Book cover of When the Stars Go Dark

Book description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • GOOD MORNING AMERICA BUZZ PICK • “A total departure for the author of The Paris Wife, McLain’s emotionally intense and exceptionally well-written thriller entwines its fictional crime with real cases.”—People (Book of the Week)

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY MARIE…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked When the Stars Go Dark as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

An intriguing, layered, story that kept me wanting to know what happened to the missing girls.

A little slow to start, but it didn’t take me long to become gripped to the page. Paula digs deep into the social issue of missing girls and women through fiction, which intrigued me as I try to do the same with my writing. 

Compelling characters and lyrically beautiful scenes made me feel the heartbreak and frantic desire to solve the case. What I found so intriguing about this novel was all the psychological elements of the characters and how a person’s past invariably…

If you love When the Stars Go Dark...

Book cover of Immigrant Soldier: The Story of a Ritchie Boy

Immigrant Soldier by K. Lang-Slattery,

Germany 1938. Herman watches in horror as his cousin is arrested. As a Jew, he realizes he must flee Germany, a decision that catapults him into a life changed forever by the gathering storm of world events.

Part coming-of-age fiction, part immigrant tale, part military adventure, Immigrant Soldier follows Herman’s…

Want books like When the Stars Go Dark?

Our community of 13,000+ authors has personally recommended 67 books like When the Stars Go Dark.

Browse books like When the Stars Go Dark

Book cover of Confessions on the 7:45
Book cover of Sometimes I Lie
Book cover of Bath Haus: A Thriller

Share your top 3 reads of 2026!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

170

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like When the Stars Go Dark, you might also like...

Book cover of When Paris Whispers

When Paris Whispers by Marianne C. Bohr,

Twenty-two-year-old Catrine arrives in Paris, the city she's dreamed of since childhood, and it speaks back, but not in ways she expected.

Drifting through the streets of 1981 Paris, the voices of French writers she once read in solitude whisper back, intimate and insistent. Rather than reassure her, they unsettle…

Book cover of Bessie

Bessie by Linda Kass,

Drawing on biographical and historical sources, Bessie reimagines the early life of Bess Myerson, a Jewish woman and piano prodigy, who, in 1945 at age twenty-one, remarkably rises to become one of the most famous women in America.

This intimate fictional portrait reveals the transformation of the nearly six-foot-tall, self-deprecating…

5 book lists we think you will like!