New Thriller Books of Summer 2023 That Can Cool Off Even the Hottest Beach Day

A slow-burn examination of the ways female friendships can turn toxic, Dirty Laundry delivers these insights with a bite. It’s a thriller and a mystery but is written with emotional heft thanks to Disha Bose’s clear-eyed examinations of the dangers of small-town insularity—in this case, a gossip-filled and cliquey Irish village—and the pitfalls that women fall into when they feel threatened by one another. Each of her protagonists is unhappy and unfulfilled in her own way, but they are more alike than the characters themselves believe.

Bose introduces us to Ciara, the Instagram-famous queen bee of the village, whose unfulfilled home life leads her to act out in cruel and unanticipated ways; Mishti, her best friend, who is dealing with the desperate loneliness of being a recent immigrant stuck in a loveless marriage; and Lauren, the town outcast, who can’t get out of her role as a misfit, even though she’s now a mother of three. All of the women are unhappy in similar ways but act out in distinct ones, and Bose deftly shows the ways that being placed into boxes in the hierarchy of a clique leaves everyone worse off. When the novel’s tension finally builds to its murderous conclusion, it feels both shocking and inevitable.

Out now.

Readers have come to expect a few things from a Liv Constantine novel: women behaving badly, juicy details about the upper class, and lots and lots of twists. This latest novel from the sister writing duo—Liv Constantine is their pen name—is no exception. In it, we meet Sloane Chase, a well-bred philanthropist with a good heart recovering from the shocking death of her beloved husband, Senator Robert Chase.

She, and everyone in her elite Washington, DC, circle, is surprised when she finds love again with her late husband’s friend and fellow senator Whit Montgomery, a striver who has risen to the center of power in Washington. Their new life is blissful with one hiccup: Sloane needs surgery that will leave her reliant on a home health aide for a number of weeks. When the aide—the beautiful, mysterious Athena—arrives, Sloane begins to suspect that Athena isn’t who she says she is and may even have nefarious intentions behind her helpful exterior. You may think you know where this story is headed, but you won’t be able to guess what’s really going on with Athena…and what it means for Sloane.

Out now.

Becoming a mom for the first time is hard enough. How could it get worse? If you also unwittingly become caught up in a murderous scheme straight out of a Hitchcock thriller. That’s what happens to Natalie Fanning in Nora Murphy’s latest, The New Mother. A career woman who is trying to “have it all,” Natalie must get herself out of a wickedly pernicious plot while also dealing with an equally frightening new role: motherhood. Oh, and her baby doesn’t sleep for basically the entire story, leading Natalie to question her sanity and reality.

It’s clear that author Murphy isn’t just trying to entertain. The New Mother is a frothy thriller story with a beating heart: an examination of how difficult adjusting to motherhood can be and the anxieties and challenges of rediscovering yourself after you become a mom. In an author’s note, we learn Natalie’s difficult adjustment to parenthood is based on Murphy’s experience with postpartum depression, giving the story an emotional heft and a clear call to action. Motherhood can be scary, but if moms have the proper support, it doesn’t have to be. For example, if Natalie didn’t have to go back to work shortly after giving birth, maybe she wouldn’t have ended up getting [redacted for spoilers]?! Oh, hey, have you signed Glamour’s Paid Leave Petition yet?

Out now.

Who knew horse girls could be so conniving? Well, Eliza Jane Brazier, who draws on her experiences working as a riding instructor to California’s elite for her spicy new thriller. When Heather Parker, a nouveau riche mom of two teenagers, decides to move her family from dusty Texas to an enormous manor in an exclusive Southern California enclave, she immediately sets her sights on giving her girls the tony childhood she always wanted.

First order of business? Horses—specifically, finding a barn where her daughters, Piper and Maple, can become the ritzy horse girls of her own dreams. But when Heather enrolls her girls at Rancho Santa Fe Equestrian, with its community of “barn moms” where drama and secrets abound, she gets more than she bargained for. The Parkers’ arrival sets off a chain of events in which someone ends up dead and everyone’s a suspect. Brazier imbues her commentary on the elite snobbery of the equestrian community with universal observations of what it’s like to be a young girl trying to fit into an exclusive club and how little changes once these young girls grow up.

Out now

In her 2021 debut, The Push, Ashley Audrain showed off her talent for exposing the raw, ugly parts of motherhood and forcing you to look at them. In her newest novel, The Whispers, she expands upon this thesis: that behind every woman is a complex and sometimes untamable beast simmering just below the surface, fighting against the restrictions that being put into the boxes of “wife” and “mom” can place upon the soul. As in The Push, The Whispers centers around a stunning event that shatters the lives of a family and those around them. Jacob and Whitney Loverly are the pinnacle of upper-middle-class success: three kids, a nice house, and fruitful careers, especially for the hard-charging Whitney. They are the coolest neighbors on the block, inspiring envy and admiration.

But when the couple’s oldest son, Xavier, is hospitalized after a mysterious and tragic accident, everyone on their close-knit street is suddenly forced to reckon with the hard truths they may have been fighting to ignore, and the darkness lurking underneath the surface of their bucolic neighborhood. What actually happened to Xavier, and does Whitney really want people to find out? The novel’s breathless pace and devastatingly poignant observations about the realities of motherhood and womanhood today make every page a gut punch, and the mystery woven in will leave you guessing until the very last page.

Out now.

You’ve never read a thriller like My Murder. With this murder mystery in the style of Kazuo Ishiguro, author Katie Williams imagines a world in the not-so-distant future when humans have developed technology to clone people who have died. The technology also gives the clone the deceased person’s predeath memories, making them a remarkably similar facsimile to the original person. (Though, of course, they are not.) Only the most influential people, or those who suffered the most tragic of deaths, are brought back as clones.

So when a serial killer murders five women in rapid succession in a Michigan town, the victims are deemed worthy of returning to life. The killer’s last victim, Louise, is perhaps the most sympathetic to the public, as she was a young wife and mother to an infant when she was killed. The new Louise remembers everything about her old life, except for the days leading up to her death. As she begins to work through her complicated feelings about her murder and new life, she begins to realize that the story she's been told about her past may not be what it appears. Through Louise’s story, Williams offers deft commentary on the commercialization of true crime, trauma, motherhood, and fame, with the pacing of a breathless thriller. It’s a play on the genre you won’t be able to stop reading.

Out now.

The Quiet Tenant will stay with you long past its final pages. With this thriller that has the sophistication of literary fiction, Michallon pulls off a stunning feat in her debut.

Michallon tells her tale through the eyes of three women who are all connected intimately to the same man. Aidan Thomas is a blue-collar jack-of-all-trades, who is well known and well liked in the small town where he lives. He's also a serial murderer and rapist, and has kept one victim, a woman he calls Rachel, locked in a shed behind his home for the past seven years. Rachel is one of the women who tell Aidan's story, along with his 13-year-old daughter, Cecilia, and Emily, a local bartender who Aidan grows close to once his wife dies of cancer. His wife's death and losing his home also leads Aidan to make a curious choice: to move Rachel into his new home with his daughter, pretending she is a tenant.

Through her novel, Michallon explores how women are victimized by men, how crimes and victimhood is viewed, and what we can really know about those we care about, while also weaving a taut plot full of plenty of twists and turns. You won't be able to put it down, and then you won't be able to stop thinking about it.

Out now.

If you loved the adventures of Mia and Lucia on The White Lotus, then you’ll be immediately sucked into Wendy Heard’s You Can Trust Me, a warped tale of two scamming women who may have pushed their luck a little too far. In this easy, thrilling beach read with a bite, Heard explores the underworld of the 1% through the eyes of Summer, a perpetual drifter who supports her wanderings up and down the California coast by pickpocketing and scheming, and her protégée Leo, who became Summer’s partner in crime after fleeing a tragic past.

When Leo thinks she may have snagged the ultimate big fish, a tech billionaire who seems to be falling for her after they cross paths one night, the women think they may have found their ticket into the big time. But then Leo mysteriously vanishes after a date with the billionaire, and Summer has to rely on her life of street smarts and experience mimicking the lives of California’s elite to figure out where her friend has gone. Though Summer and Leo could easily become caricatures under a less skilled hand, Heard makes them both feel real and casts them as heroines you can root for as they dive into the belly of the beast of the upper class. The fact that most of the action takes place on a private island where nothing is as it appears only adds to the delicious mystery, which will keep you guessing until the final page.

Out now.

Gillian Flynn chose The Centre to be published under her new imprint, Gillian Flynn Books, so you know the surprises and thrills are going to be epic. With a relatable narrator to root for and a chillingly disturbing plot, The Centre is a read that's both entertaining and thought-provoking.

Anisa is a London-based translator of Bollywood films whose goal is to one day translate great works of literature, but her dreams haven't quite panned out as she had hoped. When she meets a man named Adam who can speak a variety of different languages like a native, she is drawn to him for his skills even though their chemistry is lackluster. After they begin dating, Adam reveals the key to his skill: a mysterious language school called The Centre where people are able to achieve fluency in any language in just 10 days.

But what are The Centre's methods, and what are the hiding? You won't be able to guess, or put this one down.

Out now.

A thriller with a side of social commentary, The Long Way Back is a story full of plot points you won’t see coming. Young single mother Charlie never expected to get internet-famous. But when a photo of her shy and unpopular 13-year-old daughter, Eva, unexpectedly goes viral on Instagram, Charlie seizes the opportunity to build a new life for them, creating a “van life” Instagram account that catapults them into social media fame.

Four years later Eva has tired of the bit, and Charlie is struggling to understand where she went wrong. When Eva goes missing, Charlie is forced to examine the underbelly of social media fame and of their nomadic, seemingly carefree lifestyle. You won’t be able to predict the journey Baart is taking you on when you start the novel, and she will keep you guessing about where she is headed until the very end.

Out now.

For the majority of us, the most exciting thing we did during the pandemic was binge-watch a whole series or perfect our island in Animal Crossing. Kelly, the protagonist of Andrea Bartz’s latest thriller, has a very, very different lockdown. After giving up her job and moving across the country to support her fiancé’s career, Kelly is adrift during quarantine.

Her loneliness spurs her to send an Instagram DM to Sabrina, her former high school classmate who has now become a best-selling novelist with an enviable mansion in the DC suburbs and an even more enviable husband, Nathan. When Kelly’s fiancé stuns her by telling her he’s unsure about getting married, she makes the heartbreak-fueled decision to take Sabrina up on her offer to visit. Safe to say Kelly has no idea what the couple have in store for her once she arrives—or what secrets they have buried in their past. A story that is equal parts steamy and thrilling, it will leave you wondering about what the couple’s motives really are, and their real plans for Kelly.

Out now.

Thriller fans have long relied on Riley Sager to craft a thrilling and sinuous plot, and this latest novel is one of his best in years. I thought I'd guessed the twist and was delighted to learn that, while I sort of did, there were many, many more awaiting me.

Kit McDeere is a home health care aide who is struggling after her mother's death and an incident that led to the loss of her reputation in her small, tight-knit Maine hometown. When she gets an assignment to care for the ailing heiress Lenora Hope in her big mansion on a hill, her circumstances mean she doesn't really have a choice but to say yes, even though Lenora allegedly killed her entire family decades earlier. When Kit arrives at the spooky home, Hope's Landing, she finds a chilling set of characters and a mystery that maybe only she can solve: Did Lenora really do it?

Spooky and gothic (plot points involving things like rusty old typewriters abound here), Sager certainly knows how to entertain. If you don't get around to it this summer, it would be a perfect spooky-season read.

Out now.

Motherhood can be draining, and sometimes it feels like your children are literally sucking the life force out of you. In her new novel, Chandler Baker asks: What if they actually were? As in, what if your kids actually sucked your blood?

That's what is happening to the children of the prestigious Little Academy preschool, who have developed a rare disorder that leaves them vampiric, chomping down on their parents. It's a hilariously apt metaphor, but Baker does a deft job weaving this commentary on the all-consuming nature of motherhood with a fun mystery novel.

Because once a beloved Little Academy teacher is found dead on campus, everyone's a suspect. Even, okay, well, especially the blood-sucking children.

Out now.

A fun and entertaining cat-and-mouse novel, How Can I Help You is the perfect book for when you just want to sit back, relax, and read about women behaving badly.

Margo is a small-town library clerk with a devious past. For one, her real name is not Margo, and she used to be a nurse, until her patients just kept ending up dead. Now ensconced in her new identity, Margo has mostly adapted to the drudgery of library life. That is until Patricia, a young failed novelist, takes over the library's long-vacant research job and begins to do her own deep dive into Margo.

You'll fly through the pages as Margo and Patricia play mind games, try to outsmart each other, and ultimately both get what's coming to them.

Out now.

Lisa Jewell is the queen of deliciously unexpected reads, and her latest, already a New York Times bestseller, is one of her darkest and most fun yet.

Josie Fair and Alix Summers were born on the same day at the same hospital, but that is all they have in common. Alix is a successful podcaster with two small children and a large circle of family and friends, while Josie is a loner married to a troubled man with a disturbing past. When the two women meet by chance one night, Josie slowly ingratiates herself into Alix's life until Alix is forced to ask herself who her “birthday twin” really is.

Unreliable narrators, women behaving badly, and shocking secrets abound. In other words, you won't be able to look away.

Out now.

Shari Lapena (The Couple Next Door) has proved herself a master of domestic thrillers, and her latest is no exception. In Everyone Here Is Lying, Lapena turns a mundane slice of suburban life, on one of those streets where everyone knows everyone, into something sinister.

When Avery Wooler, the child of a prominent local doctor, vanishes from her home, it turns out nearly all her neighbors have something to hide. But do any of them know where Avery is? You may think you have it figured out multiple times throughout the story, but the true final twist doesn’t come until the last page.

Out now.

Will Dean is already known for his thrilling and chilling suspense novels, but his new one is more than that. It's certifiably deranged, in the most entertaining and delightful way possible.

Caz is a middle-aged woman who, after a challenging few years, is looking forward to an exciting and romantic cruise vacation with her new boyfriend, Pete. But after just one night on the trip, Caz wakes up in her room to find Pete gone. It's not just him—Caz is completely alone on the trip. Trust me, you have no idea where this is going, and the twists just keep on coming.

It's not just a thrilling plot, though. Dean imbues some biting commentary on our current age of fame in the digital age throughout his book, which parts of seem almost horrifyingly possible. You won't be able to get off this ride.

Out now.

I’m a sucker for any novels involving toxic female friends who are forced back together to reckon with how they fell apart, especially if there is murder involved. So I blazed through Jesse Q. Sutanto’s I’m Not Done With You Yet, the sordid tale of a friendship unlike any I’ve ever read about before. Most of the book is told from the perspective of Jane, a bitter, middling writer who has self-diagnosed herself as a sociopath because she feels so dead inside in her life. Her writing career is barely more than a hobby, her husband makes her skin crawl, and she lives in perpetual resentment of both how he and her mother, a nanny for rich families, have made her feel unimportant and insignificant.

Truly the only time Jane ever felt alive was when she was in a master’s writing program at Oxford University a decade earlier and became friends with a classmate, the dazzling, talented, and beautiful Thalia. The breakup of their friendship after a fracturing incident at school has haunted her ever since. When Jane learns that Thalia has written a novel that she suspects may be about their friendship, and it’s poised to be a bestseller, she becomes obsessed with tracking her down and unraveling the truth about what exactly happened to destroy their friendship. It’s a twisted tale that will find you switching allegiances and who you believe. The person you end up rooting for in the end will surprise you.

Out August 22.