AIBU to have had a gut full of "psychological thrillers"

Yes I've really enjoyed Ruth ware too.
Agree with a pp about Sophie hannah. Her first few books were novel and different. Now it feels like she's trying to out-Sophie hannah herself and they're getting more and more silly.

Oh! I totally agree about the ones where they go off to a cottage in the country and start up a tea room or a cake shop or whatever thereby suddenly solving all their financial and romantic problems with one stroke. So dull! And so unbelievable!

I loved A Game for All the Family!! Thought that was her best one - also liked Did you see Melody? (Or something like that), and Haven’t they Grown, and Little Face was ok and the new Poirot boooks Sophie Hannah has written also ok but haven’t enjoyed her others that much weirdly.

I do enjoy these psychological domestic noir thriller kind of books to be honest but I agree they can get a bit same-y so they need to be well plotted and written - my favourite authors in this vein are Louise Candlish, Ruth Ware, Rachel Abbott, Cass Green, JP Delaney, and Tammy/Tamar Cohen.

I used to enjoy Sophie Hannah but she went slowly downhill and when I read A Game for all the Family, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Another thriller writer bites the dust for me.

I've got into a time travel kick.

I've read this series, very readable, say something about life and there are lots of them.

I read two of the genre last year and it’s put me off for life.

One was about a couple in a house where the woman was being watched and the landlord insisted they kept the house tidy or they will be evicted. The second about a woman who lands a job in a funny house with an office in the basement and something about her father. Huge plot holes, nothing makes sense, ridiculous twists.

Honestly, such drivel and it seems all that’s published is along the same lines.

@BrozTito possible in America because random stores are selected each week which are "sampled" and the bestseller list compiled from extrapolating those. Not possible to get a Sunday times position from the same because we have Total Consumer Market, which is all sales in all stores and it's checked.

One self published author gamed their way onto the hardbacks once by buying a thousand of his own hardbacks and giving them away 🙄 but it got revoked. Not possible with the paperback sunday times bestsellers are the numbers are too high and they come from many places - mostly supermarkets, but also then amazon (print) and Waterstones.

I do quite like the genre but many of them all merge into one. I still enjoy Lisa Jewell and Louise Candlish (although I think she peaked with Our House). I liked the Richard Osman but I had the audio book and Lesley Manville was a brilliant narrator. I used to like Dorothy Koomson but haven't read anything recent. Some good suggestions here for authors I haven't tried - thanks!

Now I think about it I also find the ‘cottage core’ genre really annoying - usually set in Cornwall, where a woman has gone to ‘escape her past’ by going to work as a nanny for the local landowner, falls in love with hunky gardener and buys a beautiful thatched cottage despite not having a pot to piss in 3 months prior, etc. Lots of talk of ‘moody seas’, ‘whispering heather’ and ‘the smell of fresh coffee on sea air’.

www.thecut.com/2019/11/did-donald-trump-jr-con-his-way-onto-the-best-seller-list.html

Whats that e reader thing, stealth? Could do with that as a fan of Russian classics

Laughed out loud reading this thread.

Same problem with tv.

I was trying to find a new series to watch the other day, literally everything was either a ghoulish informative murder documentary or a polished, American thriller, Dirty John style.

I wonder what’s driving this appetite for crime entertainment?

Another one largely bored by this genre, or what I’ve read in it recently.

Same re unreliable narrators, I felt that The Last House on Needless Street stretched this too far for me by a long way. I was really irritated by it!

I did enjoy Thursday Murder Club, it was far fetched nonsense in many ways but I found it really comforting as I imagined Art Malik, Helen Mirren and Imelda Staunton in various roles!

I just read a Belinda Bauer and loved it. It started out with such a different idea. not a woman murdered, but the wrong old man ''assisted to his death'' by unwitting set up murderers. Then it ended with a 95 year old man watching the two young 75 year olds who didn't realise they were falling in love yet help him fulfil his last wish. ''oh to be 75 again!'' he thought.

I also read rubbernecker by BB and loved it. Must check out her others.

I can't resist posting on this thread (on which I am named) just to say, authors do not get paid to blurb other authors and you totally cannot but your way into the Sunday times top ten

I started a thread about my irritation witj multiple narrators and was ticked off!
I still hold out hope when I se a new thriller with a house on the cover. But I suspect I've been recently disappointed.

And thrillers with houses on the front cover.

Can I add an unreliable narrator. Or even worse multiple unreliable narrators using multiple timelines. Particularly when no indication is given where specific chapters are on the timeline.

Maybe I'm stupid, but I recently read a book where two of the narrators were actually the same person, describing events 12 years apart, and I didn't twig until the last chapter when it was made explicit. As far as I can remember, there were no hints given that this was the case. But then again, so many of these books are so pedestrian they're not worth the effort of really thinking about them.

Someone mentioned Belinda Bauer. Love her.

Yes. There have been more than enough Girls on Trains and Women in Windows.

I do hate books that have so many people though. The e reader thing is brilliant as you can search to see who Sara is, who was mentioned on page 4 and has turned out to be the bad guy
... Or has she?

Rosamund Lupton was brilliant
And I love everything by tana french

Do you think big sagas will be a thing again? Or have the modern population lost the desire to try to remember who everyone is!
Would love to hear what everyone would LIKE to read next. A book like...