What Thrillers Have Been on Your Radar Lately?

Thrillers have, strangely enough, become my bread and butter. I came to write them quite by accident, and mine tend towards crime fiction or literary crime rather than outright thrillers.

You Beneath Your Skin has a lot of social commentary, family drama, and ruminations on love and life woven in.

My upcoming novel, The Blue Bar, is much closer to the rules of the genre, but even there, the setting and the characters receive as much attention as the pace.

Writing thrillers involves reading them, of course, and speaking of them, and I did a whole lot of that by discussing twenty-six thrillers last April for the A to Z blogging challenge. I’ve also written about toxic friendships in thrillers, and asked thriller authors about a day spent with their protagonists  or a party thrown by their main characters.

Here are a few I’ve shared in the free Reading Gazette I send out each month, stuffed with reading hacks, giveaways, and book recommendations. (Past Issues : Link to Subscribe). Some of these are also recommended by authors I’ve featured on this site:

Reputation by Sarah Vaughan

Fourteen-year-old Flora is learning the same hard lessons at school as she encounters heartless bullying. When another teenager takes her own life, Emma lobbies for a new law to protect women and girls from the effects of online abuse. Now, Emma and Flora find their personal lives uncomfortably intersected–but then the unthinkable happens… Read More

Mrs. Rochester’s Ghost by Lindsay Marcott

Nothing is quite as it seems at the Rochester estate. Though he’s been accused of murdering his glamorous and troubled wife, Evan Rochester insists she drowned herself. Jane is skeptical, but she still finds herself falling for the brilliant and secretive entrepreneur and growing close to his daughter… Read More

Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins

When the eight-year-old daughter of an Oxford College Master vanishes in the middle of the night, police turn to the Scottish nanny, Dee, for answers. As Dee looks back over her time in the Master’s Lodging—an eerie and ancient house—a picture of a high achieving but dysfunctional family emerges… Read More

The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson

Back in Boston, Ted and Lily’s twisted bond grows stronger as they begin to plot Miranda’s demise. But there are a few things about Lily’s past that she hasn’t shared with Ted, namely her experience in the art and craft of murder, a journey that began in her very precocious youth. Suddenly these co-conspirators are embroiled in a chilling game of cat-and-mouse, one they both cannot survive . . . with a shrewd and very determined detective on their tail… Read More

Jane Doe by Victoria Helen Stone

A double life with a single purpose: revenge. Nothing can distract Jane from going straight for his heart: allowing herself to be seduced into Steven’s bed, to insinuate herself into his career and his family, and to expose all his dirty secrets. It’s time for Jane to dig out everything that matters to Steven… Read More

In the Dark by Loreth Anne White

A secluded mountain lodge. The perfect getaway. So remote no one will ever find you. The promise of a luxury vacation at a secluded wilderness spa has brought together eight lucky guests. But nothing is what they were led to believe. As a fierce storm barrels down and all contact with the outside is cut off, the guests fear that it’s not a getaway. It’s a trap… Read More

Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano

Fast-paced, deliciously witty, and wholeheartedly authentic in depicting the frustrations and triumphs of motherhood in all its messiness, hilarity, and heartfelt moments, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It is the first in a brilliant new series from award-winning Elle Cosimano… Read More

Malice House by Megan Shepherd

Of all the things aspiring artist Haven Marbury expected to find while clearing out her late father’s remote seaside house, Bedtime Stories for Monsters was not on the list. This secret handwritten manuscript is disturbingly different from his Pulitzer-winning works: its interweaving short stories crawl with horrific monsters and enigmatic humans that exist somewhere between this world and the next… Read More

 Hide by Kiersten White

Even though everyone is desperate to win–to seize their dream futures or escape their haunting pasts–Mack feels sure that she can beat her competitors. All she has to do is hide, and she’s an expert at that. Mack realizes this competition is more sinister than even she imagined, and that together might be the only way to survive… Read More

Do you read thrillers, or write them? If you like them, why? What thrillers have you read lately?

My lit crime novel, The Blue Bar will be out soon with Thomas & Mercer. It is already available for preorders. Add it to Goodreads or pre-order it to make my day. You can also request it at your local library, to help find the book new readers.

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