We all love a book with a good plot twist, especially if there’s a winding road with intrigue leading up to it. But it feels like no book will live up to the last one you read, like The Silent Patient, but there are dozens of them out there for you to sink your teeth into.
The Silent Patient has a thrilling premise: A woman’s life is turned upside down because, seemingly out of nowhere, she shoots her husband five times in the head. It’s completely out of character for her; at least, that’s how it looks from the outside. As a criminal psychotherapist dives into her mind in an attempt to uncover what made this woman snap, he ends up uncovering truths from his own life that he may well have wanted to lay dormant forever. If that sounds good, then I’ve got a great list of books for you.
The best books like The Silent Patient to read this year
If you enjoyed The Silent Patient and are looking for the next fantastic plot twist that will throw you off of your feet, then you should read any of the books I’ve listed below. These aren’t ranked at all because they all offer you exactly what you’re after: A story you can’t predict, and a plot twist that’s going to make your head spin.
Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
Gone Girl is an astounding book with an incredible movie adaptation. Nick Dunne’s wife disappears after the pair have been married for years. He’s stunned and has no idea where she’s gone to, and is quickly realizing he doesn’t even know who she is.
His wife’s friends tell the police how afraid Nick’s wife was of him; they discover odd searches in his browser history, and many other things don’t add up, for either the police or Nick. The twist in this story is like a punch when it hits you, but it’s one you’ll likely see coming. While some of the tricks might be a little outdated, it’s a fascinating look into how some people’s minds work and how you never really know how much trust you put in someone until you’re faced with the unthinkable.
The Housemaid – Freida McFadden
The Housemaid is a twisty novel from a true expert in writing mysterious thrillers with plots that have more neck-breaking turns than is reasonable. The term “unputdownable” comes to mind because the character here, a cleaner, nanny, and pretty much everything else, finds herself one day trapped by her employers, the Winchesters.
This is a tale about those who have everything not realizing quite who they’ve let into their house. It’s one thing to think you’ve got all the power because you’ve got all the money, but those who’ve never had it are far more capable than they might seem. This book will grip you and hold your attention, so make sure you clear a decent chunk of time to spend with it.
I Let You Go – Clare Mackintosh
I Let You Go has a twist that you’ve already fallen for when you read the blurb. Protagonist Jenna Gray is part of a horrific accident that was so bad, she physically can’t live with herself where she is, so she moves away to Wales in isolation. She lives there, haunted by her fears, never letting herself feel like she can ever enjoy anything again.
When Jenna does start to live, her old life catches up with her, and none of it’s good. But every single moment you spend with the story will be turned on its head when you hit the twist in the best way possible. I promise you won’t see it coming, and that you’ll think it’s so good you’ll shout when everything is reframed.
The Wrong Daughter – Dandy Smith
The Wrong Daughter is a book that plays on one of the most horrific nightmares I can imagine as a parent. Caitlin and Olivia’s parents head out to dinner and leave the girls home alone. Olivia, at least, is old enough, and the neighborhood is safe. However, they’re proven wrong that night when a mysterious figure opens the unlocked back door and takes Olivia away.
The eldest daughter is never seen again. That is, until you pick this book up and start to read. It’s a haunting story that’s going to twist your expectations and turn them around by the time you’re done with it. This is a tale with enough tension to give you neck cramp, but the stakes are so high you just can’t look away from the pages.
The Woman in the Window – A.J. Finn
The Woman in the Window is a tale about looking inside your own life as much as it is about watching the lives of those around you. Anna Fox lives alone, drinks far too much for the pills she’s on, and watches the street outside her house all day. Life is simple, yet stifling.
When new neighbors move in across the street—a husband, wife, and teenage son—she watches them jealously. Then, one night, something mad and disturbing happens while she watches, and suddenly she’s wrapped up in her own investigation into what happened. The problem is that Anna does not get any answers unless she answers some questions about herself, and she really doesn’t want to do that.
I See You – Clare Mackintosh
I See You is another phenomenal and twisting thriller from Clare Mackintosh. In it, you follow Zoe Walker, who lives a relatively normal life in London. However, one day, while perusing the classifieds, she notices a grainy picture of herself listed without an explanation. It lists a website and a phone number that isn’t hers. Nothing else.
Thinking this is some sort of sick joke, Zoe shows it to her family. But they say it’s just a joke. Bound to be. The next day, the same listing shows a different woman. Same website, same number. The day after that, another woman. Something is going on, and Zoe is going to get to the bottom of it. But the truth might be too much for her to bear.
The Jenny Cooper series – M.R. Hall
I adore the Jenny Cooper series from M.R. Hall, but the best place to start with it is The Coroner. Jenny Cooper is a coroner, but her life is an absolute mess. Divorced from her husband, living day-to-day on anti-anxiety pills that she takes with far too much wine, and growing estranged from her quickly-growing son. She longs for a normal life, so she moves out to the Welsh countryside, but her job and tenacity for it won’t let her rest.
Jenny Cooper is a phenomenal character, and this series puts her in some of the most awkward positions for a coroner you’ve ever come across. Each book presents what seems like a fairly basic case, but Cooper is great at sniffing out the suspicious links with nearby goings on. This often gets her into a lot of trouble, but that’s what you’ve got to love about her. As a series, there’s also a more personal storyline that contains yet another twist that will throw you for six when it lands.
Sharp Objects – Gillian Flynn
Sharp Objects is the story of reporter Camille Preaker who, fresh out of a little stay in a psych ward, has to return to the town where she grew up to cover the disappearance of a preteen girl and the death of another one. This story is going to get inside your head because it forces the protagonist to relive the horror we all fear: returning to our hometown to face all those we were so desperate to get away from.
Over the course of the novel, Camille will look into her past and face her own demons as she unravels the truth behind what happened to these girls. This finally gets her to speak to her estranged mother and half-sister, two people she’s deliberately become estranged from over the years.
The Teacher – Freida McFadden
The Teacher is one of those books that just stays with you after you’ve read it. throughout the entire story, there’s this unsettling part of the protagonist that you don’t get to explore until you’re ready, and it makes the twist so much better.
The book follows Eve. She’s a teacher, and after a tumultuous year, she’s settling into a new school to live what she hopes is an incredibly uneventful life. Unfortunately for her, Addie, one of the school’s students, also had a pretty tough year, and she’s got much more to lose than Eve. Addie is willing to do anything to keep her secrets hidden, and Eve somehow finds herself getting in the way.
The Girl on the Train – Paula Hawkins
You’re in for a treat if you’ve not read The Girl on the Train. It’s a story of betrayal, though not as you’ll think it is. It follows Rachel, a woman who catches the same train each day that passes by the same views every time she takes that journey.
She slowly starts to feel like she knows those who take this journey each day, even those she passes by who live in the houses along the route. Then, one day, she sees something shocking occur out the window. From that point on, she inserts herself into the lives of people she’s only watched from afar, and what she finds is far from pleasant. The twist in this one is gut-wrenching but so satisfying.
Let Me Lie – Clare Mackintosh
Let Me Lie is a novel with a story, not just a twist, that hits on multiple levels. A year ago, protagonist Anna’s mother chose to end her life the same way as her husband did. She threw herself from the nearby cliffs and was never seen or heard from again. Not even her body washed ashore.
Now Anna has a baby, but her past has a way of sneaking up on her. It’s not quite what you think, though, and the desperation from all involved will drive Anna to feel as desperate as she imagines her mother must have felt on that fateful day.
Let Me In – Claire McGowan
Let Me In tells the story of a couple living in a house filled with secrets and is a great example of the biggest DIY nightmare. George and Helen pick up a house in Cornwall to renovate but quickly discover dolls hidden in the walls and a sordid history involving a witch. Helen also feels like she’s been in the house before despite having no memory of it.
There are many twists in this story, but not all of them come from where you might expect. The house is, of course, a subject of much mystery, but this is another story that shows you can never truly trust those around you unless you know every detail about their lives.
The Fall – Gilly Macmillan
In The Fall, you’ll experience a story that twists a tale of extreme luck into a horrible nightmare. After winning the lottery and moving to a glass barn conversion in Gloucestershire, Nicole and Tom feel like they’re on top of the world.
For Nicole, this is short-lived, and I guess it is for Tom, too, because he’s found dead in the pool very quickly after the move. The thing is, there’s nobody in the vicinity who could have done this, which makes the young couple who own the nearby manor, the groundskeeper, and the other handful of locals immediately suspicious. You won’t see the result of this one coming.
It Ends With Us – Colleen Hoover
Few things are better than a good love triangle, and It Ends With Us has an incredibly twisty one for you to dissect. The story follows Lily as she ends up being the only woman anyone can remember the elusive and mysterious neurosurgeon Ryle ever getting into a relationship with. No one really understands why he’s been so guarded, and outside of some control issues, Lily is incredibly happy.
However, her world is turned inside out when her first love and the man who sees himself as her protector, Atlas, shows up after a ridiculous amount of time. Lily has to question why this is all happening now and what it means for her new love and life that she’s been carving out for herself.
None of This is True – Lisa Jewell
In None of This is True, Alix Summers, a popular podcaster, meets Josie Fair. The pair realize they’re birthday twins both celebrating their forty-fifth years around the sun. They meet again, and Josie convinces Alix that she’d be a good fit for her podcast, which Alix agrees with.
Things take a sinister turn when Alix begins to uncover the darkness in Josie’s life, though. As quickly as she appeared, Josie was gone, leaving a huge number of questions in her wake. Alix is now the investigator in her own true crime, and she’s not sure she wants to uncover the truth behind this one.
The Understudy – B.A. Paris, Clare Mackintosh, Holly Brown, and Sophie Hannah
The Understudy is a book about a highly prestigious performing arts school. It’s not students you’ll be following, though. It’s their mothers. When a new student turns up one day, and everything starts to go pear-shaped, these mothers believe they have to step in to put things right.
I don’t think there are enough stories out there that look at something as tangible as a school year but from the unique perspective of a parent. The twists in this one are particularly great because they play on broken ambitious and questionable morals as well as prejudice.
The Coworker – Freida McFadden
The Coworker is another brilliant thriller with twists that bring a usually mundane setting to life. Its focus is Dawn, a slightly strange accountant at a nutritional supplement company who is always around but doesn’t really have any friends. She’s never someone you’d notice, except when she disappears.
Natalie notices Dawn, though, and she’s one of the first to pick up on the fact that she hasn’t tuned up for work in a while. But all that does is embroil her in part of the dark mystery surrounding this unsuspecting character, someone Natalie realizes was much more than meets the eye.
After The End – Clare Mackintosh
In After The End, you’ll read a story with a twist that I’m not sure I’ve recovered from. Max and Pip are the best couple in the world. they’ve been through it all and are best friends, lovers, and the perfect duo. That is, until they can’t agree on their son’s future after he’s given a terminal diagnosis.
The book explores both sides of the coin and both paths that each parent wants to follow. Neither can agree with the other, so it’s a choice between winning and losing in a relationship where neither has had to pick the opposite side.
Friend Request – Laura Marshall
Friend Request is a book about two friends. Louise first notices Maria after she transfers to her school late in the year. The pair become fast friends and develop a strong bond. But that bond doesn’t last, and Louise goes through her life without Maria for many years.
That’s why when Maria shows up, she’s troubled. Not all those memories were good, not all of them were sweet, and now she could lose everything. We don’t know what these two went through back then. Not really, and those truths won’t set anyone free.
How to Disappear – Gillian McAllister
In How to Disappear, we meet Lauren and Zara. A mother and daughter duo whose lives are about to be turned upside down. When Zara witnesses a terrible crime, the pair must go into hiding. They have to disappear, but doing so is difficult.
After removing themselves from their lives, even Lauren’s husband and Zara’s father, they’ve got to stay hidden lest they be found by those who would do them harm for what Zara saw. One wrong move could destroy them both, and it’s so very hard to stay hidden forever.
The Dinner Guest – B. P. Walter
The Dinner Guest is not what you’ll expect. Four people sit down to dinner, and only one of them is deemed a stranger. While that premise is true, the twist will show you that it’s definitely not who you expect it to be. What I love about this story is how it focuses on such a small moment in time, a family dinner, but how that single moment has been impacted by so many others at several different times. The weaving narrative will make your head spin until it all clicks.
The Wedding Guest – Kathryn Croft
The Wedding Guest is every bride and groom’s worst nightmare. Even that one person who says they object to your marriage is better than this. What if you had a secret past that only one person out there knew about? What if you’d hidden it so well that you’d adopted a whole new identity and thought you were safe?
Then imagine that the one human in the world who could tear down your new life by revealing your secrets not only did that but did so on your wedding day. That’s where this book begins, and it only gets even more twisted from that moment on.
The List – Carys Jones
The List is a story that’s so unsettling because it feels like it could happen to you. Protagonist Beth Belmont is a runner. She runs form her home daily around the various routes she knows. You always take in your surroundings as you run, and Beth knows hers pretty well.
When she spots a piece of paper in a tree one day, Beth picks it up because it’s out of place. something doesn’t feel right about it. Her suspicions are confirmed when the paper slip is revealed to be a list, and her name is third on it.
My Husband’s Killer – Laura Marshall
In My Husband’s Killer, you follow a happy couple as they head out to a villa on the Amalfi Coast with some of their oldest friends. While there’s a stranger among them, they’re all happy enough just hanging out somewhere so nice together.
However, things soon take a turn for the worse, and our protagonist’s husband is killed. The thing is, he was having an affair, and now all his secrets are being laid bare right as his wife should be mourning him. It’s hard to mourn someone you clearly didn’t know, though.
The Fifth Guest – Jenny Knight
The Fifth Guest is a story about a group of friends who have barely seen each other since they were together at Oxford. One night, they all sit down to dinner together in Barnes. Each of them is missing a friend, though. Henry, who tragically died the night before the boat race.
Over the course of their incredibly decadent three-course dinner, all of them will reveal something new about the night before Henry’s death. Dark secrets will be spilled like wine by a careless hand, and maybe a careless hand will be revealed from that night.
