Virginia Franken's favorite suspense novels in a suburban setting

My neighbor passed this book over the fence to me with a knowing nod and a couple of pages in, I knew why. Our heroine, Nora Spangler, is a strung-out attorney married to a loveable blue-eyed bear of a man who is entirely incapable when it comes to any of the parenting details that keep the show on the road. The story’s basically a whip-smart Stepford Wives rewire but what I love about this novel is that Baker seems to be one of the few writers out there to detail exactly how women are held back by their domestic burdens before showing us what might just be possible if we could magically transfer the load onto our male counterparts.

Shari Lapena’s debut thriller is an intense, multi-layered kidnap plot packed with twists that keep the reader completely off balance until Lapena’s ready for you to see what’s really going on. It’s a brilliant novel but what hit home for me is that the catalyst for everything that goes wrong is a decision to leave a baby home alone while a couple goes next door for dinner with neighbors. Sure, there’s a monitor and the parents diligently check on the baby every half-hour, but even so, it’s not enough to keep their daughter safe. As a mother, this one forced me to think about the seemingly small parenting choices we make and what they might lead to. 

In England, we have the Queen who opens Parliament and then we have the Queen of Domestic Suspense and that is Lisa Jewell. Lisa has written a slew of phenomenal novels but The House We Grew Up In always comes first to mind whenever I think of her work. The quality of descriptive detail in this book means that years after I first read it, I can still picture every room inside the Bird house and recall every twist and turn in Lorelei Bird’s journey as she transitions from a normal mother in a messy home to a toothless hoarder living out of a depilated den. A fascinating read packed around secrets and lies and an examination of family dynamics. All that glitters isn’t foil-wrapped gold in this one.

On to the suburbs of Sydney where three families gather for a backyard barbeque that culminates in epic disaster. Liane Moriarty’s books each have their own flavor but what always makes her writing for me, is the utterly relatable characters. In this story, I felt completely ‘known’ by mother of two, Clementine. Selfish when she knows she shouldn’t be, wracked with guilt over things that simultaneously are and aren’t her fault, letting herself embrace her sexuality only to come up against dire consequences. Liane Moriarty’s famed novel is Big Little Lies but if you’re looking for more of the same best pal characters and unthinkable moral dilemmas, put this one on your list. 

I made the mistake of taking Little Fires Everywhere with me on a rare trip to Mexico with friends I hadn’t seen in a while. I really did want to catch up but kept finding myself sneaking out of happy hour to huddle by the pool alone with this novel which I tore through in two days. In this novel, Mrs. Richardson, a third-generation resident of picture-perfect Cleveland Heights, comes head-to-head with boho single mom, Mia Warren, who is new in town. What unfolds is an unexpected story about control versus chaos and the unpredictable consequences both can wreak. You will gobble this whole.