January ScaredyKIT: Psychological Thrillers

January ScaredyKIT: Psychological Thrillers


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From wikipedia:
“Psychological thriller is a genre combining the thriller and psychological fiction genres. It is commonly used to describe literature or films that deal with psychological narratives in a thriller or thrilling setting.

In terms of context and convention, it is a subgenre of the broader ranging thriller narrative structure, with similarities to Gothic and detective fiction in the sense of sometimes having a "dissolving sense of reality". It is often told through the viewpoint of psychologically stressed characters, revealing their distorted mental perceptions and focusing on the complex and often tortured relationships between obsessive and pathological characters. Psychological thrillers often incorporate elements of mystery, drama, action, and paranoia. The genre is closely related to and sometimes overlaps with the psychological drama and psychological horror genres, the latter generally involving more horror and terror elements and themes and more disturbing or frightening scenarios.“

I suppose many of my suggestions are older. Of course, many of these authors have multiple books that would fit, but I’m just choosing one from each author to mention here. I find it interesting that so many of these are women writers. But then, that may be that it’s more what I tend to read?

Suggestions:
In the Woods / Tana French
Gone Girl / Gillian Flynn
In a Dark Dark Wood / Ruth Ware
The Couple Next Door / Shari Lapena
The Good Girl / Mary Kubica
The Girl on the Train / Paula Hawkins
The Collector / John Fowles
Still Missing / Chevy Stevens
The Dinner / Herman Koch
Gone Without a Trace / Mary Torjussen
The Castle / Anne Montgomery
A Noise Downstairs / Linwood Barclay
Intensity / Dean Koontz
All Around the Town / Mary Clark Higgins

Don’t forget to post to the wiki:
https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2024_ScaredyKIT#January:_Psychological_T...


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Yes, I'm posting a bit early, but I wanted to do it while I was thinking of it! And, I'm happy that I'm not the first. ;-)

In keeping with my 2024 theme of making the most of my Kindle Unlimited, I am going with The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden.
Although typing the term 'psychological thriller' into a KU search returns many possibilities as they have convenient descriptors such as this: "An addictive psychological thriller full of twists!" Makes searching easy!

I am planning on reading Mrs. March by Virginia Feito.

My favorite genre! My selection is great, but the oldest on my shelf is And Then She was Gone.

>3 JayneCM: I'm also reading a KU book for this one: The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides.

I've been meaning to read The Neighbors by Alex Witcher, which I've heard great things about, so that's my plan! (It's an indie that doesn't come up in tags, but it comes up via the author's name, at least!)

I'm looking forward to this new year of mysteries! Now let me go pick...

I have completed Mrs. March by Virginia Feito which to me was more of a psychological profile than a thriller, but I certainly found that I couldn't put the book down - I had to know what was going to happen next.

I read Just Another Missing Person by Gillian McAllister, a gripping, very twisty mystery. I wish I had read the print version instead of listening to a badly narrated audiobook, that reduced my appreciation and thus my rating.

I'm on the first chapter of The Dinner.

>11 mstrust: Oooh, I hope you like it!

I never did post what I planned to read. I actually have lots of options, but I also have an ARC that I'm hoping will fit because I need to get that read asap. If it doesn't fit, I can choose one of plenty others.

Finished The Housemaid.

I read a book for this month, an older one that I picked up from the library: Three Graves Full by Jamie Mason. Entertaining, but didn't blow me away or anything.

I read Foe by Iain Reid for this. It's got tags for horror and psychological thriller. I'm not sure I would call it a thriller, but there were definitely some psychological things at play here.

I read an amazing book this month. The Wives by Tarryn Fisher is highly recommended

Completed Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell. Quite good. 4*

I read The Dinner by Herman Koch. The story of two couples meeting at an exclusive, trendy restaurant. The narrator is unhappy with the choice of restaurant, doesn't want to have dinner with the other couple, just generally hates everything, but the reader assumes he's just not that sociable. As the story unfolds, the reader is given many instances that prove we have an unreliable, and possibly dangerous, narrator.

Finished The Neighbors: A Gripping Psychological Thriller by Alex Witcher, and simply couldn't put it down! My full review...

I picked up Witcher's work thinking that I'd just read a few chapters and then go to bed. An hour later, I re-filled my water glass and changed into pajamas...and kept reading. And reading. Until, later in the night and long past when I'd planned to go to go to bed, I finally read the last page and was able to close the book. I'm not sure any thriller has ever kept me so anxious to know what was coming, to the extent that I just didn't contemplate putting the book down--it wasn't an option.

Witcher's tight plotting combined with surprising reveals/twists and believable characters makes for a fantastic book, and I'm anxious to see what he puts out next. This was fantastic, and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys thrillers.

>21 whitewavedarling: Definitely a BB for me!

>22 Tess_W:, I'm so glad! The subtitle kind of put me off lol, but I think subtitles are a bit more common with self-pubbed thrillers to make them stand out. Either way, I loved it!

>20 mstrust: I read that last year and I liked it too.
I've just finished In a Dark, Dark Wood, also an excellent suggestion from the list in >1 LibraryCin:!

>24 SirThomas: Glad you enjoyed it!

I finished The Silent Patient just after midnight last night. It was so good I couldn't put it down and ended up reading it in one sitting. It was gripping with a nice big plot twist at the end. Highly recommend!

Lottery of Secrets / Nadija Mujagic
4 stars

Lynn has won 5 million dollars in the lottery. But she doesn’t want to tell her abusive husband, Jimmy. She plans to donate the money to charity. She is sick and doesn’t want him getting his hands on any of the money. But then the threats start.

There are more layers to this than I’ve mentioned. I’m not sure how much I want to give away (even if much of it is revealed early on, and I think much more is said in some of the other reviews).

Lynn is a very unreliable narrator. I thought all the feelings she went through after winning (about winning) probably were legitimate, but stacked on top of that was all the abuse she’s suffered over decades. I wanted to know what was going to happen next. There was a surprise/twist near the end, but then it ended so abruptly, so that was disappointing, as it seems it is meant to continue in another book. If it wasn’t for the (non?) ending, I might have rated it a bit higher.

I finished Adrift, a post-apocalyptic near-future thriller in which people are escaping climate-related disasters, and a woman wakes up in a boat with all her memories gone.

I didn't manage to finish either Hush, Little Bird or Blue Monday - hopefully they'll be early Feb finishes

Finished The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena. Great suspense, fantastic plot twists and not a likeable character in the bunch. Overall, very happy to stumble across this one lurking on my TBR pile and I look forward to reading more of Lapena's books!