When I begin to brainstorm a new book, I often think about the things I fear most. They’re the usual things most people fear: death, homelessness, losing everything. But I prefer to go a little deeper than that. Things like: home invasions, being followed on the way home from work—or losing my son in a crowd of people.
What would I do if that happened to me? What would you do? Even if you aren’t a parent, it’s easy to imagine slipping yourself into that horrifying scenario. What if you lost your beloved dog? Or your little sister? What would you do to get them back? And how far would you go to find them?
In my latest novel, The Family Inside, single mom Iris is dealing with a lot—homelessness, job loss, and moving into a new (nightmarish) home. But Iris also faces losing her daughter. Did she run away? Was she kidnapped? Where did she go? What will Iris do to find her? It all comes together—but you’ll have to wait until the final shocking page.
These five books grapple with those very questions. Each of them turns that ‘ordinary’ fear—losing your child—into something extraordinary. That is the beauty of thrillers, constructing a story that plays on people’s everyday lives, and how that very normalcy can become disastrous in the blink of an eye.
Rick Mofina’s SOMEONE SAW SOMETHING
Mofina shines telling the story of Corina, a journalist whose son disappears in the middle of Central Park. Add that to a plot bubbling with conspiracy theorists, hate mail, and an abundance of red-herrings, and this one is worth checking out if you’re interested in a realistic and twisty page-turner.
Jennifer Hillier, LITTLE SECRETS
My pulse was racing when I read the opening pages of LITTLE SECRETS and it didn’t slow until all was resolved in the end. Hillier opens with a familiar scenario—a mother loses her child in a crowd. But what comes next morphs into a twisty tale exploring the depths of a damaged marriage and the “little secrets” parents keep from one another, often centering around their own child.
Harlan Coben, I WILL FIND YOU
I WILL FIND YOU opens with a man in prison for killing his three-year-old son, Matthew—but what happens if his son is not really dead? It’s hard to imagine being trapped in this scenario, and Coben weaves the tale brilliantly. It leaves you begging for an answer to the question: what happened to little Matthew? And why would someone seek to frame his own father for his murder? More disturbing, if Matthew is alive—who was the boy who was murdered?
Lisa Jewell, THEN SHE WAS GONE
The story revolves around Laurel, who is still mourning the disappearance of her daughter, then fifteen year-old, Ellie. Then, Laurel meets a young girl who looks eerily similar to her missing daughter…
When I first read THEN SHE WAS GONE, I was transfixed. It was so twisted, so warped, I couldn’t believe Jewell had taken it there. But she did, and I’m thankful. Jewell is a master of turning the normal into the abnormal. She takes things just far enough to be shocking but also (sadly) all too believable. THEN SHE WAS GONE feels like it could happen to almost anyone, which is part of why the book is so successful and so shocking.
Adrian McKinty, THE CHAIN
The premise for THE CHAIN is the very definition of high concept: a mother gets a call from a stranger stating they have her daughter and the only way she’ll get her back is if she kidnaps another child. If that’s not the stuff parental nightmares are made of, I don’t know what is. This book came out in 2019 and it still lives rent-free in my brain.
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