10 Thrillers With Twists You Won't See Coming
There's nothing like the moment a book makes you gasp out loud and flip back a few pages to check what you missed. These 10 thrillers all have twists that readers still talk about. No spoilers here, just enough to get you hooked. Most are available in affordable paperback editions on Amazon India, so check the current price before you buy.
Pick by mood
| Mood or subgenre | Books |
|---|---|
| Can't trust the narrator | Verity, The Silent Patient, Rock Paper Scissors |
| Cut off, locked-room settings | Daisy Darker, Rock Paper Scissors |
| Marriages and domestic secrets | Behind Closed Doors, Behind Her Eyes |
| Missing persons and family grief | Then She Was Gone |
| Fast, one-sitting reads | The Inmate, The Teacher |
| Creepy, slightly supernatural-feeling | Hidden Pictures, Behind Her Eyes |
Tags come from the descriptions below. A book can sit in more than one row.
1. Verity by Colleen Hoover
Struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh is hired to finish the hit book series of famous author Verity Crawford, who can no longer write after a serious accident. While working in Verity's house, Lowen finds an unfinished autobiography full of chilling confessions, and starts to question everything about the family she's living with.
Read it if you liked: Gone Girl, or any book where you can't trust a single narrator.
Disclosure: Some links in this post are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you.
2. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
Celebrated painter Alicia Berenson shoots her husband and then never speaks another word. Psychotherapist Theo Faber becomes obsessed with getting her to talk, and the closer he gets, the more unsettling the story becomes.
Read it if you liked: Psychological thrillers built around therapy sessions, secrets and slow-burn tension.
3. Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough
Single mum Louise kisses a man at a bar, only to find out he's her new boss, David, and that he's married. Then she accidentally befriends his wife, Adele. This one goes in a direction almost nobody predicts.
Read it if you liked: Twisted love triangles and books that refuse to stay inside one genre.
4. Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell
Fifteen-year-old Ellie Mack vanished ten years ago, and her mother Laurel has never recovered. When Laurel meets a charming man whose young daughter looks startlingly like Ellie, old wounds reopen.
Read it if you liked: Emotional, character-driven mysteries about missing persons and family grief.
5. Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney
Daisy's estranged family gathers for Nana's 80th birthday in her house on a tidal island, cut off from the mainland by the tide. At midnight Nana is found dead, and that's only the beginning of a very long night.
Read it if you liked: Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None and locked-room mysteries.
6. The Inmate by Freida McFadden
Nurse practitioner Brooke Sullivan takes a job at a maximum-security prison. One of the inmates is her ex-boyfriend, the man her teenage testimony helped put behind bars. Now she's not so sure about what really happened back then.
Read it if you liked: Fast, short-chapter thrillers you finish in one sitting.
7. Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris
Jack and Grace look like the perfect couple: charming, successful and devoted. So why is Grace never alone, never answering her phone, and never seen without Jack? A tense, claustrophobic read that's hard to put down.
Read it if you liked: Domestic thrillers about marriages that look perfect from the outside.
8. Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney
Adam and Amelia Wright's marriage is in trouble, so they take a weekend away at a remote converted chapel in the Scottish Highlands. Adam has face blindness, which makes it hard to recognise even his own wife. Not everyone at the chapel is who they seem.
Read it if you liked: Snowed-in settings, unreliable spouses and anniversary-letter secrets.
9. Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak
Mallory Quinn, fresh out of addiction recovery, takes a nanny job with a wealthy suburban family. Their little boy Teddy starts drawing pictures that get darker and more disturbing, and they seem to show things he couldn't possibly know. The book includes the illustrations themselves.
Read it if you liked: Creepy, slightly supernatural-feeling mysteries with a strong heroine.
10. The Teacher by Freida McFadden
Rumours swirl around a troubled student at a high school, and two teachers get pulled into a web of secrets. As with most McFadden books, just when you think you've worked it out, the floor drops away.
Read it if you liked: The Housemaid series, or any twisty thriller set in a school.
Where to buy
Prices on Amazon India change often, so check the current price before you buy.
Verity (Colleen Hoover) · The Silent Patient (Alex Michaelides) · Behind Her Eyes (Sarah Pinborough) · Then She Was Gone (Lisa Jewell) · Daisy Darker (Alice Feeney) · The Inmate (Freida McFadden) · Behind Closed Doors (B.A. Paris) · Rock Paper Scissors (Alice Feeney) · Hidden Pictures (Jason Rekulak) · The Teacher (Freida McFadden)
Which twist got you?
Have you read any of these? Tell me in the comments which one fooled you the most (no spoilers, please!).
Keep reading
- Freida McFadden books in order: includes The Inmate and The Teacher from this list, plus the Housemaid series.
- 8 Domestic Thrillers Where the Real Danger Is at Home: for the domestic-secrets mood (try it if you liked Behind Closed Doors).
- My spoiler-free review of The Only One Left by Riley Sager: a gothic thriller with a last twist I thought was fantastic, rated 4.9/5.
- My full spoiler-free review of Verity by Colleen Hoover: #1 on this list, with content warnings and who might want to skip it, rated 4.3/5.
- Dan Brown books in order: all 8 novels, the Robert Langdon series and two standalones.
Keep track of your own thriller reads: my Thriller Reader's Journal has a scorecard, suspect cards and a spoiler-free review page (get the printable thriller journal PDF).
Want more thriller picks?
Follow me on Instagram @abi._.rambler for quick reviews and recommendations, and visit my Linktree for links to every book I've read and recommended.
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