5 Gripping Thrillers Where the Past Won’t Stay Buried
Author Nicola Solvinic shares a list of five gripping thrillers where the past won’t stay buried (that she wishes she wrote).
I love a good secret.
All of us have them, those things that we wouldn’t want whispered to our next-door neighbors or snickered about around the water cooler. It’s part of the human condition, I think, to tuck parts of our pasts away from prying eyes and pretend they never exist.
I love the secrets that rot away the roots of family trees. And the ones that buzz away, lurking in the dark corners of internet search histories. I love the ones that are never spoken aloud, the ones that would be destroy everything if they ever came to light.
I read about those secrets, and write about them. There’s something terrifying about conjuring them up and spilling them across the page.
Here is a list of five thrillers that are stuck in my head, books that I wish that I could have written myself.
What Lies in the Woods, by Kate Alice Marshall
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Childhood memories sometimes can be ephemeral, but they shape our adult lives very much. Marshall reminds me of this, of how those memories can slowly unravel when exposed to light. Naomi is one of a trio of girls who would slip away into the forest, uttering feral incantations and creating their own reality – until Naomi is attacked by a serial killer while the others flee in terror. Naomi narrowly survives, haunted forever after. The histories of the three girls whose experiences helped catch a serial killer comes together throughout the story, piece by piece, and I never saw the truth coming. There’s also a strong feeling of “you can never go home again” that’s a feeling that I think is very universal.
Emma in the Night, by Wendy Walker
Sisters share a special bond. So much is unspoken between siblings over time, tangled, and misunderstood. When two sisters, Cass and Emma, go missing, and only Cass returns, the search for the missing sister reveals a roadmap of lies and dysfunction that reminds me that no interesting protagonist is ever blameless and entirely pure of heart. The relationships the girls have with the other members of their family are more than meets the eye, and there’s more than one culprit for the nightmare disappearances. Cass is left to navigate a family that seems frozen in time at the moment she vanished, and no one is ever honest with anyone else.
The Monsters We Make, by Kali White
The abduction of a young paperboy inspires a search that’s tainted by the motivations of the people investigating. The abductee’s sister, Crystal, is driven by the desire to write an investigative piece that will launch her far away from home. Officer Dale tracks who he realizes is a serial killer, haunted by his failure to catch the man responsible years before. More crimes are exposed as dominoes of evidence fall in the case, a chain reaction that none of those involved ever saw coming. White shows how we lie to ourselves as often as we lie to others, and that’s stuck with me. That, and the sense of irrevocable loss.
A Flicker in the Dark, by Stacy Willingham
A half-dozen teen girls disappeared when Chloe was a girl, and her father confessed to the crime. When the disappearances continue, an adult Chloe reinvestigates, questioning who the true monsters around her are. Willingham illustrates how there’s a common yearning for things to be solved, settled. To have closure and move on. But the truth bubbles up, and we must decide how we respond. Do we face it head-on, or do we flee? Chloe feels the pull of both, questioning the assumptions she’s made about her father and the people she grew up with.
The Marsh King’s Daughter, by Karen Dionne
Helena’s mother was kidnapped as a girl, and she was born to her mother and her psychopathic father in the remote marshlands of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Held prisoner, she never meets another soul until their isolation unravels and they are able to flee. Eventually, Helena’s father is apprehended and she’s able to lead a normal life. Mostly normal, but with flickers of her feral past bleeding through. But when her father escapes from prison, Helena’s instincts are at war: should she stand her ground and confront him for what he did to her and her mother? Or should she flee to protect her husband and child, trying to maintain her fragile grip on her new life? Through it all, Helena still loves her terrible father, raising the questions of when we stop loving people who are monsters.
Check out Nicola Solvinic's The Sister's Curse here:
