There are some exciting debut authors, much-anticipated continuations in a series, domestic suspense, cults, detectives, spies, old secrets, and so much more. Without a doubt, there is something for every mystery/thriller reader coming in the next few months. This is only a sampling of some of our most anticipated!

The Night Village by Zoe Deleuil
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Determined to start a new life in London, despite some unexpected circumstances, Australian expat Simone moves in with her boyfriend Paul. When Paul’s cousin Rachel arrives, however, Simone feels much more unease than relief. Something doesn’t seem right about Rachel’s motives for moving in, as well as just what secrets these cousins share.

Where I Left Her by Amber Garza
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The worst nightmare a mother can imagine comes true in this highly suspenseful tale of Whitney, a mother who drops her teenage daughter off at a sleepover, only to return to pick her up and find that the elderly couple living there have never seen the teenagers and they have no idea what Whitney is talking about. As she begins following what turns out to be a trail of lies, she has to wonder if she ever really knew her daughter at all. 

The Night We Burned by S.F. Kosa
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Dora’s job, and in fact her life itself, depends on her ability to separate fact from fiction as she struggles to outrun the secrets of her past. Old secrets, a cult, a fire, and a murder fit together to make a truly exciting psychological thriller! 

The Receptionist by Kate Myles
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Emily’s tough, ruthless persona in her work life does not match that of her personal life, but a chain of shocking scandals throws Emily’s life into chaos. It becomes a fight for survival in this thriller full of sex, ambition, pregnancy, affairs, and disaster. How far will Emily go to protect what she loves most?

These Toxic Things by Rachel Howzell Hall
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A serial killer that has been dormant begins leaving messages for Mickie who makes “digital scrapbooks” of precious items for clients. But when Mickie began this task for her latest client, an apparent suicide, threats began arriving and Mickie is determined to solve the mysteries about her client even as the answers she finds become more sinister.

Dark Things I Adore by Katie Lattari
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

An exciting debut tale of manipulative men and fierce women. Beginning in 1988, there are secrets and there are witnesses, and in 2018 there is a woman who has woven the perfect web to exact revenge. This psychological thriller of dark academia and vengeance has been described as seductive and captivating!

Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian
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Chloe is not just a regular college student – she is also part of a clinical study for psychopaths. Chloe is actually one of seven students at the college who fall into this category, unable to feel (or even understand) emotions like regret, guilt, or fear. When one of the students in the study is murdered, Chloe may need to figure out how to trust, who to trust, and whether or not someone can trust her.

Nice Girls by Catherine Dang
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After an uncomfortably awkward childhood and adolescence in Minnesota, Mary saw an Ivy League school as her ticket into a different life. Three years later she is back, and definitely different, but refusing to explain what happened at Cornell and why she was kicked out as she started her senior year. She soon becomes obsessed with the disappearance of her childhood best friend, though they haven’t spoken in many years. Mary certainly knows about secrets and knows her missing friend is likely not who everyone believes she is…and that her disappearance may have ties to yet another missing girl.

Wolf Point by Ian K. Smith
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

The follow-up to last year’s The Unspoken, continues to follow former Chicago Police Department detective Ashe Canyon as he fights corruption on the streets, and in the underbelly, of Chicago, now as a private investigator. Smith’s extensive research into the historical (and current) inner working of the city of Chicago, its politics, and its criminal justice system always give his writing a “ripped from the headlines” feel!

Litani by Jess Lourey
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Inspired by a terrifying true crime story, the author of Unspeakable Things and Bloodline is back with a story set in the rural Midwest. Fourteen year old Frankie can just feel that something is amiss when she has to move to live with her estranged mother in Litani, Minnesota. She is soon bullied by some of the local girls into ignoring her mother’s warnings to stay out of the nearby woods. Secrets, hysteria, and paranoia abound as Frankie begins to fear that those living around her truly are monsters.

These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant
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A father and his young daughter are living in isolation in a cabin in the Appalachian Mountains while the father hides from the secrets of his past. While his daughter has been content living with her books and her imagination, she is beginning to push back against living a life disconnected from the outside world. When the pattern they have lived by all these years is disrupted it sets off a chain of events that exposes the reality of their lives. A shocking disappearance may be the end of the father’s ability to hide in this tension-filled story of survival and sacrifice.

Grave Reservations by Cherie Priest
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Fans of the Aurora Teagarden series by Charlaine Harris will find a lot to enjoy in this tale of a Seattle detective and a psychic travel agent working together to solve a murder. Premonitions, cold cases, secrets, a murdered fiancée, and karaoke…what’s not to love?

Hello, Transcriber by Hannah Morrissey
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Police transcriber and aspiring writer Hazel Greenlee becomes captivated by the investigation (and the lead detective) of a suspicious death linked to a notorious drug dealer. Before she knows it, Hazel is about to go a step too far in the chase for a good story.

True Crime Story by Joseph Knox
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

In this uniquely told true crime documentary-style thriller there is a missing girl, a writer drawn into the story years later, and troubling inconsistencies in the official version of what happened to Zoe Nolan. In a unique twist, Joseph Knox puts himself into the story when revelations of a secret life and a stalker begin to show that, while she is missing and presumed dead, this may only be the beginning of Zoe Nolan’s real story.

The Secret Next Door by Rebecca Taylor
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In an exclusive neighbourhood near Denver, rapidly flowing gossip, on-going personality conflicts, and deep divisions boil over when a thirteen year old is found dead beside the neighbourhood lake. The long-held belief in the importance of a beautiful exterior pales in comparison to the secrets being kept in each house.

Everything We Didn’t Say by Nicole Baart
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Past and present collide in this family drama. Juniper had only just graduated from high school when a couple who lived on a nearby farm were brutally murdered. With Juniper’s brother named as the prime suspect, she left town promising never to return. But now she is back, and believes that solving the murders will put everything right. But it is never that easy…

Darkness Falls by Robert Bryndza
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

I will readily admit that my favourite time of year is when a Kate Marshall thriller from Robert Bryndza comes out. This time, the heroine from Nine Elms and Shadow Sands investigates a journalist’s disappearance. It’s a cold case and most people have moved on. There are no new leads and no new suspects, but that does not mean Kate and Tristan are stuck at the same dead ends as previous investigators. The journalist may have been looking into something far darker and more disturbing than anyone previously realised.

The Witching Tree by Alice Blanchard
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Detective Natalie Lockhart is back, but the events that occurred in Trace of Evil and The Wicked Hour have taken a terrible toll on her well-being. Living at the centre of two well-known murder cases has just been too much, and she is thinking that the police force may not be where she belongs. But a shocking murder unlike anything she has seen before changes everything and she is back on the case with her boss and childhood friend Detective Luke Pittman.

Safecracker by Ryan Wick
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

This much-anticipated debut novel about a professional safecracker (obviously) and the incredibly high stakes involved in his latest job is full of action and has received many glowing early reviews. Michael Maven was hired to steal a rare coin, but that job gets unexpectedly complicated and Michael is soon coerced into much more dangerous work, and the lives of his family hang in the balance. Hopefully, there are plans for this to begin a whole new series!

My Darling Husband by Kimberly Belle
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A happily married couple with adorable kids, a beautiful home, and a thriving business have their lives turned upside down when they are confronted one night by a home invader. The husband has been a good father and a loving spouse, but there are secrets he has kept that now put them all in danger and it is all about to become a very public scandal. Early reviewers have repeatedly mentioned the incredible pacing and breakneck speed of this domestic suspense thriller.

There are many other exciting thrillers coming in the next few months, by some of our long-time favourites like Alice Feeney, Kimberly McCreight, Catherine Ryan Howard, and the list goes on! 

What has been your favourite thriller this year so far, and what are you most excited about reading as 2021 winds down? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Closing Out 2021 With More Outstanding Thriller Book Releases appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

We chat with debut author Zoe Deleuil about The Night Village, writing, book recommendations, and more!

Hi, Zoe! Tell us a bit about yourself!

I’m originally from Perth, Western Australia, and I’m a lifelong bookworm and scribbler. I moved to London in my twenties and worked as a subeditor, going to writing workshops on the side. Back in Australia, I wrote the manuscript of my debut novel, The Night Village, and it was shortlisted for the Hungerford Award, a prize for unpublished manuscripts by West Australian authors, and then picked up by Fremantle Press. It was meant to be a quiet story exploring early motherhood, but somehow turned into a gothic thriller about families, secrets and an unsettling houseguest. Since then I’ve realised I love writing psychological suspense and am now working on my second book.

Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author and the one you can’t stop thinking about!

The first story that truly enchanted me was Bluebeard. The locked door, the rising panic of the young wife, that key stained with blood that couldn’t be washed off. It was my first experience of a story creeping right under my skin. I don’t know if it made me want to be a writer, but it definitely made me want to read more, which is the gateway.

When did you first discover your love of reading?

From being given books as a child and having a few at home that I read again and again – that’s so important for building confidence as a reader. When I started school we had a librarian called Ms Storey with a superb reading voice and a way of turning the pages very slowly to draw out the suspense, which mesmerised us kids. Being such a book lover herself, she quietly converted everyone who came into that library.

Your new novel is out now. If you could describe it in five words what would they be?

Houseguests are not altogether straightforward.

What can readers expect?

My main character, Simone, is a sleep-deprived new mother who has moved from Australia to London to launch her career but instead found herself having a baby with Paul, who she has only known for a year. Into this blur arrives Paul’s cousin, Rachel, and Simone can’t work out if Rachel is someone she should trust or fear. This rising unease drives the story forward until by the end she in a very different place from where she started. It’s a novel about the joy and terror of early motherhood, and the complications that can arise when two people who don’t really know each other become parents, all set against a backdrop of London in winter.

What inspired you to write the novel?

A lot of things inspired The Night Village. I read a lot and chat to people and pay attention to the news, storing away things that get me thinking. The starting point probably came from my realisation that new motherhood is a vulnerable time for women and their babies, something that often goes unrecognised. I also wanted to try to recapture what it’s like to be thrust into this strange new land of motherhood, where you’re recovering from pregnancy and childbirth, caring for a newborn, and absorbing a seismic identity shift all at once. It’s a magical, gruelling boot camp, and I wanted to write the kind of book I would have liked reading at that time. And then one day the character of Rachel – who seemed utterly real to me and still does – slipped into the apartment. That’s when it started to become more of a thriller.

What were the challenges you faced when writing it and how did you overcome them?

For a while the story didn’t quite have enough going on, but I didn’t know what it needed. So I found a few readers and one of them pointed me in exactly the right direction. Having other people’s input too early can be confusing, but once you have got to a certain point and can’t go any further it can be good to show a few people; particularly if they are sensitive readers and possess both honesty and tact, both being the operative word.

 What were the parts of the novel you loved bringing to the page?

I loved writing about a newborn, and recalling all those moments of learning to care for such a tiny being. Walking around London in my imagination was like time travel  – seeing the streets and buildings, feeling that contrast between the cold winter air and the warmth of crowded buses, remembering the quiet of the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green. It was a bit of freedom in my head at a time when I was a stay-at-home mum – so not going very far in real life – a lot like reading.

What’s the best and worst writing advice you’ve ever received?

I remember someone trying to talk me out of being a writer because it was difficult and I’d have to get up at 5 am to write and who would want that for a job? That made no sense to me because I see writing more as a way of being in the world than a cold-blooded career choice. Of course, I’ve had to earn money, but the writing and reading have ticked away alongside my paid work and other responsibilities, and they’ve never felt like work. And the best writing advice is every word of Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life, where she says much the same thing.

What’s next for you?

I’ve started writing another crime novel, this time set in Australia. Right now I’m living in Berlin so I’m also practising my Deutsch on any locals who don’t get out of the way in time.

Do you have any reading recommendations for our readers?

I adored The History of Mischief by Rebecca Higgie – such an imaginative and cleverly structured story. Red Comet, Heather Clark’s biography of Sylvia Plath, was a near-psychic portrait of her short life and full of insights into mid-century America and post-war England. And Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami is a brilliant translation of the Japanese bestseller. My other reading recommendation is a subscription to a literary journal – they are full of essays and poems and stories you won’t find anywhere else, they look beautiful and every so often you go out to the letterbox and one has magically turned up.

Will you be picking up The Night Village? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Q&A: Zoe Deleuil, Author of ‘The Night Village’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.