Here are 100 books that Saving Meghan fans have personally recommended if you like
Saving Meghan.
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I’ve loved biology and medicine since the fifth grade when I learned about white blood cells and their function. For thirty years, I worked in intensive care where adrenaline levels run high. A good thriller does the same. It keeps my heart beating fast and my attention completely focused. Yet also, I’m a mother of three boys, and I’ve always worked in pediatrics and neonatology. I love kids, and I love being a mom. The heart in these books makes them more than simply an adrenaline fix on the page. I find the blend of heart with page-turning intrigue makes for a perfect read.
In my opinion, Robin Cook is the father of the medical thriller, and this is his best.
It’s an old but classic medical thriller, one that I’ve reread numerous times. It’s one that I hold up against all medical thrillers as the gold standard. Good character development, solid plot, and a great twisty ending. It’s dated, but still a solid medical thriller.
The blockbuster bestseller that kickstarted a new genre--the medical thriller--is now available in trade paperback for the first time. They called it "minor surgery," but Nancy Greenly, Sean Berman and a dozen others--all admitted to Boston Memorial Hospital for routine procedures--were victims of the same inexplicable, hideous tragedy on the operating table. They never woke up. Susan Wheeler is a third-year medical student working as a trainee at Boston Memorial Hospital. Two patients during her residency mysteriously go into comas immediately after their operations due to complications from anesthesia. Susan begins to investigate the causes behind both of these alarming…
The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.
On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…
I’ve loved biology and medicine since the fifth grade when I learned about white blood cells and their function. For thirty years, I worked in intensive care where adrenaline levels run high. A good thriller does the same. It keeps my heart beating fast and my attention completely focused. Yet also, I’m a mother of three boys, and I’ve always worked in pediatrics and neonatology. I love kids, and I love being a mom. The heart in these books makes them more than simply an adrenaline fix on the page. I find the blend of heart with page-turning intrigue makes for a perfect read.
I tore through this book in a day and a half because it was such a page-turner. It was right up my alley as a neonatal nurse practitioner with newborns as the central theme. Add kidnapping and a black market to the mix, and it’s a great medical thriller.
The plot was strong, with some great twists at the end. The male authors tried and mostly succeeded in adding some heart to the story by adding scenes of the protagonist returning to her childhood home in West Virginia to see her ailing mother, father, and drug-addicted brother. It’s heavy in plot and a little light in character development, but for James Patterson, that’s what he does best.
In this psychological thriller, a missing patient raises concerns in a New York hospital, but as others start disappearing every dark possibility becomes more and more likely.
To Senior Midwife Lucy Ryuan, pregnancy is not an unusual condition—it's her life's work. But when two kidnappings and a vicious stabbing happen on her watch in a university hospital in Manhattan, her focus abruptly changes. Something has to be done, and Lucy is fearless enough to try.
Rumors begin to swirl, blaming everyone from the Russian Mafia to an underground adoption network. Lucy teams up with a skeptical NYPD detective to solve…
I’ve loved biology and medicine since the fifth grade when I learned about white blood cells and their function. For thirty years, I worked in intensive care where adrenaline levels run high. A good thriller does the same. It keeps my heart beating fast and my attention completely focused. Yet also, I’m a mother of three boys, and I’ve always worked in pediatrics and neonatology. I love kids, and I love being a mom. The heart in these books makes them more than simply an adrenaline fix on the page. I find the blend of heart with page-turning intrigue makes for a perfect read.
An excellent, well-known medical thriller author, Tess Gerritsen, gets it right every time.
This book has the perfect proportion of medicine, suspense, characters, and heart. I love the protagonist, a strong, independent woman who needs nobody, but is vulnerable and has a huge heart. She does the unthinkable by accidentally killing her patient. Gravely affected by her fatal mistake, she nearly quits medicine.
But I love this character and cheer her on! She rises up and fights back. In the end, finding love was the icing on the cake. She is the perfect heroine in a fast-paced thriller, with plenty of human emotion.
For David Ransom, it begins as an open-and-shut case. Malpractice. As attorney for a grieving family, he's determined to hang a negligent doctor. Then Dr. Kate Chesne storms into his office, dating him to seek out the truth -- that she's being framed.
First, it was Kate's career that was in jeopardy. Then, when another body is discovered, David begins to believe her. Suddenly, it's much more. Somewhere in the Honolulu hospital, a killer walks freely among patients and staff. And now David finds himself asking the same questions Kate is desperate to have answered. Who is next? And why?
Jake Sledge, a rugged ex-cop turned private eye, teams up with his colossal partner Bobo to navigate the gritty streets of River City.
A murdered lawyer drags them into a web of political intrigue, neo-Nazi thugs, and bloody showdowns. With sharp wit and hard-hitting action, Jake tackles scumbags the only…
I’ve loved biology and medicine since the fifth grade when I learned about white blood cells and their function. For thirty years, I worked in intensive care where adrenaline levels run high. A good thriller does the same. It keeps my heart beating fast and my attention completely focused. Yet also, I’m a mother of three boys, and I’ve always worked in pediatrics and neonatology. I love kids, and I love being a mom. The heart in these books makes them more than simply an adrenaline fix on the page. I find the blend of heart with page-turning intrigue makes for a perfect read.
I chose this book because it’s another one written for a female audience, in a big way–the author is female, the protagonist is female, the president of the United States in the story is a woman, and the greatest little detail I fully appreciate is when a man serves the coffee to a room full of important people, including the protagonist.
Another book with a great balance of medicine, intrigue, life and death urgency, and best of all, characters I could appreciate and root for.
The President's only child is dying. Terrorists claim to have the cure. When a private plane whisks CDC epidemiologist Madeline Hamilton to Washington D.C. for an urgent medical symposium, she knows something significant is underway—but she doesn't expect to face the most disturbing medical mystery of her career. A debilitating neurological toxin has stricken the children of several political families, and one of them is the son of U.S. President Anna Moreland.
With the lives of children on the line, Madeline assembles a team of medical experts. The investigation takes a horrifying turn when she starts receiving communications from the…
Female warriors add more depth to the action/thriller genre and make any character infinitely more interesting. I’ve read and watched enough Jacks, Johns, and Jakes to last a lifetime and I want some Janes in my reading life. I’ve been an avid reader for more than 40 years and always felt that there was a blank space when it comes to female protagonists. Many of my favorite female characters were relegated to supporting roles including some on my list, but when I find a great female character I end up reading her again and again. And if you haven’t seen it yet, watch Lioness on Amazon, it will leave you breathless!
When it comes to Constance Greene, I hardly know where to begin.
She’s certainly the oldest and most deadly character in fiction writing today. I say she’s the oldest because she’s trapped in the body of a thirty-something-year-old woman even though she was born in 1873, long story.
She appears as a supporting character in multiple novels, as the love interest of Detective Aloysius Pendergast, but she is so much more than that. She’s eloquent, brilliant, and does not succumb to emotional distress under any threat of death.
In Blue Labyrinth, eight highly trained mercenaries pursue her and none of them live to tell the tale. At her most ruthless, she can kill with any tool at her disposal and she is loyal to the man she loves.
When a longtime enemy shows up dead on Pendergast's doorstep, the murder investigation leads him into his own dark past as a vengeful killer waits in the shadows.
It begins with murder. One of Pendergast's most implacable, most feared enemies is found on his doorstep, dead. Pendergast has no idea who is responsible for the killing, or why the body was brought to his home. The mystery has all the hallmarks of the perfect crime, save for an enigmatic clue: a piece of turquoise lodged in the stomach of the deceased.
The first time I learned that I was raised by a “bad” mother was when I was in the first grade. The teachers complained that my mother hadn’t shown up for parent-teacher conferences and never could get me to school on time. But I knew what they did not, that my mother worked a lot and was raising kids all her own and yet still had time to take us to the library to read books that were well beyond the ones at school. Because of my highly iterant life raised by a bookish and neglectful mother, I have always been interested in the relationship between children and their less-than-perfect mothers.
The Son of Good Fortune (Excel) has an outrageous single mother who defies societal expectations. Maxima, a former B-movie action star in the Philippines, runs an online scam siphoning money from men.
She dominates the book with her humor and zest for life, even as she is forced to live in the margins as an undocumented immigrant, raising a child all on her own.
This is a funny and smart and poignant book. I loved the mother in this book and felt for her son, Excel, deeply.
A Recommended Book From: USA Today * The Chicago Tribune * Book Riot * Refinery 29 * InStyle * The Minneapolis Star-Tribune * Publishers Weekly * Baltimore Outloud * Omnivoracious * Lambda Literary * Goodreads * Lit Hub * The Millions
FINALIST FOR THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE WINNER OF THE NEW AMERICAN VOICES AWARD
From award-winning author Lysley Tenorio, comes a big hearted debut novel following an undocumented Filipino son as he navigates his relationship with his mother, an uncertain future, and the place he calls home
Excel spends his days trying to seem like an unremarkable American teenager.…
Caroline Herschel has always lived in the shadows. Beholden to her wildly popular older brother, William, who rescued her from servitude, she's worked hard to build a life for herself – one where she can go unnoticed and repay the debt she believes she owes him. But when her brother…
As a doctor, writer, and mother of middle schoolers, I was ready to scintillate the sixth-graders when I volunteered for the chicken wing dissection class, demonstrating the exciting connection between muscles, tendons, and bones. I opened and closed the wing, placed it in their hands, and showed them the thin strips of tissue coordinating all the action. Did I see fascination? Excitement? Feigned interest of any sort? Sadly, no. They were much more enthusiastic about a different topic I volunteered for. Mythology. Greek gods. Beasts with multiple heads. They knew everything, and I knew books like Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief series were the reason. Books can entertain and educate.
Another great series from Rick Riordan. Set somewhat in the real world, a brother and a sister who don’t look alike discover they are descended from long line of a family of both Egyptian pharaohs and magicians. They have special talents to battle gods from Egyptian mythology and must save their father and the world.
Again, so much history and mythology packed into an exciting adventure story. Our whole family loved it.
The Red Pyramid: the first book in Rick Riordan's The Kane Chronicles.
Percy Jackson fought Greek Gods. Now the Gods of Egypt are waking in the modern world...
'I GUESS IT STARTED THE NIGHT OUR DAD BLEW UP THE BRITISH MUSEUM . . .'
CARTER AND SADIE KANE'S dad is a brilliant Egyptologist with a secret plan that goes horribly wrong. An explosion shatters the ancient Rosetta stone and unleashes Set, the evil god of chaos . . .
Set imprisons Dr Kane in a golden coffin and Carter and Sadie must run for their lives. To save their dad,…
I started reading crime fiction when I was a very young child. My granny introduced me to mysteries through authors like Tony Hillerman, who wrote books set in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest. That early introduction into mysteries set in small towns and rural areas stuck. My books also focus on smaller towns and rural areas, which I love to visit through fiction or in real life. I have often made my home in a small town and work as a crime fiction author and a developmental editor, so I have an eye for both solid mysteries and life in a rural community.
I love the way the author brings protagonist Shana Merchant's past into her present situation.
I always enjoy books that layer in family history and events from a character’s background to show how they were formed by their experiences. I also love a solid police procedural that shows off a talented detective doing what she does best.
The rural environment made the story even tenser for me as Detective Merchant finds herself back in her small hometown. I am a big fan of this series.
Senior Investigator Shana Merchant has spent years running from her past. But she never imagined a murder case would drive her to the most dangerous place of all—home.
After leaving the NYPD following her abduction by serial killer Blake Bram, Shana Merchant hoped for a fresh start in the Thousand Islands of Upstate New York. Her former tormentor has other plans. Shana and Bram share more than just a hometown, and he won’t let her forget it. When the decades-old skeleton of Shana's estranged uncle is uncovered, Bram issues a challenge: Return home to Vermont and solve the cold case,…
I inhabit the past. You may find me lurking in my four-hundred-year-old Devon cottage, or spot me thinly disguised as the formidable Mistress Agnes, a good wife of a certain age who leads a somewhat chaotic life during the mid-seventeenth century. I write, I read, I research, I share my passion, I write some more. My life revolves around reading, writing and researching history. Having spent the past forty-five years unravelling my own family’s story and loving both historical and crime novels, what could be better than a book that combines all these elements. I have to say that if genealogy was as dangerous a career as some of these books imply, no one would be advised to take it up!
When Esme Quentin’s sister, Elizabeth, is assaulted, Esme discovers that her sister has a secret. Who is the elderly, Mrs Roberts and what is her connection to Elizabeth? Esme’s attempt to unravels the sixty-year-old family mystery becomes a hazardous mission and she has to reassess her perception of blood ties.
A desperate crime, kept secret for 60 years...but time has a way of exposing the truth...Esme Quentin is devastated when her sister Elizabeth is beaten unconscious, miles from her home. Two days later Esme discovers that Elizabeth has a secret past. Desperate for answers which the comatose Elizabeth cannot give, Esme enlists the help of her friend Lucy to search for the truth, unaware of the dangerous path she is treading. Together they unravel a tangle of bitterness, blackmail and dubious inheritance, and as the harrowing story is finally revealed, Esme stumbles upon evidence of a pitiful crime. Realising too…
Rodney Bradford comes into Lindsay's restaurant, offers to buy her small house for double its value, eats her brownies, and drops dead on the sidewalk in front. Next, her almost-ex-husband offers to sign the divorce papers, but only if she'll give him her small,…
I’ve been fascinated by how people behave and how in-group bias can change who they are. That interest led me into computational sociology (I study human behavior for a living), with my work appearing in The New York Times, USA Today, WIRED, and more. But my deepest fascination has always been with people’s propensity for the horrific. I LOVE the liminal space where fear, secrecy, and belonging collide. Being neurodivergent, living in a small Virginia town with my wife and our neurodivergent, queer son, I see how communities can both shelter and suffocate. That tension is why I’m drawn to stories saturated in dread, beauty, and what lives in the shadows.
I love this book because it made me laugh when I least expected it.
The wit is so sharp it almost feels like a weapon against the darkness creeping in at the edges. I remember grinning at one line and then, two pages later, feeling the walls closing in.
That balance of humor and horror made me feel like the story was written for someone like me, someone who finds the grotesque easier to face when it comes with a crooked smile.
From the Nebula and Hugo award-winning author of The Twisted Ones, comes What Moves the Dead, a gripping and atmospheric retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's classic "The Fall of the House of Usher."
When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.
What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her…
