Eight historical thrillers with macabre medical themes

Tonya Mitchell is the author of The Arsenic Eater’s Wife, an historical true crime Gothic mystery set in 1889 Liverpool. Her debut historical novel, A Feigned Madness, won the Reader Views Reviewers Choice Award and the Kops-Fetherling International Book Award for Best New Voice in Historical Fiction.

Mitchell's latest novel is Needle and Bone, "a gothic tale of guilt, vengeance, and a girl’s fight to reclaim her soul from the shadows."

At CrimeReads the author tagged "eight novels with medical themes at their core with gothic twists you’d expect from a subgenre steeped in the creepy." One title on the list:

Bridget Collins, The Silence Factory

Arguably the most bizarre book on the list, The Silence Factory is a speculative tale with a wholly original premise. In it, Collins spins a tale of spider silk imbued with unusual powers.

When Dr. Henry arrives at Carthmute House to treat Philomel of her deafness, he uncovers a magic breed of spiders whose silk can both silence and amplify sound—yet neither is innocuous. As Henry’s mental state deteriorates, he discovers dark family secrets, corruption, and odd magic he can’t explain.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five novels of existential shipwreck

Peter Mann is the author of the novels The Torqued Man (2022) and World Pacific (2025). A longtime resident of San Francisco, he grew up in Kansas City, went to Wesleyan University, and got a PhD in Modern European history before becoming a novelist and a cartoonist.

[Q&A with Peter Mann; The Page 69 Test: The Torqued Man]

At The Strand Magazine Mann tagged "five great, albeit wildly different, novels that explore the theme of existential shipwreck and the drama of staying afloat." One title on the list:

The Sot-weed Factor by John Barth (1960)

This is the greatest comic historical novel ever written. Barth takes the historical seed of a minor early American poet who in 1706 wrote a satirical poem about the then backwater colony of Maryland, and grows it into a sprawling picaresque and bildungsroman, about the misadventures of one Ebenezer Cooke, self-proclaimed virgin and self-appointed poet laureate. We join the poet, along with his spineless servant Bertrand and enigmatic tutor Henry Burlingame, as he travels to the American colony to reclaim his father’s estate and earn his place in the literary pantheon. Naturally, all manner of intrigue and perversion intervenes to throw our hero’s plans overboard and disabuse him of his criminal innocence—literal shipwreck, piracy, buggery, bestiality, Papist skullduggery, Indian uprisings, and the love of a pox-ridden prostitute, to name just a few. Add to this the McGuffin of a secret historical diary by John Smith relating how he once harnessed the tumescent properties of eggplant to woo Pocahantas and you have the makings of a masterpiece.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fourteen top music memoirs

At GQ (UK edition) Brit Dawson and Josiah Gogarty tagged over a dozen of the best music memoirs, including:

My Name is Barbra by Barbra Streisand

There are few showbiz lives as monumental as Barbra Streisand’s, and at just under 1,000 pages, My Name is Barbra’s formidable length proves it. But if you can get to grips with that page count, the book has endless rewards: first of which is reminding us that, though she’s a canonical star today, Streisand’s ascent was rocky, with a mocking stepfather and countless professional rejections to hurdle. Her petty delight at exposing all those doubters – and some of her less-than-gentlemanly romantic partners – is a lot of fun, as are all the encounters with other stars as her career develops.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top fantasy novels that blend genres

Veronica Lancet is a doctoral student by day and an author of dark, epic love stories by night. She loves to tread the line between right and wrong, exploring the many shades of morality through flawed heroes, forbidden desires, and the razor-thin edge between love and obsession.

Lancet's new novel is Fairydale.

At The Nerd Daily she tagged seven of the "best fantasy novels that masterfully blend genres." One entry on the list:

The Cabot Sisters series by Teresa Medeiros

Vampires. Regency gowns. Snappy banter. Need I say more? The Cabot Sisters is a deliciously underrated historical paranormal romance series that delivers both humor and heat. Teresa Medeiros writes with charm and heart, and this series is no exception. It’s witty, whimsical, and wonderfully romantic. If you’re craving a little supernatural sparkle in your historicals, this is the perfect fix.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six novels featuring women reclaiming their power & taking revenge

Katie Collom grew up in Mazatlan, Mexico, and is a life-long expat and world traveler. She spent four years in Texas and has carried a piece of it with her ever since. Currently, she resides in York, England, with her husband and three cats.

Collom's new novel is Peter Miles Has to Die.

At CrimeReads she tagged six novels for fans of “Goodbye Earl” by The Chicks; that is, novels that prove "that vengeance can come in many forms—sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes not so much—but there’s always a sense of satisfaction at seeing women take control." One title on the list:

Out by Natsuo Kirino

Kirino’s fantastic novel is centered around four women living in Tokyo who work the night shift at a box lunch factory. When one of them murders her abusive husband, she turns to the rest for help covering up the crime. What follows is a gritty tale about female friendship, misogyny in Japanese culture, and the lengths women go to for some semblance of control over their own lives. One of my favorite aspects of the book is its portrayal of violence inflicted by women instead of against them. It flips gender stereotypes in a way that is both shocking and unforgettable.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Out is among Emily Temple's top ten books about outsiders for teenage girls.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten psychological thrillers with explosive family secrets

Claire Douglas is the Sunday Times number-one bestselling author of eleven stand-alone novels, including The Sisters, Local Girl Missing, Last Seen Alive, Do Not Disturb, Then She Vanishes, Just Like The Other Girls, The Couple at No. 9, The Girls Who Disappeared, The Woman Who Lied, and The Wrong Sister.

[Writers Read: Claire Douglas (December 2017)]

At The Strand Magazine she tagged ten "favourite psychological thrillers with explosive family secrets." One title on the list:

THE FAMILY GAME by Catherine Steadman

A rollercoaster ride of a thriller about Harriet, newly engaged to the heir of a powerful family, Edward Holbeck. When she goes to visit them she is drawn to the family, who seem welcoming and happy about their impending marriage. But when Edward’s father, Robert, gives Harriet a tape of a book he’s been working on, she’s shocked that it’s actually a confession to an horrific crime. A murder. Is this just a ploy from Edward to test Harriet’s loyalty to the family or is there something much darker going on?

Read about the other thrillers on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine titles about female friendship in every decade of life

Michelle Herman's latest book is the essay collection If You Say So. Her books include three earlier essay collections – The Middle of Everything, Stories We Tell Ourselves, and Like A Song – as well as four novels (Missing, Dog, Devotion, and Close-Up), the novella collection A New and Glorious Life, and a book for children, A Girl’s Guide to Life.

At Electric Lit Herman tagged "a list of books in which it’s friendship that matters most, in every decade of a woman’s life." One title on the list:

Ladies’ Lunch and Other Stories by Lore Segal

No round-up of books about women’s friendship would be complete without this one by Lore Segal. Brilliant, witty, fierce, full of surprises, this book was published a year almost to the day before her death, in 2024, at 96. (Full disclosure: Lore Segal and I were longtime friends.) If you don’t know her work, I urge you to read all of it, but there’s no reason not to start with this final collection, most of which is about a group of friends, now in their 90s, who’ve been close for decades. They meet regularly for lunch, where they tell each other everything. “We are the people to whom we tell our stories,” one of them tells the others. And so, when they can no longer meet in person, they talk on the phone and over Zoom—they persevere. As Lore Segal did.

Read about the other books on Herman's list at Electric Lit.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight thrillers with beach & jungle settings

Jo Morey is a graduate of the Faber Academy and the Curtis Brown Mentoring Scheme. The manuscript for Lime Juice Money was awarded the 2023 Claire Mannion Literary Endeavour Prize, came runner-up in the Cheshire Novel Prize, and was shortlisted for the Primadonna Prize, the Plaza First Pages Award and Killer Nashville's Claymore Award in the literary category. Morey lives in West Sussex, England at the foot of the South Downs with her husband, two boys, and two Portuguese Water Dogs.

Lime Juice Money is her first novel.

[The Page 69 Test: Lime Juice Money]

At CrimeReads Morey tagged eight favorite thrillers with beach and jungle settings, including:

Alex Garland, The Beach

The Beach by Alex Garland is arguably the ultimate backpacker classic. When it was first published, I was on a two-year trip around the globe and remember reading it on the beach on Gili Trawangan, Indonesia. Every other person was reading it too, and everyone was talking about it.

Set in Thailand, The Beach charts a young backpacker, Richard’s search for a legendary, idyllic and hidden island beach untouched by tourism. The paradise he finds here soon starts to unravel into a Lord of the Flies hallucinatory hellfest.

This one also features in Lime Juice Money and two of my characters bond over its “tropical horror.” A true literary thriller.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

The Beach appears on Ivy Pochoda's lit of five books that dive into the drug-fueled darkness of the club scene, Andrea Bartz's list of seven psychological thrillers for White Lotus fans, Lucy Clarke's top ten list of books about castaways, Hephzibah Anderson's list of eleven previously hip books that have not aged well, S J watson's list of six novels that could only take place at the seashore, Cat Barton's top five list of books on Southeast Asian travel literature, Kate Kellaway's ten best list of fictional holidays, Eleanor Muffitt top 12 list of books that make you want to pack your bags and trot the globe, Anna Wilson's top ten list of books set on the seaside, the Guardian editors' list of the 50 best summer reads ever, John Mullan's list of ten of the best swimming scenes in literature, and Sloane Crosley's list of five depressing beach reads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eleven green flag books

Certain books are a "red flag" -- they are a sign that you might not want to date the person who has them on display. The staff at GQ (UK edition) and some literary friends tagged a few green flag books -- books that indicate the reader may have more positive qualities. Josiah Gogarty's contribution to the list:

The best books are at least a little bit unhinged, and you want a dash (not too much) of the same spirit in a relationship. Save us, please, from the mediocre Hinge dates who are still stuck on the bland “sad girl lit” on special displays at Waterstones. Patricia Lockwood’s pyrotechnic memoir Priestdaddy, about her dad who’s also a priest (he became a Catholic after having kids), is suitably deranged: very funny and very emotional – and sometimes at once, just like infatuation should be.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Priestdaddy is among Tom Perrotta's six favorite funny books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books to explain the weirdest parts of religion to non-believers

Molly Worthen is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a freelance journalist. She received her BA and PhD from Yale University. Her research focuses on North American religious and intellectual history. Her most recent book, Spellbound (2025), is a history of charisma as both a religious and a political concept from the Puritans to the Trump era. Apostles of Reason (2013) examines American evangelical intellectual life since 1945, especially the internal conflicts among different evangelical subcultures. Her first book, The Man On Whom Nothing Was Lost (2006), is a behind-the-scenes study of American diplomacy and higher education told through the lens of biography.

[Writers Read: Molly Worthen (November 2013); The Page 99 Test: Apostles of Reason]

At Shepherd Worthen tagged five of the "best books to help a secular person understand the weirdest parts of religion," including:

A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken

I read this book during a very intense summer a few years ago when I was trying to figure out if Christianity could possibly be true, and how a nerdy secular academic like myself could even begin to ask that question.

I found a kindred spirit in Sheldon Vanauken. In this memoir set mainly in the 1950s, he tells the story of how he took a sabbatical from his teaching job at a little college in Virginia to go to Oxford with his wife. Neither of them was religious at the time. In fact, the first part of the book is a very intense (some might say: cloyingly sentimental) account of their romance, when they basically worshipped each other instead of a deity.

If you’re like me, you’ll want to shout “get a room already” and throw the book at the wall during the first few chapters. But I’m glad I stuck it out, because the story gets much more interesting once they get to Oxford and meet various smart, fun Anglicans, including C.S. Lewis.

Pretty soon, they realize that being a smart, fun Christian is not a contradiction in terms. They start investigating the claims of Christianity, doing a lot of reading, having late-night conversations with thoughtful Christians, and so on.

“The Holy Spirit is after you. I doubt if you’ll get away!” Lewis writes to Vanauken in a letter. I love how he captures the agony of a seeker, especially when he realizes that he’s reasoned his way to this awkward middle ground: sure, accepting Christianity would mean a leap of faith, but (it turns out) going back to his old worldview would be an even bigger leap, in the other direction. He’s on this little plateau between two chasms, and he has to make a choice because it’s crumbling fast.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven novels that prove writers can make the best protagonists

Megan Cummins is the author of the novel Atomic Hearts and the story collection If the Body Allows It, which was longlisted for the Story Prize and the PEN/Bingham Award. The managing editor of Public Books and an editor at large at A Public Space, she lives in New York City.

At Electric Lit Cummins tagged seven novels showing that writer-protagonists can be a tool of versatility in a novel. One title on the list:

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

It’s made clear at several moments in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale that the first-person narrator known to us only as Offred is offering the reader a story. (“Because I’m telling you this story I will your existence. I tell, therefore you are.”) We know from Offred’s telling that before her capture and conscription as a handmaid to one of Gilead’s “commanders” she worked in a library. She loved books when she was still allowed to have them. While perhaps not professionally a “writer,” Offred is certainly a storyteller with a literary sensibility, one whose voice the architects of Gilead are trying their hardest to silence. In the book’s epilogue, set in 2195 at an academic conference, a Professor Pieixoto of Cambridge University delivers a keynote address on the subject of his discovery and transcription of a collection of thirty cassette tapes found in a footlocker in what used to be Maine, which his partner academic has coined “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which is an intentionally vulgar pun on tail: “That being, to some extent, the bone, as it were, of contention, in that phase of Gileadean society of which our saga treats.”

Near the end of his keynote, Professor Pieixoto scolds Offred for not describing more of the “workings” of the Gileadean empire, or better yet, printing off pages from Commander Waterford’s computer. From this epilogue we learn, for certain, that Gilead has fallen; that Offred was able to record her story, and possibly make it as far as Maine in her escape; and that the world after the fall of Gilead is just as misogynistic, that the academics have little regard for their “anonymous author,” and that Gilead’s worldview was not eradicated, just made, once again, latent.

This postscript changes one’s reading of the pages before it, but to me Pieixoto’s callous critiques enhance the feeling that Offred’s voice is her own. She tells her story as she wishes, and as she is able in her circumstances to tell it. And in Offred’s time, as in our own, telling one’s story is an act of resistance.

Read about the other titles on the list at Electric Lit.

The Handmaid's Tale made Max Barry's list of five top books that are secretly science fiction, Louisa Treger's top ten list of great boundary-breaking women of fiction, Claire McGlasson's top ten list of books about cults, Siobhan Adcock's list of five top books about motherhood and dystopia, a list of four books that changed Meg Keneally, A.J. Hartley's list of five favorite books about the making of a dystopia, Lidia Yuknavitch's 6 favorite books list, Elisa Albert's list of nine revelatory books about motherhood, Michael W. Clune's top five list of books about imaginary religions, Jeff Somers's top six list of often misunderstood SF/F novels, Jason Sizemore's top five list of books that will entertain and drop you into the depths of despair, S.J. Watson's list of four books that changed him, Shaun Byron Fitzpatrick's list of eight of the most badass ladies in all of banned literature, Guy Lodge's list of ten of the best dystopias in fiction, art, film, and television, Bethan Roberts's top ten list of novels about childbirth, Rachel Cantor's list of the ten worst jobs in books, Charlie Jane Anders and Kelly Faircloth's list of the best and worst childbirth scenes in science fiction and fantasy, Lisa Tuttle's critic's chart of the top Arthur C. Clarke Award winners, and PopCrunch's list of the sixteen best dystopian books of all time.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five essential thrillers perfect for the aspiring writer

Joy Fielding is the New York Times bestselling author of The Housekeeper, Cul-de-sac, All the Wrong Places, The Bad Daughter, She’s Not There, Someone Is Watching, Charley’s Web, Heartstopper, Mad River Road, See Jane Run, and other acclaimed novels.

Her new novel is Jenny Cooper Has a Secret.

[The Page 69 Test: Shadow Creek; My Book, The Movie: Shadow Creek; The Page 69 Test: Someone Is Watching; My Book, The Movie: Someone Is Watching; My Book, The Movie: The Bad Daughter; The Page 69 Test: The Bad Daughter; My Book, The Movie: All the Wrong Places; The Page 69 Test: All the Wrong Places; Writers Read: Joy Fielding (March 2019)]

At CrimeReads Fielding tagged "five of my favorite books – in no particular order – that have helped me in various way and that I would recommend for aspiring writers." One title on the list:

Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiassen is one of those rare suspense or crime novelists for whom humor is the key ingredient. His novels, all of which are set in South Florida, and deal with varying degrees of crime and corruption, are full of laugh-out-loud funny shenanigans. Tourist Season was Hiaasen’s first book and my personal favorite, although I suspect this will apply to whatever book you read first because the plots are largely interchangeable and not all that important. What makes these books special are the characters that Hiaasen creates, a bunch of not-quite-believable but somehow all-too-real, one-of-a-kind creations that you delight in spending time with. He taught me that humor is key to likeability.

Read about the other titles on Fielding's list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue