The Lucky One by Jessica Payne is a psych thriller that the reader has to pretty much suspend disbelief in order to truly enjoy.
That’s not to say that there aren’t good parts of it, because there are several.
For one, I liked the uniqueness of Norah’s profession. A female who coaches MMA fighters is pretty badass. It also gives the reader insight into Norah’s toughness. That’s something she has had to develop over the years due to the tragedy in her past.
When she has to return home due to her father’s death, that tragedy rears its ugly head pretty quickly. She is thrust back into a cat-and-mouse game with a killer she once escaped (which is why she is “the lucky one.”)
There are moments of both elements of a psych thriller. The psych comes from the game she plays (mostly via text message) with Hansel (the killer). The thriller part comes from the moments where those around Norah are drawn into their twisted play.
Most of this is believable in the psych thriller realm of “reality.”
However, there are a few moments that almost derail the story. One, there are times that Norah is too trusting. For someone who has a chip on her shoulder and is paranoid, she seems to give a lot of information away very easily.
Secondly, and more unfortunately, there are so many clues as to who Hansel is that it truly seems unbelievable that Norah doesn’t figure it out.
I figure the author means to highlight that there is nothing that makes a person so blind as something that they absolutely do not want to see.
That makes sense in the context of the book, I promise.
At any rate, in spite of those moments, The Lucky One is still a decent psych thriller. I’ll continue to look forward to the next one by Jessica Payne.
Here is another example of a psych thriller that leaves me a little bit confused. The Niece by Georgina Cross has a lot of good going throughout. But then…well, let me try to explain without giving anything away.
As with many psych thrillers, the action starts with a prologue. This one certainly grabs the reader’s attention, as it is intriguing and makes the reader want more. It also sets the tone for the main character, Tara. More on her in a second.
The entire first half of the book (literally until about 45%) recounts the events after the prologue. As Tara and her daughter, Cassie, welcome Hannah into their home, the reader gets a good idea of the challenges facing all of them.
Tara is on edge for several reasons. There is obviously something haunting her, and there are several allusions and passive hints dropped along the way. The reader doesn’t find out why until about halfway through the book. That’s when the author moves to a flashback 13 years prior.
The events of that time are then covered for a few chapters before moving back into the present time. It is an interesting change from the common back and forth, then and now, structure that appears in many a psych thriller.
There are a few red herrings dropped as well. But once the flashback is recounted, the action really takes off, leading to the requisite “oh, that did not just happen” twists.
All that I have mentioned make The Niece a good psych thriller. However, let me address the parts that left me confused.
Tara. I get that the trauma from the past colors her present, especially in light of the events of the prologue. However, there are aspects of the past that do not make the twists (and clues dropped earlier in the book) the true shock that they could have been.
I also felt like Tara was a little bit too uneven. She knows what she needs to do for Hannah, and does it, but then falls apart, but then second guesses some things, but then feels left out…she was a little too unstable for me to feel sorry for her.
The flashback. While it all makes sense in the larger picture, it didn’t do enough to lay the groundwork for the craziness that came next in the present. There could have been more done here.
The twist. This was just bizarre. It literally came out of left field, almost to the point where I wondered if I had missed something along the way. There just weren’t enough hints or clues to make it entirely plausible.
I think it also relied on the reader being able to think deeper about a character’s motivations to connect the dots. Again, a few more hints would have helped this, because most readers don’t pick up a psych thriller to have to think that hard.
The resolution. I didn’t like it. After everything else that occurred, it seemed abrupt and didn’t give certain characters the right attention that they deserved.
All in all, Georgina Cross has written an okay psych thriller in The Niece. It wasn’t my favorite from her, but it did enough to keep me coming back to her books.
Georgina Cross is the author of works of domestic suspense, psychological suspense, and thriller.
Georgina has been writing since she was a child. Notebooks & printed pages filled with stories: adventures growing up in New Orleans and tales from Malaysia & England where her family lives. After graduating from Louisiana State University, she enjoyed a career in marketing & communications and founded Susie’s Wish non-profit which sends patients with life threatening illnesses to the beach. She spends time with her husband and their combined family of four sons watching scary movies and basketball tournaments and is thrilled to be a full-time author.
If you read enough psych thriller novels, you know that the title of a book usually means the exact opposite of what the story will reveal. That is certainly the case in The Perfect Parents by L.G. Davis.
NOTE: This book was previously published in 2021 as The Surrogate’s Gift. So, if anything sounds familiar, that’s probably why.
The main character, Grace, is carrying extreme guilt. That is well-established at the beginning of the story. The reader gets glimpses as to why in flashbacks that are distributed evenly throughout the book.
No spoilers, and no need for details, but it is pretty obvious to see why Grace holds the guilt that causes her to make a decision to help another family.
However, is that family really what they are portraying? Are they really going to be the perfect parents?
The premise of the story is interesting, and the storytelling mostly succeeds. There are plenty of twists. Things you think are happening may or may not be accurate. I pride myself on figuring out twists, and there are a few in The Perfect Parents that took me by surprise.
However, Grace’s behavior is confusing. There are several times that she says one thing and then does the exact opposite. For example, she feels smothered by the attention she is getting from the Thorpes, so she decides she wants a couple of days away.
But then she allows Marcia to make all of the arrangements, including spa time, picking the hotel, etc. I get that it can be due to her exhaustion and her determination to do right by her commitment. But it happens often, and it is jarring.
Additionally, there are a couple of characters who do not seem to add much to the plot. I think one character from the past is supposed to add tension and mystery to Grace’s guilt. But I didn’t make that connection until two days after I finished the story. So, that kind of didn’t work for me.
There are two other characters in the present timeline who only seem to serve as vehicles for another event. There’s nothing much to them otherwise. And the epilogue felt disjointed. But, I will say that I did not connect the prologue with the story initially.
I had to go back and read the prologue again to figure it out. I enjoyed the fact that I was clueless about that.
The Perfect Parents isn’t a perfect psych thriller, but there are enough moments to still make it a good read. Also, check out Liar, Liar by L.G. Davis.
Liz’s story began in a refugee camp in Angola, where she spent the first eight years of her life. After that, she spent some years in Namibia (her home country), South Africa, and Germany. She now lives in Vienna, Austria, with her husband and two children. Liz wrote her first full-length novel at eighteen and hid it in a box under her bed. Several others soon followed it. Her passion lies in writing edge-of-the-seat psychological thrillers that give readers the same rush they would get on a rollercoaster.
The Mother-in-Law by Karen King is the type of psych thriller that has great bones. But in the end, I felt like the potential isn’t quite met.
I still enjoyed the heck out of this book. I’m going to tell you the good before I explain that.
First, it’s a great plot. The reader knows from the first chapter – Dana’s wedding – that it has been a long slog for the bride to get to that point.
Something tragic happens at the wedding. A few hints appear as well. Then we are taken back in time to when Dana first meets Sam.
The author wisely makes their relationship a whirlwind. While fast courtships happen, this one allows the reader to be skeptical of Sam.
Especially when Dana finds out that he is filthy rich. And he still lives at home in a wing of his parent’s house. Yeah, that isn’t a little bit creepy.
It soon becomes apparent to both Dana and the reader that she is out of her league. When “accidents” start to happen, suspicion falls on just about every character.
I will admit that I did not guess the full twist of the book. I did suspect parts of it. But there were times that I had completely the wrong idea. So, kudos to the author for those moments.
Where I got frustrated, however, were the points where Dana would second guess herself – especially after an accident or event. She knows the mother-in-law is manipulative and Dana doesn’t trust her. Except for when she does. It is odd.
Dana also knows she isn’t responsible for the incidents. But “the next day” she always figures she must have been responsible because – what other reason could it be? Even as she suspects that Sam’s mother (her future mother-in-law) has it out for her.
The author has another character who plays a part in Dana’s uncertainty. It is great tension. There are times it just HAS to be her, because of her past with the family. But then that character completely disappears, never to be heard from again.
This is where I think the psych thriller aspect could have been stronger. The development of that character would have been a good addition.
By the time the pieces start to fall into place, it feels like there are plot points that just appear right in the last third of the book. Like “oh, here, this will tie everything together.” The problem is that there isn’t a lot of build to some of them. So, they come out of nowhere.
And that is a problem when they become the crux of the motive and the pivotal part of the story. It is almost like reading two different books.
In spite of all of that, The Mother-in-Law did keep me guessing, so I really like that aspect of it. I also recommend The Perfect Stepmother by Karen King, if you’re looking for another psych thriller. I’ll definitely read more of her books.
Karen King is a multi-published author of both adult and children’s books. Currently published by Bookouture and Headline, Karen writes about the light and dark of relationships.
Karen has also had 120 children’s books, two young adult novels, and several short stories for women’s magazines published. Her thrillers The Perfect Stepmother and The Stranger in my Bed and her romantic novel The Cornish Hotel by the Sea became International Amazon bestsellers.
Karen is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, the Society of Authors, the Crime Writers’ Association and the Society of Women Writers and Journalists. She now lives in Spain where she loves to spend her non-writing time exploring the quaint local towns with her husband, Dave, when she isn’t sunbathing or swimming in the pool, that is.
The Ex-Husband by Samantha Hayes is a solid psych thriller that turned into a much deeper exploration of character than I could have imagined.
I probably need to explain that.
Not to go into too much detail, but I was in the middle of a Crime and Mental Disorders class while I was reading this book. And it just so happens that one of the mental disorders that we examined was sadism.
Now, people tend to think that sadism has to have a sexual aspect to it. Wrong. Everyday sadism describes people who like to torture others (physically, mentally, emotionally) for the sake of the torture. Nothing else.
They just like to make other people miserable through manipulation.
If you read the book, you know that this description fits “The Ex-Husband” perfectly.
So, while the book itself is really good (to that point in a minute) it actually became a perfect case study for the class! How is that for great timing?
It actually added depth to the characters, as I took the opportunity to explore their behaviors from a clinical perspective. I may or may not have even mentioned the book in a discussion post 😉
That’s not to say that you have to go that deep to enjoy The Ex-Husband. It is really a cracking good psych thriller.
You will absolutely squirm at Craig. There were times that I just had to stop reading because he was so disturbing. And you’ll feel for Leah, especially as everything around her starts to crumble, both literally and figuratively.
I thought Gillian could have had a slightly bigger role. And I’m not sure how I feel about Gabe.
Oh, and the author includes one of the most amazing twists in recent memory. I am soooo not going to give it away, but I guarantee that your jaw will drop. I’m not one for overstating things, but I literally gasped out loud and said, “OH, NO WAY!”
Fortunately, my husband is used to this occasionally happening. He just looked at me and said, “That good, huh?”
Yes, The Ex-Husband was that good. Samantha Hayes has written a creepy psych thriller that should be on your TBR!
P.S. I just looked at my review of The Trapped Wife. Apparently, this is a common reaction from me when it comes to this author’s books.
Samantha Hayes grew up in a creative family where her love of writing began as a child. Samantha has written eight thrillers in total, including the bestselling Until You’re Mine. The Independent said “fantastically written and very tense” while Good Housekeeping said “Her believable psychological thrillers are completely gripping.” Samantha’s books are published in 22 languages at the last count.
When not writing, Samantha loves to cook, go to the gym, see friends and drink nice wine. She is also studying for a degree in psychotherapy. She has three grown-up children and lives in Warwickshire.
I have mentioned many times how much I enjoy this author’s work. Although I still think that After the Accident is the highwater mark, this book kept me turning pages.
Which, actually, was a little weird because I never really connected to any of the characters or felt immersed in the story. It was more like I was a fascinated outside observer.
I don’t know why it struck me like that.
Anyway, the author did keep me guessing and wondering who was behind what event and how their motivations may have worked into the situation. In that regard, I didn’t figure much out before it became apparent in the story.
That being said, there were some misses as well..
Some of the red herrings were good, but others seemed thrown in just to create doubt. That’s fine, but I would have liked them to have a little more depth.
For example, take Hope’s ex-boyfriend (Aki) and his new girlfriend Angel. I know why the author set them up in the story, but I think it could have been more fleshed out. A pivotal moment involving Angel, essentially at the climax of the story, almost seemed like more of an aside.
Conversely, I thought that what happened to Stephen would have much more bearing on the story. I also had to suspend disbelief a few times. It seemed very strange that in the course of everything that happened in the past (that trickled into the future) nobody ever thought to really involve the police.
Also, I thought that for all that Hope was hit with, she was WAY too trusting of people. I think I would have been super-cautious about every little thing and every person I came in contact with would be suspect. And the ending seemed very abrupt.
I guess that’s the thing for me with this book. There was a lot of untapped potential in it. I almost felt like this was an earlier book that the author wrote and returned to, because other recent books have been more put together.
I know the review seems like I didn’t like the book, but I did. And it certainly kept me guessing. I just don’t know if it was for the right reasons. Other readers may have a completely different experience with it. You should definitely pick it up and try it.
Kerry Wilkinson is from the English county of Somerset but has spent far too long living in the north. It’s there that he’s picked up possibly made-up regional words like ‘barm’ and ‘ginnel’. He pretends to know what they mean.
He’s also been busy since turning thirty: his Jessica Daniel crime series has sold more than a million copies in the UK; he has written a fantasy-adventure trilogy for young adults; a second crime series featuring private investigator Andrew Hunter and the standalone thriller, Down Among The Dead Men.
This psych thriller was good in many ways, but ultimately didn’t entirely deliver on the build-up. It was still a book that had me turning pages – I read it in one sitting, which is no easy feat these days – and I would definitely recommend it.
I could tell from the beginning (well, and the title) that the house was going to be its own character in the book. It’s a focal point for many reasons.
Carly and Mark have built quite the empire, with their home being a platform for a television show…aptly titled The Forever Home. They renovated the house Carly inherited from her mom and turned it into a business.
Mark is the face of the television show and now travels all over the country to renovate old houses. Well, that’s the cover story anyway.
As Carly finds out at her 25th wedding anniversary party, not everything is as it seems. She’s known for several years what kind of man her husband actually is, but she is fairly blindsided by revelations at the party.
What follows is a harrowing account of what really occurred behind the scenes over the previous 25 years.
The story fully belongs to Carly. It’s from her perspective, with her opinions coloring the entire narrative. This was both impactful and telling. The reader was able to really get into her mind as she justifies both her actions and those of Mark.
And boy, does she spin the justifications.
Ostensibly, it’s because Mark has some big secret on her (that’s not a spoiler – it’s to be assumed that there are good reasons for her to put up with everything). I personally didn’t find that revelation to be as big of a deal as it maybe should have been. I actually expected it to be way worse.
Mark was…interesting. From the descriptions, I kept picturing Paul Hollywood (he’s pretty much the only British Silver Fox I could think of), but I hope my Paul wouldn’t act the way Mark did. He was truly despicable.
There are lies galore, hidden motivations, questionable characters, eerie occurrences, and red herrings…everything that makes a psych thriller great.
I think there is one area where the narrative bogs down and that is in Carly’s justifications and mental narratives. There are long, often repeated sections of Carly explaining why she stayed, why she forgave, why she continued on, why she did just about everything.
It became redundant at times, and I found myself wishing that it was written that way to build to some mind twist. Not so much.
As mentioned, there were a few red herrings, including one character who I was sure was guilty. But then I second guessed myself because it was so obvious.
The big climax isn’t as big as it could have been and was frankly a long time coming. It seemed like there were a lot of hints around it and the groundwork was laid early but then it all happened quickly. But characters do get their just desserts. So, that was good.
Probably the thing I liked most though was Carly’s consistency. Her mantra from beginning to end was that she did everything for her kids. And that certainly is the case. I appreciate that level of consistent messaging even in the face of everything else.
I would recommend the book, especially if you are a fan of descriptive internal monologues (and an evil Paul Hollywood 😊 ).
Sue Watson was a journalist on national magazines and newspapers before becoming a TV producer with the BBC.
Now a USA Today bestselling author, Sue explores the darker side of life, writing psychological thrillers with big twists.
Originally from Manchester, she now lives with her family in leafy Worcestershire where much of her day is spent writing – and procrastinating. Her hobby is eating cake while watching diet and exercise programmes from the sofa, a skill she’s perfected after many years of practice.
Here’s another psych thriller that, while a good read, left me a bit confused.
I understand that a slow build up is often a good way to build tension, especially if the author is laying the groundwork for several twists and turns later in the book.
This one certainly takes a long time for the foundation to become clear. I had a difficult time determining what events were pivotal and which ones were just to move the story along…or were red herrings.
In that regard, the author did a good job of keeping me guessing. I was trying to map out the story, and I didn’t have a good handle on it at all.
Once the author starts using flashbacks for Nicci as a means of explaining her backstory, things started to become clearer. They were never jarring, and the pace of the plot continued to flow.
I will say that Nicola’s past was a surprise. It went much darker than I expected. I suppose that made the events in the present make more sense…to an extent.
In fact, it’s probably safe to say that some readers may have trouble with her past. There certainly was not a lot of good in it.
I thought that she was a sympathetic character for most of the book. It was obvious that someone was gaslighting her for some reason. I had my suspicions from the very first incident (I was right). But I still couldn’t figure out why until the author revealed it late in the book.
At a certain point, I thought the action went a little too incredible to be believed in the midst of the bigger plot. It made Nicola less sympathetic in my eyes, although I do understand why she went to the lengths that she did. They just weren’t entirely believable.
The twists that occurred in the latter half were decent. In fact, by the time I got to them, I had forgotten some of the beginning. It wasn’t until I was reviewing my notes that I realized the author had been dropping hints from the start. Well done on that.
All in all, it was a good read and I would recommend it.
Sam Hepburn read modern languages at Cambridge University and, after a brief spell in advertising, joined the BBC as a General Trainee. She worked as a documentary maker for twenty years and was one of the commissioners for the launch of BBC Four. Since then, she has written several books, including psychological thrillers Gone Before and Her Perfect Life, and novels for young adults and children. She won the 2017 CWA Margery Allingham Short Story award and has been nominated for several other prestigious prizes, including the CILIP Carnegie Medal for her YA thrillers.
Sam has worked and travelled widely in Africa and the Middle East, and is a trustee of the Kenyan’s children’s charity, I Afrika. She now lives in London with her husband and children.
Let me get the bad out of the way first. The story takes a loooong time to get going. There are a lot of random occurrences and character mentions that seem to have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
It’s obvious that the author is laying the groundwork for what is to come, but it takes quite a while to do so. And there are a lot of internal monologues or passages where the character is thinking something. In other words, a lot of thinking and not doing.
That all changes roughly halfway through the book when the pieces start to drop into place. At that point, you can actually see what the author was doing in the first part.
It soon becomes apparent that neither of the two main characters, Dani and Adele, are honest about who they are and how their pasts have influenced the present situation.
The author was clever in allowing the reader to see glimpses into the reality of each character, although sometimes it was so subtle that it was more “blink-and-you’ll-miss-it.”
I actually didn’t care for Dani too much. Her attitude and actions were sometimes irresponsible and frankly annoying. I had to remind myself that she was a very young mother. That was an important point.
I had a difficult time getting a feel for Adele. By the end of the book, it was obvious why that was the case. But in the reading of it, I never really got a grasp for – at least until the author wanted her to be fully understood.
There were plenty of red herrings and twists that were thrown in to distract. In that case, it was much like what was happening to Dani, so that was effective.
And at about 75%, the book really took off with non-stop action. Suffice to say that if you thought you had the main twist figured out, you probably didn’t.
In some regards the book felt unbalanced because the first half was so slow, and the second half sped right along. But in retrospect, the first part is meant to lull the reader and lay the foundation for the good stuff that happens in the second part.
Stick with this one. The payoff is definitely worth it.
Victoria Jenkins lives with her husband and daughter in South Wales, where her series of crime novels featuring Detectives King and Lane is based. Her debut novel The Girls in the Water is an Amazon UK top 30 bestseller, and top 5 bestseller in the Amazon US chart.
Her first psychological thriller, The Divorce, was published in July 2019. The second, The Argument, was published December 10th 2019 and The Accusation was published June 9th 2020. Her latest novel, The Playdate is out now.
On the one hand, I’ve really enjoyed this author in the past (Little Whispers). So, I was looking forward to this one.
Plus, the blurb/tagline certainly drew my attention. I mean, who wouldn’t be hooked by a woman marrying the man who killed her son?
Where I’m a bit confused is how everything was followed to the end. I really don’t want to give anything away, so I’ll try and give a spoiler-free explanation.
The set-up was very clear. The author did a great job of showing the connections between each of the characters (and there were quite a few to keep straight). But it was all well-plotted and I wasn’t confused at all.
There was also a good build up through the first part of the book. While it may seem simplistic to some readers, I thought it was smart.
The first half does not read as a thriller as such. It’s more of a matter of fact “here’s what’s going on and you better pay attention because things are going to get crazy soon” intro that sets the stage for the second half.
And that’s where it kind of fell apart for me. Not entirely, because there were some good twists, but it felt predictable, and I wasn’t really surprised by anything.
I don’t know if there was too much set-up so it seemed anticlimactic, or if there was too much to try to wrap up so nothing got the full attention that maybe it should have? It’s hard to put my finger on it.
I also thought that things that were supposed to be shocking weren’t so very much. I can’t fault the author for that though. We now live in a world where sordid and salacious soundbites are considered “news.”
We’re also programmed to accept any type of family as “realistic” and/or acceptable. While that’s fine, I think it actually took some of the teeth out of the “jaw-dropping twists” of this book.
And that’s as close as I am going to get to a spoiler.
The end seemed to drag, as if the author was trying to reach a page count – this could also be why it seemed like the second half didn’t live up to the first half. It probably would have benefitted from 50 fewer pages or so.
In spite of all of that, I did like the book and pretty much read it in one seating. If you’re looking for a quick read that doesn’t take a lot of brain power and allows you to just go along for the ride, this is a good choice.
For many years, Kim sent her work out to literary agents but never made it off the slush pile. At the age of 40 she went back to Nottingham Trent University and now has an MA in Creative Writing.
Before graduating, she received five offers of representation from London literary agents which was, as Kim says, ‘a fairytale … at the end of a very long road!’
Kim is a full-time writer and lives in Nottingham with her husband, Mac.
