Romance books are our go-to antidote for escaping the mundane, and they can have action that can get your heart racing. And then there are thriller books that have the exact same effect, but more from being at the edge of your seat. If books filled with mundane romantic tropes have you bored and reaching for your phone, we are giving you a book genre that will undo the ennui. This book genre is fuelled by high stakes, desire, and tension. Each page is like carefully treading on a loose, creaky floorboard until the floor gives way from beneath you and you start to plummet towards a final, satisfactory climax.
If you’re looking for page-turners that are hard to put down and even harder to stop having daydreams about, in no small part thanks to the enduring charm of the protagonist and plot, here are our five books for you to add to your TBR:
1. Verity by Colleen Hoover
Would you accept the chance to finish someone else’s life’s book if you had the chance? Lowen Ashleigh doesn’t have a lot of options in Verity. Being given the opportunity to complete best-selling author Verity Crawford’s book after she suffers a crippling accident sounds like the lucky break Lowen has been waiting for, given her desperate financial situation. However, when looking through Verity’s notes, Lowen finds an unfinished autobiography that has some troubling information, including how the author’s daughter passed away. Should Lowen use these admissions to her advantage as she begins to fall for Jeremy, Verity’s husband, or should she keep this memoir a secret from him? This novel will serve as a disturbing, dark reminder that love isn’t always what it seems.
2. The American Boyfriend by Ivy Ngeow
Phoebe Wong would go to any lengths to avoid a winter in the UK. But the price could go beyond her flight. Phoebe, a stressed-out single mother in her forty-third year living in Southwark with a dead-end career, thinks that sunsets, tacos, and margaritas sound great. She couldn’t wait to board a plane with her kid when her long-distance beau in New York invited her to visit him in Florida. She arrives at her boyfriend’s Key West vacation home before him with her teething child, but she gets robbed on her first night there. She is appreciative of the help of the welcoming locals because she has no money, cards, or passports. There she meets a retired British businessman at a BBQ. Eventually, her lover shows up, apologises, and invites her to a fancy seafood supper. However, Phoebe is stuck in a put-up job when the British expat is shot that evening in the same restaurant’s parking lot, and her boyfriend’s tardy arrival seems suspiciously timed. She wants to know if this area has become more gloomy and chilly than London. Will she be able to save her child and herself from harm?
3. Haunting Adeline by H. D. Carlton
Addie is a writer who lives alone in the spooky house which she inherited from her grandmother. Soon after settling in, she learns a disturbing truth: her great-grandmother was murdered there, and the perpetrator went unpunished. To top it off, Addie begins to notice parallels between her life and that of her dead grandmother, chief among them the fact that they both had stalkers. Recently, Addie learned that someone has been keeping an eye on her both inside and outside the home. The more she reads in her great-grandmother’s writings, the more she feels as though history may be repeating itself and her stalker won’t let her go.
4. Bad Liars: One Murder. Three Liars by Vikrant Khanna
Anant Kapoor, a well-known investment manager, was discovered dead in his home, and the authorities had little trouble blaming his wife for the crime. She has no plausible explanation, and his passing directly benefits her. But when they investigate more, the police find two additional suspects who are just as likely to have committed the crime. Without a clear reason and conflicting accounts from the three suspects, the authorities are forced to look more into their backgrounds. What they learn is both terrifying and puzzling. Anant was murdered, but more importantly, why?
5. Only Love Can Hurt Like This by Paige Toon
In this book, Wren fears her broken heart will never mend when she learns her fiance has fallen in love with someone else. Anders, who lost his wife four years ago, is still having a hard time letting go on the other side of the globe. Wren believes that spending the summer on her stepfamily’s farm in Indiana with her dad will aid in her recovery. She and Anders cross paths there amid the cornfields and fireflies, and their worlds are once again flipped upside down. But Anders is keeping something from Wren, and if he acts on whatever feelings he may have for her, there will be terrible repercussions for everyone. Wren can’t understand how much it would hurt her to walk away. But how can she stay when she knows the truth?
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