Books like “The Couple Next Door”

What to read after “The Couple Next Door” by Shari Lapena: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
The Last Mrs. Parrish
Liv Constantine · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
An ambitious woman works her way into the life of a rich, seemingly perfect couple, planning to take the wife's place. The household she longs to join has secrets of its own, and neither woman is quite what she pretends to be.
2
The Housemaid
Freida McFadden · 2022
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
A woman with no money and a criminal record takes a live-in job cleaning for a wealthy family. The wife is cruel, the husband is kind, and a locked door upstairs keeps drawing her attention as the household's rules grow stranger.
3
Behind Closed Doors
B. A. Paris · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
A woman marries a charming man and finds their perfect home is a prison he controls. As she learns the rules of her new life and fears for her sister, she starts looking for a way out before the arrangement closes around her.
4
Rock Paper Scissors
Alice Feeney · 2021
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
A couple whose marriage is failing take a weekend trip to a remote chapel in the Scottish countryside. Cut off and cold, they each keep a secret, and the anniversary gift they open is not what either of them expects.
5
Local Woman Missing
Mary Kubica · 2021
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
In a quiet suburb, a young mother vanishes while out running, and weeks later another woman and her six-year-old daughter disappear nearby. Eleven years on, the daughter suddenly returns, and what she brings back unsettles everyone who stayed behind.
6
The Girl on the Train
Paula Hawkins · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
Rachel rides the same commuter train every day and invents stories about a couple she sees from the window, until she learns the woman has vanished. Her memory of the night in question is full of gaps, and she cannot tell how much of what she believes is real.
7
The Woman in the Window
A. J. Finn · 2018
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
Child psychologist Anna Fox lives alone, unable to leave her home, and spends her days watching her neighbours through a camera. When she sees something in the house across the street, no one believes her, and she is left to work out whether the danger is real or in her mind.
8
Then She Was Gone
Lisa Jewell · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
Ten years after her teenage daughter disappeared, a mother learns what happened and tries to rebuild her life. Meeting a new partner and his young daughter, she is unsettled by small resemblances to her lost child, which reopen the case.
9
Final Girls
Riley Sager · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
Ten years after surviving a massacre at a remote cabin in the woods, Quincy has built a quiet life out of pills, baking and careful routine. When another survivor from that group of women dies and a third turns up at her door, the past she cannot fully remember starts to close in again.
10
Before I Go to Sleep
S. J. Watson · 2011
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
Each morning Christine wakes with no memory of her life, and each day her husband explains who she is. When she starts a diary at a doctor's suggestion, she finds entries in her own hand that contradict what he tells her, and that suggest her past holds a crime.
11
The Kind Worth Killing
Peter Swanson · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
On a night flight from London to Boston, Ted tells a stranger that he wishes his cheating wife were dead. Lily calmly offers to help him plan it. As their murder scheme takes shape in Boston, each of the narrators hides a past the others know nothing about.
12
Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn · 2012
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller”
On their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy Dunne disappears from a rented house and her husband Nick becomes the prime suspect. Two narrators tell very different versions of the same marriage.