love this book?

I listened to this book on a too-short road trip and had to immediately buy the e-book so I could finish it ASAP.

Naomi is one of the most sympathetic but badass characters I’ve read. I love the small-town secrets trope, and this book had me guessing so much that, at one point, I truly had no idea what would happen. I was creeped out the entire time.

By Kate Alice Marshall,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked What Lies in the Woods as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Twenty-two years ago, Naomi Shaw believed in magic. She and her two best friends, Cassidy and Olivia, spent that summer roaming the woods, imagining a world of ceremony and wonder - the Goddess Game. The summer ended suddenly when Naomi was attacked. Miraculously, she survived her seventeen stab wounds and lived to identify the man who had hurt her. The girls' testimony put away a serial killer, wanted for murdering six women. They were heroes.

And they were liars.

The day she learns that Alan Michael Stahl has died in prison, Naomi gets a call from Olivia. For decades, the…


Book cover of All Our Relations: Indigenous Trauma in the Shadow of Colonialism

Caroline Dodds Pennock Author Of On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe

From my list on the Indigenous histories of North America.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been a historian of the Indigenous world for more than two decades, but I have learned so much since I expanded my perspective from Mesoamerica and the Aztec-Mexica into the wider history of Native peoples. There are literally hundreds of Indigenous communities across the world and so there is always more to learn. I have been incredibly privileged to learn by listening to Indigenous people – in person, in print, and on digital and social media. I hope these books can offer some starting points to set you on a similar journey of discovery, opening up some new ways of thinking and of seeing both the past and the present.

Caroline's book list on the Indigenous histories of North America

Caroline Dodds Pennock Why did Caroline love this book?

A Canadian of Polish and Ojibwe descent, you can tell that Talaga is an experienced journalist, as this moving book is a combination of clear narrative and incisive research.

Starting with Canada, but then widening her lens to Indigenous communities across the world, Talaga shows how the violence of colonialism, the rupture from land and community, and the loss of heritage – compounded by socioeconomic deprivation – has resulted in an epidemic of youth suicide and generational trauma across Indigenous communities.

Talaga’s analysis is devastating, but also gives hope of a possible future reconciliation, through examples of resilience and the recovery of Indigenous ways of knowing and being.

By Tanya Talaga,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked All Our Relations as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The world's Indigenous communities are fighting to live and dying too young. In this vital and incisive work, Tanya Talaga explores intergenerational trauma and the alarming rise of youth suicide.

From Northern Ontario to Nunavut, Norway, Brazil, Australia, and the United States, the Indigenous experience in colonised nations is startlingly similar and deeply disturbing. It is an experience marked by the violent separation of Peoples from the land, the separation of families, and the separation of individuals from traditional ways of life - all of which has culminated in a spiritual separation that has had an enduring impact on generations…


Book cover of Free to Fly: A Story of Manic Depression

Mahala Yates Stripling Author Of Bioethics and Medical Issues in Literature

From my list on medical/scientific stories that show what it means to be human.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an independent scholar who read Mortal Lessons, Richard Selzer’s book of essays about our common human condition - mortality. I began writing the biography of this Yale surgeon who influenced the literature-and-medicine movement, ushering in patient-centered care. I read everything by and about him, gaining a background in the medical humanities. In the middle of this project, I was asked to write Bioethics and Medical Issues in Literature. The first edition came out in 2005; subsequently I updated and published a second paperback edition in 2013, accessible by the general public and used as a complete curriculum. Clearly, reading literature helps us explore what makes us human.

Mahala's book list on medical/scientific stories that show what it means to be human

Mahala Yates Stripling Why did Mahala love this book?

I like Caroline’s bravery. When her manic-depression surfaced, she was in Richard Selzer’s Yale summer writing class. I witnessed her ensuing years being obsessed with him as he tried to keep her stable, although she lived in Toronto and he in New Haven.

A vulnerable Chinese immigrant in a foreign land, she holds nothing back when describing her bipolar condition, confinement, and recovery. Selzer stabilized her, she said, because he listened to her non-judgmentally while encouraging her to write.

I find her to be inspirational, expressing practical therapeutic steps to recovery with a new hope on the horizon. She lectures worldwide, giving others the courage to fly.    

By Caroline Fei-Yeng Kwok,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Free to Fly as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Free to Fly is a harrowing and heavenly narrative. Its author courageously describes scenes from hell and then dramatizes scenes from heaven. It shows that with hope and persistence men and women have the chance to search and find the freedom to grow wings. John Robert Colombo There are so many wonderful lessons in this book: The inner world of someone with bipolar disorder, stigmas associated with mental disorders, strengths and weaknesses of our mental health care system, and importance of cultural factors in mental health. All of these are told in a vivid, poignant, insightful, and inspirational manner. FREE…


Book cover of Exalted Subjects: Studies in the Making of Race and Nation in Canada

Valentina Capurri Author Of Not Good Enough for Canada: Canadian Public Discourse Around Issues of Inadmissibility for Potential Immigrants with Diseases And/Or Disabilities

From my list on belonging and exclusion in Canada.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a historian and a social geographer whose main interest is in examining why some of us are embraced (legally, politically, economically, culturally) by the society we live in while some others are excluded. Probably due to my status as someone who is an immigrant to Canada and also a person with a disability, the topic of belonging and exclusion fascinates me. 

Valentina's book list on belonging and exclusion in Canada

Valentina Capurri Why did Valentina love this book?

This is an exceptionally well-written and meaningful study that has greatly helped me understand how the national subject is conceptualized in Canada. As an immigrant to this country who became a citizen through a challenging and demoralizing process, this book has enabled me to see how some of us are framed as belonging while others are excluded from the Canadian nation. I have also learned how (above and beyond the national mythology surrounding it) multiculturalism has been deployed to boost Canada’s profile as a liberalizing nation while, at the same time, operating as a tool to control ethnic and religious minorities.  

By Sunera Thobani,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Exalted Subjects as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Questions of national identity, indigenous rights, citizenship, and migration have acquired unprecedented relevance in this age of globalization. In Exalted Subjects, noted feminist scholar Sunera Thobani examines the meanings and complexities of these questions in a Canadian context. Based in the theoretical traditions of political economy and cultural / post-colonial studies, this book examines how the national subject has been conceptualized in Canada at particular historical junctures, and how state policies and popular practices have exalted certain subjects over others. Foregrounding the concept of 'race' as a critical relation of power, Thobani examines how processes of racialization contribute to sustaining…


Book cover of Shadow Life

Kyle Fleischhacker Author Of Bear Serum

From my list on graphic novels for a long, dark weekend.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a writer/artist inspired by a lifetime of reading graphic novels. A visual artist at heart with a BFA in Industrial Design I have worked over a decade in conceptual thinking for research and development in the manufacturing sector. I love the experimentation that breaks the boring norms of industry standards. I wanted to use my talent, experience, and passion to create a sci-fi graphic novel, Bear Serum, and break the medium norms. I wrote and drew it to satiate my own wild ideas in the sci-fi category to push the medium further.

Kyle's book list on graphic novels for a long, dark weekend

Kyle Fleischhacker Why did Kyle love this book?

I picked this book up on a whim, I’m glad I did. It was a pleasant surprise with no expectations. A simple, easy-to-read story with art guiding you frame by frame from artist Ann Xu. The smooth art guides you through the effortless story. It shines a light from a different perspective of life. It is soft, warm, and enlightening as we question death around the corner (especially close for the elderly woman in this story who literally vacuums up death). If you are looking for something different from a harsh dystopian/superhero graphic novel, pick up Shadow Life.

I suggest that you read this one on a Sunday morning.

By Hiromi Goto, Ann Xu (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Shadow Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When Kumiko's well-meaning adult daughters place her in an assisted living home the seventy-six-year-old widow gives it a try, but it's not where she wants to be. She goes on the lam and finds a cosy bachelor apartment, keeping the location secret even while communicating online with her eldest daughter. Kumiko revels in the small, daily pleasures: decorating as she pleases, eating what she wants, and swimming in the community pool. But something has followed her from her former residence - Death's shadow.

Kumiko's sweet life is shattered when Death's shadow swoops in to collect her. With her quick mind…


Book cover of The Trudeau Formula: Seduction and Betrayal in an Age of Discontent

Jeremy Appel Author Of Kenneyism: Jason Kenney's Pursuit of Power

From my list on understanding the political moment we’re in.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a journalist in Edmonton, Canada, who covered former premier Jason Kenney’s rise through Alberta politics, in which he tapped into the populist zeitgeist of Donald Trump and Brexit, and his eventual implosion. I have a newsletter on Substack, "The Orchard," where I cover the intersection of politics, the media, and corporate power. Through my journalism, I’ve developed a keen interest in this age of mass discontent we find ourselves in, with right-wing political and economic elites promising to blow up the entire system they embody while feckless liberal politicians seek to tinker around the edges to make the established order more palatable. 

Jeremy's book list on understanding the political moment we’re in

Jeremy Appel Why did Jeremy love this book?

I regard Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the embodiment of an empty progressive politics that is far more concerned with style over substance.

Martin Lukacs does a great job in The Trudeau Formula of outlining how Trudeau’s combination of soaring rhetoric and tepid reform on issues like economic inequality, Indigenous reconciliation, and the climate crisis works to stave off the more systemic changes needed to address these concerns in a substantive way.

Lukacs aptly demonstrates how Trudeau serves to uphold the status quo while presenting himself as an agent of transformative change. 

By Martin Lukacs,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Trudeau Formula as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"The book is not a biography of Justin Trudeau, nor is it a treatment of the minutiae and manoeuvres of party politics. It is an investigation into how the Liberal government governs in the shadow of a silent, multi-decade corporate coup in Ottawa that dares not speak its name. It tells the hidden history of how the Liberal party has served as the most effective vehicle for implementing deeply unpopular neoliberal policies--and how Justin Trudeau continues this agenda today."--


Book cover of Jackal
Book cover of Gray After Dark
Book cover of Feeders

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,206

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Canada, panic attacks, and Silicon Valley?

Canada 450 books
Panic Attacks 23 books
Silicon Valley 33 books