Books like In My Dreams I Hold a Knife — picked by fans

There’s nothing better than a little gossip, especially when it’s about grown, mostly rich women, who enjoy knowing everything about everyone else but will do anything to protect their own secrets.

Big Little Lies lets the reader peek into the lives of a group of women and how their beliefs and actions are interwoven. Every action has a reaction, and consequences are very real, yet there is a fierce loyalty that drives the women to protect one another.

It’s not entirely clear who is “good” and who is “bad,” which makes it fun to play along and watch alliances shift or strengthen. You’re also not entirely certain what has happened, which I like because I usually always guess the ending!

I’ve always been fascinated by strange social enclaves and secretive, sealed-off, private worlds, and this book has both.

But in fact, the thing I admire most here is the sense of place and atmosphere. Tartt writes with a lush, immersive style which I found is increasingly compelling as the book went on.

Using a murder as the gateway drug to what’s really a literary fiction character study is both sneaky and brilliant: I was hooked by the story in the first chapter, but once I’d finished the book, it was Richard’s voice, those eerie characters, their strange insular co-dependency, and the biting Vermont winter landscape that really stayed with me.

I read this as a teenager, just as I was diving into the horror genre. I already knew at this point that I wanted to be a storyteller. What struck me while reading It was the jumping back and forth between time periods.

I had never read a book structured that way, and it seemed that every chapter ended on a cliffhanger, forcing me to keep reading. There aren’t many books that I would say I had a hard time putting down (I get bored easily), but It was certainly one of them!

Everyone needs a little camp in their lives. This book is about the “OG” group of friends who get entangled in a hush-hush death and are hunted and haunted (literally!) by the secret. It even inspired an equally campy and fun-filled movie starring young Hollywood stars from the ’90s!

We literary types often forget that books are meant to entertain. I love being transported to an absurd world with high drama, rollercoaster twists and turns, and a central mystery so far out there that you’ll roll your eyes, laugh, and keep turning those pages with abandon.

I had never been to The Cloisters here in Manhattan after many decades of living here, but I read Katy Hays's book, and had to visit it afterward. Hays’ book was a great pre-cursor to the trip to the Museum of Medieval and Early Renaissance Art.

I kept in mind the world of the fictional underdog, Anne Sitwell, who worked her way up to know there were secrets in the vault at the Cloisters. A Tarot Deck, possibly from the d’Este family in Italy, sets the stage for skullduggery while secrets and murders mount, leading to a plot twist at the end for our hapless Anne. It was interesting talking to the docent at the museum after I took a garden tour, and to spot a copy of this book for sale in the gift shop there.

I love a Dark Academia book that knows the world of academia intimately, and this thriller, which focuses on controversial Greek life at the University of Georgia, gets everything right.

Competition between students, peer pressure, department intrigues, and more come alive in this brilliant debut. This comes as no surprise, as Nossett, in addition to being an amazing writer, is herself a professor, and holds a PhD in German literature.

In addition to being a total page-turner, this enthralling novel highlights contemporary issues faced on college campuses, with an emphasis on ethical debates surrounding fraternities and sororities. Nossett’s characterization is excellent, and her determined, whip-smart, and yet imperfect protagonist, Detective Marlitt Kaplan, is one I rooted for, and you will, too.

I love how Megan Abbott combines beautiful writing with deeply chilling subject matter in all of her novels. In this book, she showcases her talent for exploring female ambition, friendship, and rage—that leads to murder.

As a teenager, Diane Fleming’s twisted relationship with both her parents and her drive to succeed is counterbalanced by her yearning for intimacy with her best friend, Kit Owens, the first-person narrator of the novel.

However, when Diane divulges her terrible secret, the aftereffects ripple in Kit’s life. As young women working together in the same science lab, the past catches up with both of them—in the bloodiest ways—binding them closer together. This is a page-turner that focuses on brilliant, passionate, troubled women.

The Dentist features a great plot and a uniquely different main character.

The main character, DS George Cross, is socially awkward and frequently comes across as rude in his interaction with people, including colleagues. Nonetheless, his unfailing logic and dogged pursuit of leads others ignore make him a compelling protagonist. This police procedural keeps the reader guessing whether George’s single-mindedness is indicative of his autism spectrum diagnosis or inspired genius. His consistent logical approach to investigating leads brooks no deviation just because important figures might get snared. The Dentist is a great start to a promising crime thriller series.

This one is truly unique. It’s a true crime story operating under the guise of a horror story that is really neither. Instead, it grapples with teenage alienation and the way stories transform the truth, while offering an insightful meditation on empathy. Darnielle is one of the most unique and stylistically adventurous writers we have. And this may be his best.

An excellent nonfiction account of an actual Hollywood killing, this is a well-written and researched investigation of the (as yet) unsolved 1922 shooting of director William Desmond Taylor. The murder was committed right when scandals, including Fatty Arbuckle’s, besieged an ascendant Hollywood.

Also of interest: A Murder in Hollywood by Casey Sherman, which recaps the killing of Johnny Stompanato, Lana Turner’s gangster boyfriend, supposedly by her teenage daughter, Cheryl. This crime inspired entertainment from Harold Robbin’s potboiler, Where Love Has Gone, to Woody Allen’s self-serious movie, September.