Books Like Verity
Want another dark, twisty read you can't put down? These psychological thrillers share Verity's unreliable narrators, dangerous marriages and secrets hidden in writing.
Jim's Picks
Rebecca
by Daphne du Maurier
Gone Girl
by Gillian Flynn
The Silent Patient
by Alex Michaelides
Sharp Objects
by Gillian Flynn
The Girl on the Train
by Paula Hawkins
In a Dark, Dark Wood
by Ruth Ware
The Woman in the Window
by A.J. Finn
It Ends with Us
by Colleen Hoover
Why Each Pick
- Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
- The classic that Verity echoes most. A young woman marries a wealthy widower and moves into Manderley, where his first wife's presence fills every room and a cold housekeeper watches her every move. Like Lowen in the Crawford house, she is an outsider drawn to a man whose marriage she doesn't understand. It is a slow-building 1938 gothic novel, far less explicit than Hoover.
- Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
- The modern template for Verity's kind of thriller: a marriage seen from both sides, and one partner's writing that changes how you read the other. When Amy Dunne disappears on her fifth anniversary, her husband Nick becomes the suspect while her diary entries tell another story. Flynn is sharper and more satirical about marriage and the media, and the book is longer, at 432 pages.
- The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
- Another woman who can't or won't speak for herself, and a man determined to understand her. Painter Alicia Berenson shoots her husband and never says another word, and psychotherapist Theo Faber takes a job at her psychiatric unit to get her talking. Her diary entries run through the book, much like Verity's manuscript. It is shorter and tightly plotted, with less romance.
- Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
- For readers who found Verity's view of motherhood the most disturbing part. Reporter Camille Preaker returns to her Missouri hometown to cover the murders of two girls and moves back in with her cold, controlling mother. Gillian Flynn's debut is short, at 254 pages, and bleak, with no love story. Content note: Camille's history of self-harm is central to the book.
- The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
- Like Verity, it hands the story to narrators you can't fully trust. Rachel, a heavy drinker, watches a couple's home from her commuter train every day and sees something shocking shortly before the woman disappears. Three women narrate in turn, and Rachel's blackouts keep the truth just out of reach. It is a slower, more domestic suspense novel, set in suburban London.
- In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware
- Another isolated house and another writer in over her head. Crime novelist Nora reluctantly joins a weekend party for a friend she hasn't seen in ten years, held in a glass house deep in the English woods, and wakes up in the hospital unable to remember what happened. Ruth Ware is less explicit and less dark than Hoover, and the cast of old friends makes it closer to a classic whodunit.
- The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn
- For readers who liked doubting what Verity's narrator sees. Anna Fox, an agoraphobic psychologist who drinks too much, spends her days watching her neighbors through her camera and is sure she witnesses a crime across the street. No one believes her. It is a homage to Hitchcock thrillers, built around one unreliable witness rather than a dangerous romance, and runs 449 pages.
- It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover
- Colleen Hoover's best-known novel, for readers who want more of her voice in a different genre. Lily Bloom falls for a charming neurosurgeon in Boston, and the relationship forces her to face what she saw at home as a child. It shares Verity's fast pace and complicated attraction, but it is an emotional romance, not a thriller. Content note: domestic abuse.
What to Read After Verity
For the closest match in mood, try Rebecca, the gothic novel that set the pattern for a newcomer in a house dominated by another woman, or Gone Girl, the thriller that made dangerous marriages a genre of their own. If the manuscript was your favorite part, The Silent Patient also tells part of its story through one woman's private writing.
For a narrator you can't trust, The Girl on the Train and The Woman in the Window both put the story in the hands of women whose drinking and isolation make others doubt them. In a Dark, Dark Wood is the lightest pick, a closed-circle mystery with a writer at its center, and Sharp Objects is the darkest. If you came to Verity as a Colleen Hoover fan, It Ends with Us shows her other side.
How Dark Do You Want to Go?
Verity is one of the most explicit books here, with graphic sex and violence, including harm to children. Sharp Objects comes closest in disturbing content, with self-harm and abuse at its core. Gone Girl and The Silent Patient are violent and twisty but less graphic.
For suspense with less on the page, Rebecca, In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in the Window build dread through atmosphere rather than gore. All eight are best read knowing as little as possible, so skip reviews that discuss the endings.