The Girl On The Train – Books Like (2023)

A young couple and their ostensibly nice neighbors are the subjects of a domestic thriller debut that takes readers on a twisting, wild ride through lies, betrayal, and marital secrets. . . Anne and Marco Conti appear to have it all: a perfect marriage, a lovely house, and their adorable little Cora. On the other hand, a dreadful crime is committed one evening when they are at the dinner party next door. The parents are immediately the target of suspicion. The fact, though, is a considerably messier tale.

A frightening narrative of what truly transpired is told inside the curtained house. Detective Rasbach is aware of the worried couple’s secret. Marco and Anne quickly come to the realization that the other is harboring long-kept secrets. What happens next is the terrifying dissolution of a family—a chilling story of deception, dishonesty, and infidelity that will keep you gasping until the shocking conclusion. What happens next is the terrifying dissolution of a family—a chilling story of deception, dishonesty, and disloyalty that will keep you gasping until the shocking conclusion.

Best Quotes from this Book:

“Her thoughts speed up and become less rational; her mind makes fantastic leaps. It’s not that things don’t make sense to her when she’s like this — sometimes they make ‘more’ sense. They make sense the way dreams do. It’s only when the dream is over that you see how odd it all was, how it actually didn’t make sense at all.”

― Shari Lapena, The Couple Next Door

“The wife is always the last to know, right?”

― Shari Lapena, The Couple Next Door

“…nobody makes that much money without taking advantage of somebody. It’s much easier to make money if you don’t care who you hurt. If you have scruples, it’s much harder to get rich.”

― Shari Lapena, The Couple Next Door

“Everyone is faking it, all of them pretending to be something they’re not. The whole world is built on lies and deceit.”

― Shari Lapena, The Couple Next Door

“She knows how judgemental mothers are, how good it feels to sit in judgment of someone else.”

― Shari Lapena, The Couple Next Door

A week on a luxurious cruise with just a few cabins has just been offered to Lo Blacklock, a journalist who works for a travel publication. As the luxurious cruise liner, Aurora sets sail in the scenic North Sea, the sky is clear, the seas are serene, and the veneered, discerning passengers are cheerful. Initial impressions of Lo’s stay are positive: the cabins are luxurious, the dinner parties are glitzy, and the visitors are classy.

But as the week goes on, the deck is buffeted by icy winds, there are overcast days, and Lo observes something she can only explain as a horrible nightmare: a lady being tossed overboard. The issue? Despite Lo’s desperate attempts to express that maybe something (or someone) has gone badly, terribly wrong, all the passengers are still present, and the ship continues to sail as if nothing had happened.

Best Quotes from this Book:

“My friend Erin says we all have demons inside us, voices that whisper we’re no good, that if we don’t make this promotion or ace that exam we’ll reveal to the world exactly what kind of worthless sacks of skin and sinew we really are Maybe that’s true. Maybe mine just have louder voices.”

“Maybe that was closer to the truth–we weren’t captor and captive, but two animals in different compartments of the same cage. Hers was just slightly larger.”

“There’s a reason why we keep thoughts inside our heads for the most part—they’re not safe to be let out in public.”

“I jumped to a conclusion that was so wrong, it was almost completely right.”

“I know what it’s like. Don’t you see? I know what she must have felt like, when someone came for her in the middle of the night. That’s why I have to find out who did this to her.”

Like Jack and Grace, every couple is familiar with it. She has charm and elegance, whereas he has wealth and good looks. She is an impeccable homemaker, an expert gardener, and a talented cook who adores her younger sister who is crippled; he is a committed lawyer who has never lost a case. Despite being newlyweds, they appear to have everything. Although you might not want to, you do. The ease and comfort of their home and the graciousness of the dinner parties they host completely seduce you. You’d like to learn more about Grace.

But it’s challenging because you understand how indissoluble Jack and Grace are. Some could refer to this as real love. Others could ponder Grace’s lack of phone presence. Or the reason she’s never available for a coffee date despite not working. How does she manage to create such sumptuous dinners while staying so trim? Or perhaps it is because she never appears to pack anything, not even a pen when she leaves the house. Or perhaps this explains why all of the windows on the ground floor have such strong metal shutters. After the dinner party is ended and the front door has closed, some people might question what’s actually going on.

Best Quotes from this Book:

“I cry even harder, thinking of how it could have been, of how I thought it would be. For the first time, I want to give up, to die, because suddenly everything is too much and there is no solution in sight.”

― B.A. Paris, Behind Closed Doors

“I look around at everybody laughing and joking together and struggle to understand my life has become a living hell that nobody present could even begin to imagine”

― B.A. Paris, Behind Closed Doors

“What color was Millie’s room, Grace?”

― B.A. Paris, Behind Closed Doors

“When I look at him I feel dismayed as I always do at how normal he looks because surely there should be something–pointed ears or a pair of horns–to warn people of his evilness.”

― B.A. Paris, Behind Closed Doors

“The door opens and he stands in the doorway, my handsome, psychopathic husband.”

― B.A. Paris, Behind Closed Doors

“Pretending to be broken would be much harder, simply because it was in my nature to fight back.”

― B.A. Paris, Behind Closed Doors

THEN: She was her mother’s golden girl, fifteen years old. She still had the rest of her life to live. Ellie vanished in an instant after that.

NOW: Ellie has been missing for ten years, but Laurel has never given up on locating her daughter.

Then, one day, Floyd, a charismatic and charming stranger, enters a café and completely wins over Laurel. She is introduced to his nine-year-old daughter and spends the night at his home before long. Poppy is young and beautiful, and Laurel was immediately taken aback upon first meeting her. Because Poppy resembles Ellie in every way at that age. And now Laurel is once again plagued by all the unresolved mysteries. What has become of Ellie? What did she do there? Who still has unspoken secrets?

Best Quotes from this Book:

“When I read a book it feels like real life and when I put the book down it’s like I go back into the dream.”

“As the father of your children, as a friend, as someone who shared a journey with you, and as someone who loves you and cares about you. I don’t need to be married to you to be all those things. Those things are deeper than marriage. Those things are forever.”

“A man who can’t love but desperately needs to be loved is a dangerous thing indeed.”

“May was like the Friday night of summer: all the good times lying ahead of you, bright and shiny and waiting to be lived.”

“If she could rewind the timeline, untwist it and roll it back the other way like a ball of wool, she’d see the knots in the yarn, the warning signs. Looking at it backward it was obvious all along.”

Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen’s thriller The Wife Between Us was published in 2018. There are several assumptions you will have when reading this book. You’ll suppose that the ex-wife in the story is a jealous one. You’ll imagine she’s fixated with her substitute, a stunning young lady who’s getting hitched to the man they both adore. You’ll rely on your knowledge of this complicated love triangle’s structure. Make no assumptions. Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen’s The Wife Between Us reveal the hidden complexity of an enviable marriage as well as the risky truths we choose to ignore out of love. Look past the lies.

Best Quotes from this Book:

“I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.’ Well, I’ve never feared bad weather, either.”

“I was happy, I think, but I wonder now if my memory is playing tricks on me. If it is giving me the gift of an illusion. We all layer them over our remembrances; the filters through which we want to see our lives.”

“For years, I have allowed fear to dominate me. But as I sit in the cab, I realize another emotion is rising to the surface: anger. It felt cathartic to unleash my rage at Richard after absorbing his for so long.”

“This could be the case in every relationship, that we think we’ve entered into a union with another person when, in fact, we’ve formed a triangle with one point anchored by a silent but all-seeing judge, the arbiter of reality.”

“I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.”

Anna Fox is a recluse who lives by herself in her New York City house and is unable to leave. She spends her day watching old movies, sipping wine, thinking back on happier times, and spying on her neighbors.

Then the Russell family—a father, a mother, and their adolescent son—moves into the building across the street. The ideal household. However, Anna’s world starts to fall apart as its terrible secrets are exposed when she looks out her window one night and sees something she shouldn’t. What is genuine? What is pictured? Who is in peril? Who holds the reins? Nothing and no one in this sinisterly compelling thriller is what they appear.

Best Quotes from this Book:

“My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating on a draft.”

“And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living.”

“Shaw also said, alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.”

“I was fighting for my life. So I must not want to die. And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living.”

“Watching is like nature photography: You don’t interfere with the wildlife.”

Verity is a psychological drama that also works as a romance. It’s about an author who is seeking to secure a new contract. She had a lot going on in her life that was stopping her from writing, and she desperately needed money. Her publisher is looking for a ghostwriter to fulfill the agreement, and they choose Lowen for the job. The conditions are unusual.

Her husband wants Lowen to come and stay at the Virginia house, and he wants her to go over Verity’s notes to figure out how she might finish the remaining novels. When Lowen visits Verity’s house, she discovers a book unconnected to the subject she’s working on, and things begin to go wrong.

All of the characters are keeping a lot of secrets, and you never know what will happen. This novel is disturbing. It’s going to screw you over. Lowen observes someone getting driven over by a truck, which is an unusual way to meet someone. This second-to-last chapter contains a storyline surprise that alters your viewpoint on the whole book. To keep the twist alive.

The life of Alicia Berenson appears to be ideal. She is a well-known painter who is married to a well-known fashion photographer. She resides in a lavish home with large windows that looks out onto parkland in one of London’s most prestigious neighborhoods. Gabriel, her husband, arrives home late one evening from a fashion assignment, and Alicia strikes him five times across the face before going silent.

By being silent and refusing to offer any explanation, Alicia elevates a family tragedy into a mystery that captivates the public’s interest and makes her famous. She, the quiet patient, is kept out of the spotlight and tabloids at the Grove, a covert forensic facility in North London, as the value of her artwork soars. A criminal psychologist named Theo Faber has been eager to collaborate with Alicia for a while. He embarks on a perilous journey into his own motivations in an effort to get her to open up and reveal the riddle of why she shot her husband. His quest for the truth threatens to overwhelm him.

In the unsettling psychological thriller The Silent Patient, a lady attacks her husband, and the therapist becomes fixated on finding out why.

Reporter Camille Preaker, who recently returned from a brief time in a mental hospital, has a difficult job ahead of her: she must go back to her small hometown to explore the unsolved death of a preteen girl and the abduction of another. Since she was a child, Camille has avoided talking to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother and her half-sister, a stunning 13-year-old with an unsettling hold over the community. Now that Camille is living in her old bedroom in the Victorian mansion of her family, she discovers that she has a tendency to relate too deeply with the young victims. If she wants to understand the story—and endure this homecoming—she must solve the psychological riddle of her own past. She is tormented by her own demons.

Best Quotes from this Book:

“The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you.”

“A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort.”

“Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you’re really doing it to them.”

“I just think some women aren’t made to be mothers. And some women aren’t made to be daughters.”

“Problems always start long before you really, really see them.”

So who are you?

What harm have we caused one another?

When Nick Dunne’s wife Amy mysteriously vanishes on the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary, he is left questioning these concerns. Police believe Nick. His fear of Amy led to her keeping secrets from him, according to her friends. He vouches that it is untrue. His computer was examined by police, who discovered odd searches. He claims that he did not create them. The constant calls to his cellphone are another issue.

So what actually happened to Nick’s lovely wife?

Best Quotes from this Book:

“All the stuff I don’t like about myself has been pushed to the back of my brain. Maybe that is what I like best about him, the way he makes me. Not makes me feel, just makes me. I am fun. I am playful. I am game. I feel naturally happy and entirely satisfied.”

“I got it, Go said. Go home, fuck her brains out, then smack her with your penis and scream, There’s some wood for you bitch!”

“One should never marry a man who doesn’t own a decent set of scissors. That would be my advice. It leads to bad things.”

“He has a great smile, a cat’s smile. He should cough out yellow Tweety Bird feathers, the way he smiles at me.”

“I just want to live until I can’t anymore,” she said.”

When Libby Day’s evidence led to the imprisonment of her fifteen-year-old brother, she was only seven years old. She has been idling ever since. Libby begins to pose questions she had never ventured to before after being contacted by a group that believes Ben is innocent. Did she recognize her brother’s voice? Although Ben was an outcast in their little town, was he murderous in nature? At the family property, are there mysteries to be discovered, or is Libby just thinking things up because she needs her brother back?

She begins to believe everybody in her family—especially Ben—had something to conceal that day. Now, twenty-four years later, it will be much more difficult to uncover the truth. Who shot the Day family to death?

Best Quotes from this Book:

“I was not a lovable child, and I’d grown into a deeply unlovable adult. Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs.”

“I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark, drop on the floor so you could stomp on it.”

“The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty – we all have it.”

“It was surprising that you could spend hours in the middle of the night pretending things were okay, and know in thirty seconds of daylight that simply wasn’t so”

“I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don’t even ripple.”

Amber Patterson is tired of it all. She’s sick of existing invisibly as a background-blending, unremarkable nobody. She deserves more—a life of wealth and influence similar to the one that Daphne Parrish, a goddess with blond hair and blue eyes, takes for granted.

Daphne, a socialite and philanthropist, and her real estate millionaire husband, Jackson, are viewed by everyone in the affluent community of Bishops Harbor, Connecticut, as marriage right out of a fairy tale. If Amber didn’t have a strategy, her envy might consume her and kill her. As the first stage in a systematic plan to destabilize her, Amber infiltrates the family’s life using Daphne’s empathy and concern.

Amber quickly establishes herself as Daphne’s closest confidante, visiting Europe with the Parrishes and their adorable young girls, and developing a romantic relationship with Jackson. Amber has worked hard to achieve her goals, but if a secret from her past is revealed, it could all come crashing down. The Last Mrs. Parrish is a new, meaty, and absolutely fascinating novel from a diabolically brilliant mind, full of startling turns and dirty secrets that will have you wondering until the very end.

Best Quotes from this Book:

“Today she felt especially comforted by the books that climbed the walls. They were a reminder that any knowledge she desired was hers for the asking.”

― Liv Constantine, The Last Mrs. Parrish

“This was the kind of home that was safely hidden from the eyes of those who could not afford to live this way. That’s what wealth does for you, she thought. It gives you the means and the power to remain concealed from the world if you choose – or if you need to.”

― Liv Constantine, The Last Mrs. Parrish

“Everything had begun with such promise. And then, like a windshield chipped by a tiny pebble, the chip turned into deep cracks that spread until”

― Liv Constantine, The Last Mrs. Parrish

“Dating as a means to getting to know someone is highly overrated. When your hormones are raging and the attraction is magnetic, your brain takes a vacation. He was everything I never knew I needed.”

― Liv Constantine, The Last Mrs. Parrish

“I was learning that emotional intimidation could be just as unsettling as physical.”

― Liv Constantine, The Last Mrs. Parrish

The first person to go missing is Shelby Tebow. Shortly after, Meredith Dickey and her 6-year-old daughter Delilah disappear just a few blocks from the area where Shelby was last seen, terrifying the previously tranquil neighborhood. Do these instances have a connection? The case eventually becomes unsolved after an illusive hunt that raises more questions than it does answers.

Eleven years later, Delilah suddenly makes a comeback. Nobody is ready for what they will discover, but everybody wishes to understand what happened to her. The master of suspense and New York Times bestselling author Mary Kubica takes home secrets to a whole new level in this intelligent and unsettling thriller, demonstrating that some individuals will do everything it takes to keep the truth hidden.

Best Quotes from this Book:

“Being unbiased is important. Every woman is not me.”

“That’s not to say I didn’t think about you. I thought about you a lot when you were gone, though all I ever knew was the absence of you.”

“I never noticed the whir of the ceiling fan, but the absence of it I do. The absence of it is deafening.”

“They stayed in town, just on the other side of it, where they didn’t have to look out their window and be reminded that bad things happen to good people every day.”

“Sometimes being scared makes you do things you didn’t know you could do.”

Guests assemble on an island just off the coast of Ireland to celebrate the union of two persons. The bridegroom is a pleasant and attractive aspiring television personality. The bride is a magazine publisher who is brilliant and ambitious. It has all the makings of a wedding for a star or a marriage for a magazine: a designer gown, a distant venue, opulent party favors, and boutique whiskey. Even though there may not be consistent cell coverage and the waves may be strong, every aspect has been carefully prepared and will be carried out.

However, plans call for perfection, and humans are all too human. As the champagne is cracked and the celebrations get underway, resentments and small-scale jealousies mix with the memories and good wishes. The drinking game from the groomsmen’s school days gets started. Unintentionally, the bridesmaid ruins her outfit. The oldest male friend of the bride makes an uncomfortable caring toast. Then a body is discovered. Who didn’t wish the happy couple all the best? And possibly even more crucial, why?

Best Quotes from this Book:

“In my experience, those who have the greatest respect for the rules also take the most enjoyment in breaking them.”

“And I’m not worried about it being haunted. I have my own ghosts. I carry them with me wherever I go.”

“But no matter what happens, life is only a series of days. You can’t control more than a single day.”

“But that’s nostalgia for you, the tyranny of those memories of childhood that feel so golden, so perfect.”

“Sometimes,’ I say, ‘I think it’s too difficult to tell the people closest to you. The ones you love.”

Is it a murder, a tragic accident, or just bad parenting? What is undeniable is that someone has died. Madeline is a formidable opponent. She’s witty, biting, and fervent; she recalls everything and never forgives anyone. Celeste is the type of stunning lady who makes people stop and stare, but she pays a high price for the image of perfection. Jane, a newcomer to town, is so young that another mother misidentifies her as a nanny. She has a secret past and a melancholy that belies her age. These three ladies are at various points in their lives, yet they will all end up at the same awful spot.

Big Tiny Lies is a fascinating reimagining of ex-husbands and second wives, moms and daughters, schoolyard gossip, and the little lies that can prove fatal.

Best Quotes from this Book:

“Those we love don’t go away, they sit beside us every day.”

“Champagne is never a mistake.”

“Everyone wanted to be rich and beautiful, but the truly rich and beautiful had to pretend they were just the same as everyone else.”

“Reading a novel was like returning to a once-beloved holiday destination.”

“Every day I think, ‘Gosh, you look a bit tired today,’ and it’s just recently occurred to me that it’s not that I’m tired, it’s that this is the way I look now.”

More than a million readers have been riveted by the New York Times bestselling mystery and Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection about a woman who is determined to learn the truth about her husband’s disappearance. Protect her, Owen Michaels writes in a note to his dear wife of one year before vanishing. Hannah Hall is unsure and terrified, but she understands precisely to whom the letter is addressed: Bailey, Owen’s 16-year-old daughter. Bailey is a young girl who sadly lost her mother. Bailey is adamantly opposed to her new stepmother.

Hannah rapidly discovers her husband isn’t who he claimed to be as her urgent calls to Owen go unanswered, Owen’s boss is arrested by the FBI, a US Marshal and FBI agents show up at her Sausalito house without warning, and more. And that Bailey might be the key to discovering Owen’s real identity—and the real reason for his disappearance. Together, Hannah and Bailey went out to learn the truth. But as they begin to piece together Owen’s past, they quickly discover that they are also creating a new future. Hannah and Bailey couldn’t have predicted this one.

Best Quotes from this Book:

“He never understood that I wasn’t scared of someone leaving me, I was scared that the wrong person would stay.”

“This is the terrible thing about a tragedy. It isn’t with you every minute. You forget it, and then you remember it again.”

“The could-have-been boys still love you.”

“People don’t tend to work that way. We have our opinion and we filter information into a paradigm that supports it.”

“Most people don’t want to hear the thing that will make it work better… They want to hear what will make it easier.”