English Authors Psychological Thrillers

Summer, 2021. Nell has come home at her family's insistence to celebrate an anniversary. Fifty years ago, her father wrote The Golden Bones. Part picture book, part treasure hunt, Sir Frank Churcher created a fairy story about Elinore, a murdered woman whose skeleton was scattered all over England. Clues and puzzles in the pages of The Golden Bones led readers to seven sites where jewels were buried—gold and precious stones, each a different part of a skeleton. One by one, the tiny golden bones were dug up until only Elinore's pelvis remained hidden.

Diary of a Murderer captivates and provokes in equal measure, exploring what it means to be on the edge - between life and death, good and evil. In the titular novella, a former serial killer suffering from memory loss sets his sights on one final target: his daughter's boyfriend, who he suspects is also a serial killer. In other stories we witness an affair between two childhood friends that questions the limits of loyalty and love; a family's disintegration after a baby son is kidnapped and recovered years later; and more.

Brooklyn, 2020. Theo Harper and his pregnant wife, Darla, head upstate to their summer cottage to wait out the lockdown. Not everyone in their upscale Park Slope building has this privilege: not Xavier, the teenager in the Cardi B T-shirt, nor Darla’s best friend, Ruby, and her partner, Katsumi, who stay behind to save their Michelin-starred restaurant. During an upstate hike on the aptly named Devil’s Path, Theo divulges a long-held secret—and when Darla disappears after the ensuing argument, he finds himself the prime suspect.

Home alone on a Friday night, Katherine is anticipating a peaceful evening. But that all changes when she receives a shocking note through her letterbox. The note tells her that she only has one hour left to live, but with no other information, Katherine has no idea who just threatened her or why. But things quickly go from bad to worse when she suspects her tormentor is already in her home and suddenly, her fight for survival begins.

Holly Sherwin has been a struggling playwright for years, but now, after receiving a grant to develop her play Witching Night, she may finally be close to her big break. All she needs is time and space to bring her vision to life. When she stumbles across Hill House on a weekend getaway upstate, she is immediately taken in by the mansion, nearly hidden outside a remote village. It’s enormous, old, and ever-so eerie—the perfect place to develop and rehearse her play.

Jennifer Barnes never expected the shocking news she received at a routine doctor’s appointment: she has a terminal brain tumor - and only six weeks left to live. While stunned by the diagnosis, the 48-year-old mother decides to spend what little time she has left with her family - her adult triplets and twin grandsons - close by her side. But when she realizes she was possibly poisoned a year earlier, she’s determined to discover who might have tried to get rid of her before she’s gone for good.

It's Maya and Jamie's anniversary, and she waits with excitement for him to return home for a celebratory dinner. There's a knock at the door. It's the police. Jamie has been found hanging in a local wood. His death is ruled a suicide, but Maya doesn't believe Jamie would take his own life. Something isn't right. Someone has broken into her house. Someone is watching her. And someone has gone to great lengths to cover up what Jamie was doing before he died.

When the flood hits, America's East Coast is evacuated by every means possible. Brooklyn paramedic Travis Cooke had dreamed of reuniting his family, but not like this. Escaping New York with his son and the ex-wife he still loves - and her new husband - they find themselves evacuated on the luxury cruise ship, the Festival of the Waves. Hours later, the Festival lies dead in the open Atlantic: no power, no communications, and nowhere near enough food.

Kelsey has lived most of her life in a shadow of suspicion, raised to see danger everywhere. Her mother hasn't set foot outside their front door in 17 years, since she escaped from her kidnappers with nothing but her attacker's baby growing inside her - Kelsey. Kelsey knows she's supposed to keep a low profile and stay off the grid for their protection, but that plan is shattered when her dramatic car accident and rescue by volunteer firefighter and classmate Ryan Baker sparks media coverage.

In these psychologically daring, chillingly suspenseful pieces, the author of We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde writes about women facing threats past and present, once again cementing her reputation for "great intelligence and dead-on imaginative powers" (Los Angeles Times Book Review).

If not for the bodies discovered in the woods behind their new home, Garrick and Olivia Lockwood couldn't have afforded to buy number 25 The Avenue. It's the fresh start they and their two children badly need. Soon, these terrible crimes will be solved, they tell themselves, and once Garrick has remodeled, he's confident they'll sell the house for a profit. But the darkest secrets can reside on quiet, ordinary streets like this - behind the doors of well-kept houses and neighbors' friendly faces....

They say that lightning doesn't strike the same place twice. How the people of Wiltshire wished that were true. When Paul Ray decides to burn down his evil family's legacy, he falls into the clutches of those he thought gone. And now Detective Yorke and his team face a race against time to find Paul before Wiltshire again falls under the dark spell of a ruthless family. Unfortunately for Yorke, the answers lie in the most sinister of places. The beating heart of a long-dead killer. Can Yorke find the truth before it's too late? Or will the curse of the Ray family prove too strong?

Wolfe is the bunker's resident pharmacist. While the inhabitants wait for the outside world to heal, she doles out ibuprofen, sanitary towels and Xanax—all under the watchful eye of the increasingly erratic and paranoid leader. But when the leader starts to ask things of Wolfe, favours she can hardly say no to, her world is thrown off its axis once again. Forming an unlikely alliance with the young Doctor Stirling, her troubled assistant Levitt and Canavan, Wolfe has to navigate the powder keg of life underground, knowing her every move is being watched.

Penny and Hattie are sisters in a small town, bound tight to the point of knots. They share a secret they cannot escape, even while it pulls them apart. One night, a match is lit, and Penny's terrible husband is killed - a marriage going up in flames and offering the potential of a new life. The sisters retreat into their family home, a house of secrets and memories, and try to live in the shadow of what they put in motion. But Penny's husband is not the only thing they are hiding - both from the outside world and from each other.

Shawn Scott has the perfect life—a rewarding career, a nice house, a loving wife with a healthy baby on the way. But after running into an old acquaintance—a strange man named Aiden Anderson—his life is thrown into a terrifying tailspin. Aiden knows Shawn’s darkest secrets. And he wants to punish Shawn for his history of ruthless bullying by playing a special "game". Shawn must complete five challenges reflecting the bullying of their past, each one more disturbing than the last. If he fails or quits, his worst secrets will be revealed to the world—secrets with the power to ruin his life.

As a politician, Emma has sacrificed a great deal for her career—including her marriage and her relationship with her daughter, Flora. The glare of the spotlight is unnerving for Emma, particularly when it leads to countless insults, threats, and trolling as she tries to work in the public eye. As a woman, she knows her reputation is worth its weight in gold but as a politician, she discovers it only takes one slip-up to destroy it completely.

When single mother Maríanna disappears from her home, leaving an apologetic note on the kitchen table, everyone assumes that she's taken her own life...until her body is found in the Grábrók lava fields seven months later, clearly the victim of murder. Her neglected 15-year-old daughter, Hekla, has been placed in foster care, but is her perfect new life hiding something sinister?

Anna Graves' whole life has recently been turned upside down. A new mother, she's just gone back to her job as a radio presenter and is busy navigating a new schedule of late-night feeding and early morning wake ups while also dealing with her newly separated husband. Then the worst happens. While Anna is walking on the beach with her daughter, she's attacked by a crazed teenager. Terrified, Anna reacts instinctively to protect her baby.

The MacBrides lead a cozy life of upper-class privilege: good looks (more or less), a beautiful home, tuition-free education at the prestigious private school where Rowan is headmaster, an altruistic righteousness inherited from magistrate Lydia. But when Rowan and his three grown children gather for the first time since Lydia's passing at the family's weekend home - a restored barn in the English countryside - years of secrets surface, and they discover a stranger in their midst.

Ana Bacon, a beautiful young wife and mother, tumbled off a cruise ship into dark and deadly waters. Ana is gone - leaving behind her wealthy husband and adorable daughter - but not everything about her disappearance adds up. What secrets did she leave behind? Investigator Ryan Monahan is a numbers man. So when his company sends him the Bacon case, which could net a 10 million-dollar payout, Monahan doubts that her death is just a tragic accident.