Five top dark novels that explore the sinister side of marriage

Azma Dar is an author and playwright. She has written three full-length theatre productions, several short plays, a radio play for BBC Asian Network and has a forthcoming play entitled NOOR at Southwark Playhouse in November 2022.

Her debut novel, The Secret Arts, was published in 2015. Her latest novel is Spider.

At CrimeReads Dar tagged "five deliciously dark novels that explore the sinister side of marriage," including:

Before I Go to Sleep by S J Watson

In this ingeniously constructed novel, Christine has a form of amnesia that means she can only store memories for twenty four hours. Every morning she wakes up “in an unfamiliar bed with an unfamiliar man”—her husband, Ben, with no sense of who she is and what’s happened in her life. Every day Ben tells her that her condition was caused by a car crash decades ago, only for her to forget this information again when she goes to sleep. But she has a secret journal, to which she is directed to on a daily basis by Dr Nash, a psychologist helping her with seemingly impossible task, of reconstructing and solving the puzzle of her past.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue