Here are 78 books that Breaking the Dark fans have personally recommended if you like Breaking the Dark. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Sentence

sally2

From Sally's 3 favorite reads in 2024.

Unknown Author Why Sally loves this book

Anything by Louise Erdrich is worth buying and reading.

By Louise Erdrich ,

Why should I read it?

12 authors picked The Sentence as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2022
PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE NIGHT WATCHMAN

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In this stunning and timely novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich creates a wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage and of a woman's relentless errors.

Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but…


If you love Breaking the Dark...

Book cover of The Day I Disappeared: A Thriller

The Day I Disappeared by Brandi Reeds,

Three months after four-year-old Holly Gebhardt was kidnapped, she was inexplicably returned to the same park from which she’d vanished…with no memory of the ordeal. Though a local handyman was convicted, suspicion also fell on his friend―Holly’s mother, Cecily. The troubling doubts about her involvement shattered the family, forever driving…

Book cover of Modern Poetry

Erica Wright Author Of Hollow Bones

From Erica's 3 favorite reads in 2024.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Erica's 3 favorite reads in 2024

Erica Wright Why Erica loves this book

Diane Seuss continues to astonish me with her daring. There's a sort of unspoken rule to not write poems about poetry yet Seuss devotes a whole collection to this endeavor and does so with insight and humor. The personal aspects of her education—her unlikely journey to this so-called high artform—are also moving. These are smart but also accessible poems that I'd recommend to anyone. My favorite book of the year by one of my favorite living poets.

By Diane Seuss ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Modern Poetry as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Diane Seuss's signature voice-audacious in its honesty, virtuosic in its artistry, outsider in its attitude-has become one of the most original in contemporary poetry. Her latest collection takes its title, Modern Poetry, from the first textbook Seuss encountered as a child and the first poetry course she took in college, as an enrapt but ill-equipped student, one who felt poetry was beyond her reach. Many of the poems make use of the forms and terms of musical and poetic craft-ballad, fugue, aria, refrain, coda-and contend with the works of writers overrepresented in textbooks and anthologies and those too often underrepresented.…


Book cover of The Family Upstairs

Haley Currie

From Haley's 3 favorite reads in 2024.

Unknown Author Why Haley loves this book

Thrilling and the twist at the end is amazing! Plus there’s a second book now :)

By Lisa Jewell ,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked The Family Upstairs as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'I swear I didn't breathe the whole time I was reading it. Gripping, pacy, brilliantly twisty.' CLARE MACKINTOSH

'Creepy, intricate and utterly immersive: an excellent holiday read.' GUARDIAN

'A twisty and engrossing story of betrayal and redemption.' IAN RANKIN
____________________________

FROM THE #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THEN SHE WAS GONE

In a large house in London's fashionable Chelsea, a baby is awake in her cot. Well-fed and cared for, she is happily waiting for someone to pick her up.

In the kitchen lie three decomposing corpses. Close to them is a hastily scrawled note.

They've been dead for several days.


If you love Lisa Jewell...

Book cover of Sunset Bay Sanctuary

Sunset Bay Sanctuary by Roxanne Snopek,

NOW OPTIONED FOR FILM!

She's building a future she can live with. But a secret from her past is about to change everything.

Haylee Hansen has made a career out of caring for and training the dogs and horses on her aunt's ranch. Part halfway house, part work camp, it…

Book cover of Then She Was Gone

Roberta Gately Author Of The Ambassador's Wife

From my list on mystery and thrillers with unexpected twists turns.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a long-time ER nurse, aid worker, and writer, and I have long been fascinated by true crime/mysteries; much of that interest honed in the ER, where I was often stumped when patient injuries or recollections of witnesses didn’t quite add up. As amateur detectives, we ER nurses often hounded detectives with our own theories, and in one especially big murder case, we had figured out exactly what had happened and who the real killer was before the detectives did. I am also a voracious reader and love a good mystery/thriller to take me away from real life, except when I am solving real life crimes on Dateline.

Roberta's book list on mystery and thrillers with unexpected twists turns

Roberta Gately Why Roberta loves this book

I love anything that Lisa Jewell writes, and this is the perfect mystery, albeit a little predictable.

A 15-year-old girl has gone missing and her family is frantic. The characters were so well drawn, I felt as though I knew them. And for me, that is often what keeps me reading.   

By Lisa Jewell ,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Then She Was Gone as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From the New York Times bestselling author of Invisible Girl and The Truth About Melody Browne comes a “riveting” (PopSugar) and “acutely observed family drama” (People) that delves into the lingering aftermath of a young girl’s disappearance.

Ellie Mack was the perfect daughter. She was fifteen, the youngest of three. Beloved by her parents, friends, and teachers, and half of a teenaged golden couple. Ellie was days away from an idyllic post-exams summer vacation, with her whole life ahead of her.

And then she was gone.

Now, her mother Laurel Mack is…


Book cover of The Night She Disappeared

Helen Cooper Author Of My Darling Boy

From my list on thrillers set in close-knit communities.

Why am I passionate about this?

The first books I loved were Gothic classics like Jane Eyre and Rebecca, because of their isolated settings and secretive characters. When I first started writing, it was always stories about communities–the first novel I wrote featured a retirement village and a circus. Maybe that’s because I love observing communities in everyday life, like local pubs in which everybody has their place. When domestic suspense novels really took off, I started devouring crime books with close-knit settings and soon was writing them, too. I love the claustrophobia, the backstories, the landscape, the web of relationships. It can be done in so many different and brilliant ways.

Helen's book list on thrillers set in close-knit communities

Helen Cooper Why Helen loves this book

To be honest, I could have picked multiple books by Lisa Jewell. She’s my favorite thriller writer, and many of her books use close-knit communities to set up mysteries in which I constantly change my mind about who I can trust. Exactly what I love about domestic noir!

In this book, the setting is a picturesque village in the Surrey Hills, where teenage parents Tallulah and Zach head out on a date to the local pub and never come home. There are two aspects of the seemingly idyllic community that really sucked me in: a mysterious mansion just outside the village known as Dark Place and a boarding school with its own long-kept secrets. Jewell uses the setting not only to heighten the sense of mystery–there are secret tunnels, woods where bad things happen, clues in old paintings, all the good stuff!–but also to explore themes of class, sexuality, and…

By Lisa Jewell ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Night She Disappeared as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone comes “her best thriller yet” (Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author) about a young couple’s disappearance on a gorgeous summer night, and the mother who will never give up trying to find them.

On a beautiful summer night in a charming English suburb, a young woman and her boyfriend disappear after partying at the massive country estate of a new college friend.

One year later, a writer moves into a cottage on the edge of the woods that border the same estate. Known locally as…


Book cover of Rebecca

Catherine Cavendish Author Of Ghosts of Chanterlands

From my list on loving haunted and sinister places.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a multi-published author of mainly Gothic, haunted house, and ghostly novels, novellas, and short stories. I love nothing more than exploring historic houses, ancient stone circles and places that are noted for having a certain atmosphere that hints – or, in some cases, screams  a macabre and interesting past. I am the person you will spot, hunched over an old gravestone peering at the much-degraded carving, searching for the name of its owner and a hint to their story. Why? I blame a childhood spent reading M.R. James.

Catherine's book list on loving haunted and sinister places

Catherine Cavendish Why Catherine loves this book

It starts with arguably the most famous first line any novelist has ever written, and I certainly couldn’t stop reading once I had absorbed that.

Rebecca is a classic for all sorts of great reasons. For me, the house is a character here. Manderley is as Gothic as I could ever wish for (and I LOVE Gothic).

Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, is one of the most sinister characters ever written. When this novel was first published (1938), certain subjects were pretty much taboo. In the light of today's increased awareness of people’s differing sexualities, I think it’s probably easier to understand her motives – not that it makes her any less scary.

For me, this is a masterpiece of storytelling that defies genre categorization and puts du Maurier firmly in my top favourite authors list.

By Daphne du Maurier ,

Why should I read it?

56 authors picked Rebecca as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

* 'The greatest psychological thriller of all time' ERIN KELLY
* 'One of the most influential novels of the twentieth century' SARAH WATERS
* 'It's the book every writer wishes they'd written' CLARE MACKINTOSH

'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . .'

Working as a lady's companion, our heroine's outlook is bleak until, on a trip to the south of France, she meets a handsome widower whose proposal takes her by surprise. She accepts but, whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to brooding Manderley, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory…


If you love Breaking the Dark...

Book cover of What You Made Me Do

What You Made Me Do by Barbara Gayle Austin,

Willem and Jurriaan have a miserable childhood thanks to their cruel, controlling mother—Louisa Veldkamp, a world-renowned pianist. Dad turns a blind eye. One day, Louisa vanishes without a trace during a family vacation.

Adoptee Anneliese Bakker survives a toxic childhood and leaves home, vowing never to return. While searching for…

Book cover of The Couple Next Door

Dita Dow Author Of Sins in Black

From my list on small-town mystery books for fans of secrets, lies & twists.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a suspense thriller author and retired police detective, I’ve seen how ordinary people can hide the darkest secrets. That’s why I love small-town mysteries. They show the endless ways people cover up what they don’t want others to see, and they remind me of the unsettling truth I’ve witnessed firsthand: behind every neat house and familiar smile, there can be lies, betrayal, or danger and nothing is ever as safe as it looks.

Dita's book list on small-town mystery books for fans of secrets, lies & twists

Dita Dow Why Dita loves this book

I loved The Couple Next Door because it kept me glued to the page from start to finish.

I was fascinated by how an ordinary neighborhood could hide so much tension and deceit. It made me question how well we really know the people living right beside us. I found myself holding my breath, completely absorbed, and I couldn’t put it down until I knew everything.

By Shari Lapena ,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked The Couple Next Door as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Another thrilling domestic suspense novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Not a Happy Family

"The twists come as fast [as] you can turn the pages." -People

"I read this novel at one sitting, absolutely riveted by the storyline. The suspense was beautifully rendered and unrelenting!" -Sue Grafton

It all started at a dinner party. . .

A domestic suspense debut about a young couple and their apparently friendly neighbors-a twisty, rollercoaster ride of lies, betrayal, and the secrets between husbands and wives. . .

Anne and Marco Conti seem to…


Book cover of Little Fires Everywhere

Meghan Dairaghi Author Of How Far a Night Can Reach

From my list on messy characters (that we love anyway).

Why am I passionate about this?

I love reality television, shamelessly. I find it fascinating what people are willing to share about themselves in front of a national audience: their disgusting habits, their motivations, vices, secrets, and most importantly, their vulnerabilities. I think the reason I’m drawn to this medium is because I enjoy examining and thinking about why people make the choices they do. When it comes to my writing, I seek to portray the same multidimensional view of my characters that I see on these shows. I want their selfish choices and most humanizing insecurities to shine equally. 

Meghan's book list on messy characters (that we love anyway)

Meghan Dairaghi Why Meghan loves this book

I finished this novel almost as quickly as I started it.

Though, aside from its fantastic hook, I loved Little Fires Everywhere because it’s one of the most empathetic character-driven novels that I’ve read. It’s clear that no character is entirely “in the right” throughout the novel, yet I understood their perspectives equally.

I think Ng’s writing is unflinchingly sincere, even toward characters who keep secrets, act on jealousy, lie, and cause damage. 

By Celeste Ng ,

Why should I read it?

16 authors picked Little Fires Everywhere as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The #1 New York Times bestseller!

"Witty, wise, and tender. It's a marvel." -Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train and A Slow Fire Burning

"To say I love this book is an understatement. It's a deep psychological mystery about the power of motherhood, the intensity of teenage love, and the danger of perfection. It moved me to tears." -Reese Witherspoon

From the bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You and Our Missing Hearts comes a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their…


Book cover of I Found You

Nolan Cubero Author Of Shadow Drive

From my list on mystery thrillers about characters with elusive identities.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m still trying to figure out who I am. I’ve made films, I’ve written fiction, I’ve been in a punk band, and now I’m in law school. I’ve bopped around to different interests my whole life and never quite felt like I fit in anywhere, maybe because I grew up a part Puerto Rican kid in Kentucky. I don’t know. All I know is I’ve been a reader all this time, and I think because I’ve always found my own identity elusive, the mysteries and thrillers I gravitate towards are ones with characters that aren’t so easy to pin down.

Nolan's book list on mystery thrillers about characters with elusive identities

Nolan Cubero Why Nolan loves this book

Alice Lake finds a man on the beach outside her house, but when she asks the man who he is, he can’t give her any answers because he says he doesn’t know who he is either. He’s lost his memory and his identification. Alice decides to help the unknown man and invites him into her home.

While Alice tries to help the unknown man figure out who he is, she also can’t help but wonder who she’s let into her home. He seems perfectly harmless, but is he? It reminds me of what I’ve felt in relationships. I’ll like someone, but then I’ll get to know them and start to wonder who they really are. I’ll look at a friend and wonder, where did you come from?

By Lisa Jewell ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked I Found You as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'How long have you been sitting out here?'
'I got here yesterday.'
'Where did you come from?'
'I have no idea.'

Surrey: Lily Monrose has only been married for three weeks. When her new husband fails to come home from work one night she is left stranded in a new country where she knows no one.

East Yorkshire: Alice Lake finds a man on the beach outside her house. He has no name, no jacket, no idea what he is doing there. Against her better judgement she invites him in to her home.

But who is he, and how can…


If you love Lisa Jewell...

Book cover of The Pet-Sit

The Pet-Sit by Carol Moreira,

A decades-old secret. A missing woman. A private investigator with everything to prove.

Newly minted PI Paula Moore takes on her first case: find Marion Taylor, who vanished from Portsmouth, England, years ago. Paula’s search leads her across the ocean to San Francisco—only to discover Marion has changed her name,…

Book cover of None of This is True

Paul Gitsham Author Of The Aftermath

From Paul's 3 favorite reads in 2025.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Paul's 3 favorite reads in 2025

Paul Gitsham Why Paul loves this book

Lisa Jewell is highly respected in the crime writing community, and rightly so. In this book, she expertly combines contemporary issues, multi-layered characters and slightly unreliable narrators to craft a narrative that keeps you guessing and second-guessing throughout.

By Lisa Jewell ,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked None of This is True as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Buy now and prepare to be hooked from the Number One bestselling thriller author . . .

* AN INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER *
* OVER 6,000 FIVE STAR REVIEWS *
* AUDIBLE NO.1 SIX WEEKS IN A ROW *

'Gloriously dark' Lucy Foley
'A moody, slippery novel' Gillian McAllister
'One hundred percent brilliant' Clare Mackintosh
'Shocking and creepy and glorious' Nicola Walker
'Utterly addictive' Claire Douglas
___________

Celebrating her 45th birthday at her local pub, podcaster Alix Summer crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie is also celebrating her 45th.

A few days later, they bump…


Book cover of The Sentence
Book cover of Modern Poetry
Book cover of The Family Upstairs

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