If You Loved Watching This Show, Read This Thriller!

If you’re anything like me, you’ve awaited the film or TV adaptation of your favorite thriller with a mix of excitement and trepidation—will they do it justice? What if they miscast it or mess with the pitch-perfect ending? (And it’s so devastating when that happens!) On the flip side, what gives me no anxiety whatsoever is picking up a new book I’ve seen comp’ed (publishing speak for compared) to a favorite TV show. I have no expectations of exacting similarity—it’s a comparison, not an adaptation, after all—and the analogy is usually all about the vibes, baby.

It was with that sprit that I set out to write Murder on the Upper East Side, a glitzy whodunnit set at an exclusive Manhattan supper club filled with wealthy, cutthroat, private-school-bred socialites—and rocked by one fantastically scandalous murder. If you loved watching Gossip Girl and Only Murders in the Building, this might be the book for you! (See what I did there?) With that in mind, allow me to recommend six fantastic thrillers to read after you’ve come home from the movies or binged your favorite TV show.

If you loved watching Temptation Island, read One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware

Ware’s 2024 thriller takes place on a seemingly paradisial tropical island, during the filming of a reality dating competition show featuring five “perfect” couples going head-to-head for cash and glory. One Perfect Couple has all the island vibes and reality TV drama you’d crave after watching Temptation Island (and its competitors)—but because this is penned by master of suspense Ruth Ware, expect everything to go spectacularly wrong as a flash storm cuts the competitors off from all communication with the crew on the mainland, the already high-drama characters begin to turn on each other, and the stakes become far higher than anything outlined on their reality TV contracts.

If you loved watching The Perfect Couple, read The Family Game by Catherine Steadman

Not to be confused with One Perfect Couple, discussed above, The Perfect Couple is one of Nicole Kidman’s several recent dishy TV thrillers, this one set during a wedding weekend gone murderously wrong in tony Nantucket. Think absurd levels of wealth, drama, and family intrigue—all of which also permeate the pages of Catherine Steadman’s fast-paced 2023 thriller, The Family Game. The Holbecks have heaps of money and power—and the dark, deadly family secrets to match. Newcomer Harriet Reed (a novelist with a dark past of her own) is welcomed into the family, but it soon becomes clear that the patriarch has his own agenda, and Harriet is about to become a player in a game much darker than she’d bargained for.

If you loved watching Nine Perfect Strangers, read You May Now Kill the Bride by Kate Weston

Who poisoned bride-to-be Tansy’s drink at her bachelorette party slash wellness retreat weekend? This is the question that kicks off Kate Weston’s fun, funny thriller romp, You May Now Kill the Bride. If you loved the unsettling wellness retreat vibes of Nine Perfect Strangers (the 2021 TV adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s novel) as well as the web of secrets held by the guests there, Weston’s plot twists and tightly concealed secrets are sure to satisfy your post-Strangerscravings. 

If you loved watching My Father, the BTK Killer, read The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco by Michelle Chouinard

In the aptly named 2025 documentary, Kerri Rawson narrates the story of her childhood as the daughter of Dennis Rader, commonly known as the BTK Killer, a serial killer who was active in Kansas between 1974 – 1991. Now a victim’s advocate, Rawson is candid about the two versions of her father she came to know as well as her lasting grief and PTSD. If a fictionalized version of this premise sounds up your alley, The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco should move to the top of your TBR. In Michelle Chouinard’s 2024 thriller, Capri Sanzio—granddaughter of the infamous William “Overkill Bill” Sanzio—now runs a small business giving serial killer tours of the bay area. When a copycat killer strikes, Capri sets out to uncover the truth about her grandfather, who she has always believed to be innocent, soon finding herself in the middle of the police investigation.

If you loved watching The Menu, read A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

Chelsea G. Summers’s 2021 satirical debut is a perfect read for fans of comedy-horror film The Menu. Both employ lavish culinary imagery and an obsession with fine dining to satirize food writing and foodie culture—coupled with plots where more members of the cast will meet their untimely deaths than survive to the end. A Certain Hunger is perhaps more horror than suspense, but the whip smart writing and deadly stakes are sure to appeal to thriller lovers and food lovers with a sense of humor alike.

If you loved watching The Flight Attendant, read The Murder After the Night Before by Katy Brent

Loved the messy, chaotic, and supremely fun vibes Kaley Cuoco brought to the 2020 TV adaptation of Chris Bojalian’s The Flight Attendant? Allow me to recommend The Murder After the Night Before as your next read. When Molly Monroe wakes up the night after a work holiday party turned bender, there’s a strange man in her bed and a very unfortunate video of Molly from the night before has gone viral. And that’s just the start of her problems because her best friend Posey is dead. After the viral video turns Molly into a hashtag (and not a kind one) no one will take her seriously—but Molly knows that Posey has been murdered. Like The Flight Attendant, Katy Brent’s novel is fast-paced, hilarious, and gripping.

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