6 Must-Read Thrillers For Spooky Season

It’s spooky season and as the temperatures turn cool and the days grow shorter, what better time than now to curl up with a good thriller? I’ve read quite a few and decided to share some of my favorites. Here are 6 must-read thrillers for spooky season. 

All The Missing Girls

If you only read one book on this list, make it All The Missing Girls. I read this in one sitting a few years back and recommend it to everyone as my must-read thriller. Nicolette Farrell returns to her rural hometown ten years after her best friend Corinne disappears to tie up a few loose ends and take care of her ailing father who claims to know something about Corinne’s disappearance – except he’s in a nursing home and his memory is fleeting. Nic quickly finds herself right back in the middle of both the past and present as another girl goes missing almost the moment she arrives in town. All The Missing Girls is told in reverse, from day 15 to day 1, which makes the twists and turns all that much more jaw-dropping. I can usually figure out the plot twist in the final pages – this one left me guessing until the final page. 

Lock Every Door, The Last Time I Lied, Final Girls 

Any book by Riley Sager is going to be a great read, but these three are my favorites and I am absolutely treating them as “one” book on this list of six – so you get two bonuses! Lock Every Door finds Jules landing a sweet gig apartment sitting in a swanky New York building known for housing the most elite of the city except she quickly realizes something isn’t right when her fellow apartment sitters start to disappear. Of all of Sager’s books, this one left me slack-jawed. 

In The Last Time I Lied, Emma, a prolific painter, returns to Camp Nightingale fifteen years after her cabin mates went missing. She’s forced to revisit the past when new clues about the camp’s hidden secrets begin to surface. I thought I had the plot twist figured out, only to realize I didn’t – and then find out I DID. It was a wild ride… In Final Girls, Quincy is a member of a group no one wants to be in – the sole survivor of a mass murder. When a fellow Final Girl turns up dead and another shows up on her doorstep, Quincy’s carefully rebuilt life begins to fall apart. Yet another Sager book in which I can say “I did not see that coming.”

The One

The One is both suspense-filled and a psychological thriller. A DNA test has made it easy to find your soulmate and perfect match which is great in theory, except it leads to scores of broken relationships and shifting perspectives about what love and loyalty really mean. The book follows five different people who have all submitted their DNA and received notification that their perfect match has been found – do they want to contact them? From a serial killer, to a naive girl breaking a brother’s heart, to a man who is questioning everything, all bets are off when it comes to love, loyalty, right, and wrong. You won’t be able to put this one down. 

The Girl in the Picture

If you’re looking for a classic ‘whodunit,’ The Girl in the Picture is for you. Set at a prestigious prep school, heartthrob Chace Porter is found dead and the prime suspect is the girl in the picture found near his body – Nicole Morgan, the shy, geeky musical prodigy. The photo shows Nicole and Chace snuggled together, but Chace is dating Nicole’s best friend Lana – right? Weaving between Nicole and Lana’s points of view and between present day and flashbacks, The Girl in the Picture is the perfect book for someone who enjoys teenage romance, a prep school setting, and a lot of mystery. 

Then She Was Gone

Ellie Mack was fifteen years old when she disappeared, seemingly into thin air. Ten years later, her mother, Laurel Mack, is trying to put her life back together after losing her daughter and her marriage. When she meets Floyd in a coffee shop, things begin to look up. Then she meets his children. His youngest daughter, Poppy, is the spitting image of Ellie which leads Laurel to question everything, especially the police’s theory that Ellie ran away from home and didn’t want to be found. Who is Floyd really? Why does Poppy remind her so much of Ellie? And what really happened to her daughter?Then She Was Gone is a page turner – but be warned it has some dark content that may not be for everyone. 

Something in the Water

A chance discovery on their luxury honeymoon changes the course of Erin and Mark’s lives forever in Something in the Water. They have to decide if they speak out or hold their secret, and their choice sets off a wild chain of devastating events. This one might start a little slow for some of you – it did for me – but when the story takes off, you won’t be able to put this psychological thriller down.

There you have it – a few of my favorite must-read thrillers for spooky season. I’m currently reading The Ex-Hex (a rom-com, but spooky-season appropriate!) with The Last Thing He Told Me on deck to keep with the spooky season trend. What are you reading this month? Got any must-read thrillers not mentioned here?

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