Here are 100 books that A Quiet Retreat fans have personally recommended if you like
A Quiet Retreat.
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Growing up in a snowy, rural mountain town of less than 500 people, I became fascinated with humanity's will to survive the elements at an early age because I often had to do so myself. Add in a mysterious force or an escaped killer wandering through the hills outside a secluded cabin, and you've got my favorite thriller subgenre: Trapped and secluded. It wasn't until my third novel, The Excursion, that I realized my longtime dream of writing a survival thriller influenced by dozens of books and movies. Today, I live in a suburb of Denver, Colorado, but the mountains are close. And so are the secluded cabins.
Many of my favorite secluded thriller novels have a high degree of complexity—multiple point-of-view chapters, complex subplots, and morally ambiguous characters. This book had all these elements and a super plus: An immersive and authentic setting in the Scottish Highlands.
I disappeared into the snowbound setting and felt like a part of the group of old friends, caught up in their personal dramas and driven to finish the book to see who did what, when, and why. It was a great escape for me, but not so much for them.
EVERYONE'S INVITED.
EVERYONE'S A SUSPECT.
AND EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT IT.
'Ripping, riveting' A. J. Finn 'Clever, twisty and sleek' Daily Mail 'Unputdownable' John Boyne 'Foley is superb' The Times 'Chilling' Adele Parks 'Terrific, riveting' Dinah Jefferies
In a remote hunting lodge, deep in the Scottish wilderness, old friends gather for New Year.
The beautiful one The golden couple The volatile one The new parents The quiet one The city boy The outsider
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I was born in the world’s most isolated capital city – Perth, Western Australia. Ever since my family packed up and drove across the vast Nullarbor Plain to relocate to South Australia, I’ve been fascinated by our eerie, wide-open spaces. There’s no doubt that family folklore fed into this. My Finnish mother arrived as a ten-year-old, recalling that when she first felt the heat, she thought: “This is hell.” My father and his family arrived from the Netherlands. I love my country, but this continent presents dangers in its arid isolation – all captivating to a storyteller.
The Island achieved an incredible feat by inducing two competing thoughts in my mind: this couldn’t possibly happen, and this could possibly happen!
A family of four is on an Australian driving holiday and is unexpectedly allowed entry onto a privately owned Dutch Island. This isolated setting soon makes them vulnerable and reliant on others. I loved following the characters’ journeys as they grappled with how to protect themselves and their loved ones. They’re "ordinary everyday people" who are forced to take action—and there’s plenty of it!
As with most of the best thrillers, there are multiple points of view that ratchet up the tension.
Growing up in a snowy, rural mountain town of less than 500 people, I became fascinated with humanity's will to survive the elements at an early age because I often had to do so myself. Add in a mysterious force or an escaped killer wandering through the hills outside a secluded cabin, and you've got my favorite thriller subgenre: Trapped and secluded. It wasn't until my third novel, The Excursion, that I realized my longtime dream of writing a survival thriller influenced by dozens of books and movies. Today, I live in a suburb of Denver, Colorado, but the mountains are close. And so are the secluded cabins.
This book has all the elements I love in a secluded thriller, masterfully done with heart-pounding suspense and a solid backstory.
For me, nothing’s better than a thriller with a single setting and a heroine trapped by the weather who must cleverly unravel a mystery to escape. The author does an excellent job of combining a claustrophobic setting—a snowed-in rest stop in the mountains of Colorado—with a couple of super creepy characters for the heroine to contend with.
In fact, I was most impressed with the depth of this novel because the heroine, Darby, must do more than escape. She must use her cunning and fortitude to rescue someone else. Someone the creepy occupants of the rest stop want to keep hidden at all costs.
“What a box of tricks! This full-throttle thriller, dark and driving, rivals Agatha Christie for sheer ingenuity and James Patterson for flat-out speed. Swift, sharp, and relentless.” — A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window
A brilliant, edgy thriller about four strangers, a blizzard, a kidnapped child, and a determined young woman desperate to unmask and outwit a vicious psychopath.
A kidnapped little girl locked in a stranger’s van. No help for miles. What would you do?
On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
Growing up in a snowy, rural mountain town of less than 500 people, I became fascinated with humanity's will to survive the elements at an early age because I often had to do so myself. Add in a mysterious force or an escaped killer wandering through the hills outside a secluded cabin, and you've got my favorite thriller subgenre: Trapped and secluded. It wasn't until my third novel, The Excursion, that I realized my longtime dream of writing a survival thriller influenced by dozens of books and movies. Today, I live in a suburb of Denver, Colorado, but the mountains are close. And so are the secluded cabins.
Riley Sager is one of my favorite authors, and this book is my favorite of all his books.
The secluded location? A speeding car. The main character, Charlie, needs to get home from college and shares a ride with a new acquaintance who may or may not be a serial killer. I loved the tension woven into each chapter, the slow unraveling of Charlie’s past, her suspicious fascination with classic movies, and the relentless, unexpected twists compounding in the end.
This is one of those books that has stuck in my mind and will probably be there forever.
One of New York Times Book Review's "summer reads guaranteed to make your heart thump and your skin crawl"; An Amazon Best of the Month Pick; Named a must-read summer book by The Washington Post, USA Today, Vulture, BuzzFeed, Forbes, Entertainment Weekly, CNN, New York Post, Good Housekeeping, E!, PopSugar, CrimeReads, Thrillist, and BookRiot.
It’s November 1991. Nirvana's in the tape deck, George H. W. Bush is in the White House, and movie-obsessed college student Charlie Jordan is in a car with a man who might be a serial killer.
I am excited by books that broaden my perspective on existence, dissolve mental barriers, broaden our visions, and offer powerful new ways to see the world; life-affirming books that help us to understand life, ourselves, become more conscious of existence, create our own realities and show us how to become masters of our lives instead of victims; books that blend science, spirituality, art, philosophy, life. The types of books I read and the types of books I write have plots that continuously span the terror of the human condition and transformation.
I’ve read this book three times, drawn by my fascination with death and how people die. The book is well-researched, detailing the final days of great minds—writers like Susan Sontag, Sigmund Freud, John Updike, Dylan Thomas, Maurice Sendak, and James Salter.
Like a skilled biographer, Roiphe doesn’t judge her subjects but presents their endings as they were. Yet, a discerning reader can’t help but draw conclusions. Susan Sontag, the towering intellect, fought death until the end. Dylan Thomas, the great poet, was self-destructive and pathetic at the close of his life. Sigmund Freud chose to end his life with the help of a physician.
Roiphe mentions in her preface that she would have liked to write about other famous deaths—William Blake’s peaceful passing, Honoré de Balzac’s death by overwork, Primo Levi’s fall, and more. I wish she had explored these as well. If she did, I’d devour that book too.
The last days of five great thinkers, writers and artists - as they come to terms with the reality of approaching death
Katie Roiphe's extraordinary book is filled with intimate and surprising revelations. Susan Sontag, consummate public intellectual, finds her rational thinking tested during her third bout with cancer. Seventy-six year old John Updike's response to a fatal diagnosis is to begin a poem. Dylan Thomas's fatal collapse on the floor of a Greenwich Village tavern is preceded by a fortnight of almost suicidal excess. Sigmund Freud understands his hastening decline. Maurice Sendak shows his lifelong obsession with death in…
I am a Canadian author/editor who both fears and loves being a stranger in a strange land. I fear the challenges, the feelings of dislocation and vulnerability. But I love the connections, the overcoming of the strangeness and the ultimate feeling of kinship. As a mom, I travelled with my kids to far away places, favouring adventure tours and staying well away from high priced hotels that separate tourists from locals. My novel, The World on Either Side, was inspired by a trek I took with my then fourteen-year-old daughter in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
I bought this book for the title, and happily there are Madonnas galore in this story, including in the apartment of “two motherless dudes,” dying teen Jessie T. Serrano and his dad. This quest novel—before he dies, Jessie sets up a mysterious trip to Europe for his three cousins, best friend and girlfriend—follows five grieving young adults on a doomed pilgrimage in a strange continent. If you have ever been a teen (as I assume you have) you will connect with the six (!!) point of view characters, each flawed but achingly human. "Not all stories are about love," says one of them, but this story most definitely is.
Five teens backpack through Europe to fulfill the mysterious dying wish of their friend in this heartwarming novel from the author of The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy.
Jesse lives with his history professor dad in a house covered with postcards of images of the Madonna from all over the world. They’re gotten used to this life: two motherless dudes living among thousands of Madonnas. But Jesse has a heart condition that will ultimately cut his life tragically short. Before he dies, he arranges a mysterious trip to Europe for his three cousins, his best friend, and his girlfriend to…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I was not intentionally set out to write books for children, but I was inspired to do so after struggling to face the challenges brought on by my illness—multiple brain tumors and surgeries. Creating messages through stories for children facing such hardship as a life-threatening illness, at times even brought me the reason I needed to keep fighting for my health and for my life.
The book entails a powerful message by describing all the stages of grief that we go through after losing someone. A book reminds us that love does not end after death, but it lives in us as we carry on despite our sadness and loss. The story will allow the reader to experience sets of emotions as an integral part of healing.
Everett Anderson's Goodbye is a touching portrait of a little boy who is trying to come to grips with his father's death. Lucille Clifton captures Everett's conflicting emotions as he confronts this painful reality. We see him struggle through many stages, from denial and anger to depression and, finally, acceptance. In this spare and moving poem, the last in this acclaimed series, Lucille Clifton brings Everett Anderson's life full circle.
I’m the author of 24 twisty psychological thrillers, many of which are Amazon bestsellers. Most of them are set in southern England where I live. My life was tipped upside down in 2015 when I was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare bone cancer. Although I have a masters in writing and was traditionally published for non-fiction, I hadn’t been brave enough to put my fiction out in the world. Cancer changed that. I’m now a full-time author, writing about scary things that happen to ordinary people. I’m also an avid reader of thrillers and enjoy nothing more than reading a book with an ending that makes me gasp!
This is a gritty, fast-paced story about Joey, a young man who is down on his luck but trying to support his family after the death of his father. He makes one bad decision which sets off a twisting chain of events that have a devastating impact on many people’s lives. The Phone Call is a beautifully written book, with well-fleshed-out characters set in an ordinary town that could be anywhere in Britain today. This book lived on in my head for a long time after I finished reading it.
THE LATEST NOVEL FROM AMAZON BESTSELLING AUTHOR AJ CAMPBELL
‘The Phone Call is a rollercoaster read full of twists and turns and gasp-out-loud moments. I was hooked from the first page to the last.’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ AJ McDine, author of No One I Knew
A single phone call can destroy your life. Joey Clarke was just fifteen when his dad died, leaving him to raise his much younger siblings as his mum dealt with the trauma of bereavement and her failing health. Ten years on, Joey’s only pleasure is spending time with his friend Becca, the love of his life. It’s…
My mother was rarely without pen and paper in hand. She wrote stories – true stories. After suffering a stroke she wasn’t able to compose the long enchanting novels she used to, but nevertheless kept writing. The stroke made it difficult for her to tell her special stories to her adored young grandson. So we became creative. I took photos of her daily life with us. Brooke Dahmen drew beautiful illustrations from these photos. With her grandson’s and my help, grandma wrote true and heartfelt captions for the illustrations. All created in gratitude for the joys of senior living and the kind helping hands of a child.
How lovely to watch the journey of a seed as it grows into blossom-hood. Handled oh so carefully by the ‘nice lady.’ Kindness and patience resonate throughout the pages. This book will surely make the reader want to gently plant some moonflowers in their garden and watch eagerly what happens.
When the little seed becomes discouraged with its size and appearance, Earth provides it with some encouraging words and tells it that it will blossom into something spectacular with a little time and patience, in an inspiring tale from the author of the Mitford Years series.
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I’ve written many types of book—fiction and non-fiction—for readers of all ages. But I keep returning to my first passion—the clever, crazy, over the top psychological thrillers I was addicted to reading or watching on TV when I was growing up. I’ve always loved trying to write page turners with plots readers have never seen before. Certainly, I want my audience to care about the book’s characters and laugh at the one-liners. But nothing beats making people think… there’s no way he can possibly pull all these plot strands together at the end. And then doing it. Besides, my nutty thrillers are the ones that get the best reviews.
The central idea of his book is a beauty.A kid writing to an incarcerated serial killer to try persuading him to reveal where he murdered and buried the boy’s brother. Bauer makes you really care about the crap existence of a nondescript sad sack child you wouldn’t give the time of day to in real life. I love it because the writing is superb and there’s a genuine sense of tension. All right, you know the outcome is going to be grimly inevitable. Until the story starts to take some very unexpected turns.
'Extraordinarily powerful and evocative . . . will leave you breathless.' Daily Mirror
VOTED CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR when it was first released, and still the most gripping, powerful thriller debut you will read this year.
___
Steven Lamb is 12 when he writes his first letter . . . to a serial killer
Every day after school, whilst his classmates swap football stickers, twelve-year-old Steven digs holes on Exmoor, hoping to find a body. His uncle disappeared aged eleven and is assumed to have fallen victim to the notorious serial…
