Six thrillers with troubled parent-child relationships

Leah Rowan is an author living in Brooklyn and the Catskills.

Marion is her new thriller.

Megan Collins, author of Cross My Heart, called Marion a "pitch-perfect thriller that feels like the primal scream every woman has been holding back her entire life."

At CrimeReads Rowan tagged "six scintillating stories where the parent-child relationship is a little (or a lot) off." One title on the list:

Ainslie Hogarth, Motherthing

We’ve all heard of the mother-in-law from hell trope, but what if your vengeful mother-in-law was actually a ghost? Abby had a traumatic childhood, and so when she marries Ralph, she’s desperate to heal old wounds and bond with the new maternal figure in her life, her mother-in-law, Laura—but Laura’s cruelty and vitriol make that impossible, and when she takes her own life, her ghost threatens to destroy all that Abby cherishes.

Equal parts fierce and funny, Motherthing is a cathartic balm for anyone who’s ever had issues with their in-laws.

Read about the other thrillers on the list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five Gothic novels about cults

Catriona Silvey was born in Glasgow and grew up in Scotland and England. After collecting an unreasonable number of degrees from various universities in the UK and the US, she moved to Edinburgh where she lives with her husband and children. She is the author of Meet Me in Another Life (2021), Love and Other Paradoxes (2025), and the newly released Vervain Hollow.

At The Nerd Daily she tagged five "Gothic novels about cults, where the aesthetic and thematic tropes of the Gothic marry perfectly with the authors’ explorations of brainwashing, groupthink, and coercive control." One title on the list:

Bunny by Mona Awad

Like Catherine House, Bunny takes an elite college as its setting. But the focus here, as in Bunny’s Gothic predecessor Frankenstein, is on the perilous allure of creation. When misfit MFA student Samantha discovers that the other women in her cohort, the creepily identical Bunnies, are transforming rabbits into uncanny simulacra of men, she gets sucked into their world and into their hive-mind. As Samantha gradually loses her identity, the Bunnies cannibalize her creativity, rooted in hardship, to lend some grit to their insipid creations.

Bunny is both an allegory about privilege and authenticity, and a very funny satire of critique workshop culture. It’s also extremely Gothic, from the aching isolation that pushes Samantha toward the Bunnies, to the eldritch, horrifying version of Providence, RI that she scurries through ‘like prey from some unknown but imminent beast’. Like a classical Gothic heroine reclaiming her agency, Samantha can only escape from the Bunnies’ control once she discovers the extent of her own creative power.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Bunny is among Isabelle McConville's six novels for novelists, Chris Wheatley's six top dark academia novels, and Gnesis Villar's seven books about the struggle of being a writer.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles about deep human-animal connections

Lauren Acampora is the author of The Animal Room, The Hundred Waters, The Paper Wasp, and The Wonder Garden. Her work has won or been nominated for the GLCA New Writers Award, the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the Story Prize, and the New England Book Award, and she’s been named an Artist Fellow in Fiction by The New York Foundation for the Arts. Her writing has appeared in publications such as The Paris Review, One Story, and The New York Times Book Review and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories.

At Lit Hub the author tagged "seven standout works of fiction that illuminate the inextricable links we share with our animal compatriots." One title on the list:

Lydia Millet, Love in Infant Monkeys

Madonna hunts pheasant in the English countryside, Thomas Edison electrocutes an elephant, Harry Harlow conducts callous experiments on monkeys, and Jimmy Carter fends off a swamp rabbit attack. Millet’s collection of tight and unsettling short stories operates through the conceit of fictionalized true tales about famous people and the animals associated with them. At times comical, each of these stories swerves and plunges deep into dark truths of human nature. Here, animals serve as vessels for our worst impulses, suffering at the point where curiosity turns to sadism, domination to cruelty, and self-interest to neglect. In the brilliant story “Sir Henry,” a dedicated dogwalker to the stars remarks, “Dogs were the martyrs of the human race.” And yet, while the animals in these stories are sacrificed to selfish purpose and whim, the human characters are astonished and haunted by them. Like Thomas Edison’s electrocuted elephant, they glow like saints, symbols of innocence and divinity, embodying the impossibility of human perfection and the original sin of our nature. As the guilt-ridden Edison imagines of his executed elephant: “I hear you. You say: I do not forgive. You say: this is my gift to you. I will never forgive.”

Read about the other entries on the list at Lit Hub.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five dual-timeline historical fiction titles

Rachel Brittain is a writer, Day Dreamer, and Amateur Aerialist. Her short fiction has appeared in Luna Station Quarterly, Andromeda Spaceways, and others. She is a contributing editor for Book Riot, where she screams into the void about her love of books. Brittain lives in Northwest Arkansas with a rambunctious rescue pup, a snake, and a houseful of plants (most of which aren’t carnivorous).

At Book Riot she tagged "five dual-timeline historical fiction novels that bring past and present together." One entry on the list:

The Seven Daughters of Dupree by Nikesha Elise Williams

1917, 1934, 1980s, and 1995 United States

In this multi-generational saga, seven generations of women in the Dupree family navigate love, loss, and generational trauma even as the ties that bind them prove to be the strongest force of all. When fourteen-year-old Tati begins asking questions about the identity of her father in 1995, she’s met with secrets and silence. Her mother and grandmother don’t talk about the past. They won’t talk about who Tati’s father is or why Gladys left Alabama in the 1950s. As the narrative weaves back through generations of women, it becomes clear why the Dupree women keep their secrets close and their family even closer.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top mysteries set in the Boston area

Hannah Selinger is a James Beard Award-nominated lifestyle writer and mother of two based in Boxford, MA, and the author of the memoir Cellar Rat: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly. Her print and digital work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, Eater, Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and elsewhere. Her 2021 Bon Appétit essay, “In My Childhood Kitchen, I Learned Both Fear and Love,” is anthologized in the 2022 Best American Food Writing collection.

Selinger's new novel is Valley of the Moms.

At CrimeReads the author tagged "five titles, set in Massachusetts towns, [that] bring together people, plot, and place." One novel on the list:

Hank Phillippi Ryan, All This Could Be Yours

The 2026 winner of the Edgar Award, All This Could Be Yours traces the fly-by-night success of debut New York Times-bestselling author Tessa Calloway. Calloway, who recently relocated from Boston to the North Shore’s Rockport with her family, must dodge nefarious forces at every stop of her tour: apparent stalkers, fans who want to dig deep into her hidden past, and even duplicitous livery drivers.

Rockport makes a pivotal appearance in this work, a place meant to provide respite but that haunts the protagonist as she spins farther and farther from the life she knows.

Read about the other books on the list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six titles with actually realistic sex

Brodie Crellin lives in London and is an editor at Granta Magazine.

A Sense of Occasion is their first novel.

At Lit Hub the author tagged six books by "writers whose depictions of sex had most closely held my attention." One title on the list:

Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux

Telephones, in any era, carry a specific erotic potency. Everyone can relate to a character waiting for a phone call, or a text, that feeling of being stuck in a purgatorial gap that won’t end until the other person has made contact. It’s so intense, and carries so much weight, that it’s unsurprising that for Ernaux, the waiting starts to feel like a precursor to the sexual act itself. The sex is brilliantly written in this book—intentional and unabashed—but the strength of Ernaux’s obsession makes every moment feel sexual. Whether she is getting dressed, sitting in the kitchen, or going to the university, each small gesture or decision is implicated in the game of her desire. It can’t really even be argued that this is a game unfolding between two adults. This pair seem incompatible, with little chance at a future, but Ernaux is so immersed in her passion, that she is can quite easily sustain the narrative singlehanded. A perfect object lesson in the distorting impact of good sex.

Read about the other entries on the list at Lit Hub.

Simple Passion is among Bronwyn Fischer's seven obsessive love affairs in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four books where the dog survives

Camille Perri is the author of The Assistants and When Katie Met Cassidy. She has worked as a books editor for Cosmopolitan and Esquire. She has also been a ghostwriter of young adult novels and a reference librarian. She holds a bachelor of arts degree from New York University, where she majored in English and gender and sexuality studies, and a masters of library science degree from Queens College. She splits her time between New York City and the Hudson Valley with her wife and their Brussels Griffon named Pip.

Perri's new novel is Social Animals.

At People magazine the author tagged twelve books, shows, and movies where the dog survives. One book on the list:

Six-Thirty from Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Six-Thirty, named after the time he was found by Elizabeth Zott, is a highly intelligent Goldendoodle who has a key role in the story and serves as its narrator. Although not all the novel’s major characters make it to the end of this uplifting yet tear-jerking work of historical fiction, Six-Thirty safely perseveres.

Read about the other dogs that survive.

Lessons in Chemistry is among Ruth F. Stevens's five novels on smart, quirky women facing personal struggles, Lorna Graham's seven top workplace novels, and Claire Alexander's five books to read for when you’re lonely.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six YA thrillers about friendship

Katie Moench is a librarian, runner, and lover of baked goods. A school librarian in the Upper Midwest, Moench lives with her husband and dog and spends her free time drinking coffee, trying new recipes, and adding to her TBR list.

At Book Riot she tagged six thrillers about friendship, including:

The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson

A modern twist on the Golden Age mysteries of Agatha Christie, The Agathas starts off with the disappearance, and then reappearance, of Alice Ogilvie. After getting dumped by her basketball star boyfriend Steve, Alice disappeared for five days and then came back, refusing to talk about where she went and what happened. Then, Steve’s new girlfriend, and Alice’s ex-best friend, Brooke, disappears as well, but Brooke doesn’t come back. Armed with the complete works of Agatha Christie and the motivation of a hefty reward for information about what happened to Brooke, Alice becomes determined to solve the mystery of Brooke’s murder with the help of her new friend Iris, a less popular girl from her school who has become Alice’s tutor.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven thrillers that mine the depths of confession and revenge

Christine Carbo is a recipient of the Women’s National Book Association Pinckley Prize, the Silver Falchion Award, the High Plains Book Award, and has been a finalist for the Barry Award. She has an MA in English/Linguistics and taught college-level courses for over a decade. She still teaches, in a vastly different realm, as a Pilates instructor. She lives in Montana where she finds inspiration from the wild beauty surrounding her.

Carbo's new novel is The Confession Artist.

At CrimeReads the author tagged seven thrillers that let "us imagine someone taking matters into their own hands and then asks what it cost them to do so." One title on the list:

Alison Gaylin, The Collective

Revenge as identity is also carefully crafted by Alison Gaylin in The Collective (2021), where a grieving mother is drawn into an underground network of women whose children were killed by men the courts let walk. Gaylin is shrewd about how the seductiveness of finally being accepted can quietly transform into permission, and how easily a movement built on grief can curdle into something harrowing.

Read about the other entries on Carbo's list at CrimeReads.

The Collective is among Sian Gilbert's nine novels featuring complex female friendships and Wendy Corsi Staub's six top twist endings in contemporary fiction.

The Page 69 Test: The Collective.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six titles about the thrilling dynamics of girls’ friendship

Sonia Feldman lives in Cleveland, Ohio. She won the PEN America PEN/Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, and her poetry and fiction have appeared in The Missouri Review, The Southern Review, and Waxwing. She also runs Sonia’s Poem of the Week, a popular email newsletter.

Girl’s Girl is her first novel.

At Lit Hub Feldman tagged six "excellent books about girl friendship, all of which invite you into a dynamic, the feeling of being among—a thrilling place to be." One title on the list:

Andrea Abreu, translated by Julia Sanches, Dogs of Summer

This short novel about feral ten-year-olds gave me permission to write a book about teenage girls for an adult literary audience that doesn’t bother justifying its interest in exactly the things the girls themselves are most interested in.

Set in the Canary Islands, Dogs of Summer has Gameboys and frantic masturbation, song lyrics and eating disorders. Isora and Shit—the moniker given by Isora to the novel’s unnamed narrator—melt into and out of one another in an exhilarating depiction of the boundarilessness of friendship at that age. Their relationship vibrates with power imbalance and unarticulated desire. This novel’s depiction of sapphic friendship and the pleasures and miseries of that infinite summer feeling have remained with me since I read the book in a single, rapt sitting.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

Eighteen titles that explore the complexity of motherhood

The editors at Oprah Daily featured a list of eighteen books to help explore the complexity of motherhood. One title on the list:

All You Can Ever Know, by Nicole Chung

Despite loving—and feeling deeply loved by—her white adoptive parents, Chung always wondered about the Korean strangers who, in a narrative that was repeated to her endlessly growing up, made the ultimate sacrifice to give her a better life. In her overwhelmingly white community in Oregon, she faced prejudice that her adoptive family could neither see nor relate to. It wasn’t until she was pregnant, expecting a child that would be “connected to me in a way no one else had ever been,” that she decided to pry open the black box of her biological family and peer inside. This memoir is at once an account of her search, a nuanced critique of “colorblind” adoptions, and an exploration of what happens when the tidy “legends” that supposedly keep a family together finally break down.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six notable thrillers about marriage

At Book Riot Addison Rizer tagged six thrillers about marriage, including:

Kill Your Darlings by Peter Swanson

Thom and Wendy have been married nearly three decades, childhood sweethearts who managed to find their way to each other after Wendy’s first husband died. Despite infidelity and fighting, they stay married because of a secret binding them together. Told in reverse chronological order, you’ll trace their love story back all the way to its secretive beginning.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see Courtney Rodgers's nine chilling thrillers about marriage and L.K. Bowen's top ten marriage-gone-bad thrillers.

--Marshal Zeringue