Tag: Set in England

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That Night by Gillian McAllister: A gripping family thriller built on impossible choices

Mandy Webster

Gillian McAllister’s That Night is a twist-filled psychological thriller that explores family loyalty, buried secrets, and the impossible choices that follow a split-second decision. Three siblings. One terrible mistake. One secret that refuses to stay buried.

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When Frannie calls her brother Joe and sister Cathy from a family vacation in Italy, she has only one thing to say: she needs help. She has struck a man with her car, and he’s dead. Together, the siblings make a split-second decision that will define the rest of their lives—they bury the body and swear never to tell another soul.

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Queen Mab by Emily McBride: When motherhood becomes a fairy tale nightmare

Mandy Webster

What if the greatest horror isn’t that you’ve lost your mind—but that you’re the only one seeing the truth? Emily McBride’s Queen Mab follows twenty-three-year-old graduate student Madeleine, whose carefully planned future is upended after a traumatic childbirth ends in an emergency C-section. Instead of bonding with her newborn daughter, Maud, Madeleine becomes convinced that the baby has been stolen by the faeries and replaced with a changeling. As her husband, parents, and medical professionals dismiss her growing fears, Madeleine desperately searches folklore and literature for a way to bring her real child home.

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This is now the third novel I’ve read in recent weeks that explores the aftermath of traumatic childbirth, and I’m definitely noticing a trend. The other two were Good Morning Means I Love You by Kendra Allen and With Friends Like You by Amy Chozick. These are three very different novels examining the same important subject from very different perspectives, and I love seeing contemporary fiction finally giving serious attention to what can happen after childbirth instead of treating birth as the tidy ending to a woman’s story.

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I Made You Up Inside My Head by Marta Pérez-Carbonell: A thoughtful novel about storytelling and truth

Mandy Webster

Some novels build their tension through action. Others build it through conversation. I Made You Up Inside My Head by Marta Pérez-Carbonell belongs firmly in the latter category, using a single overnight train journey to explore storytelling, memory, and the ethical boundaries between lived experience and fiction. While readers looking for a plot-heavy novel may find it slow, those interested in questions about narrative itself will discover plenty to think about.

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At first glance, almost nothing happens. A translator named Alicia boards an overnight train from London to Edinburgh and shares a compartment with Terry, a professor whose latest novel has become the center of controversy, and Bo, Terry’s graduate student. During the long journey, the three exchange stories from their lives over food and drinks, gradually revealing old betrayals, painful memories, and uncomfortable truths.

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Mr. and Mrs. Dixon Hide a Body: A wickedly funny thriller about the real corpse in the marriage

Mandy Webster

There are plenty of thrillers about hiding a body, but far fewer recognize that the real danger isn’t the corpse—it’s the person helping you bury it. Jennifer Holdich’s Mr. and Mrs. Dixon Hide a Body delivers exactly that kind of deliciously dark premise, blending domestic suspense with offbeat humor and an increasingly chaotic battle between two spouses who would each happily see the other behind bars.

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The novel follows Daisy Dixon, a woman trapped in a twenty-year marriage to the controlling and deeply unpleasant James Dixon. Their once-grand manor house is literally falling apart, and so is Daisy’s life. She has finally decided to leave him when an accident changes everything. After Daisy injures a man, her first instinct is to call an ambulance. James, however, convinces her to bring the injured stranger home instead, insisting they can care for him themselves until he’s well enough to leave. Predictably, that plan goes spectacularly wrong.

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Unreliable Narrator by Araminta Hall: A literary thriller about the stories we tell ourselves

Mandy Webster

What if the story that ruined your life wasn’t the one that actually happened? Araminta Hall’s Unreliable Narrator begins with the promise of a psychological thriller, but what unfolds is something even more interesting: a deeply literary examination of memory, guilt, identity, and the stories people construct to survive. While there are certainly moments of suspense, readers looking for a fast-paced thriller may find themselves surprised by the novel’s quieter, more introspective approach. Personally, I think that’s exactly where the book shines.

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Ten years after the violent end to a summer spent working as assistant to celebrated novelist Ambrose “Rosie” Glencourt at the isolated Shadowlands estate, Hope Jenkins has resigned herself to a lonely existence. Convinced she deserves the life she’s living, she numbs herself with alcohol and isolation—until she discovers that Rosie’s bestselling novel is, in essence, her own life story. Not only has he exposed the darkest secret she’s carried for a decade, but he’s profited from it and is preparing to tell the story all over again. From there, Hall explores not simply what happened at Shadowlands, but how everyone involved has rewritten the past to suit themselves.

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Queenie Is Working on It by Candice Carty-Williams: Growing older doesn’t always mean growing up

Mandy Webster

Some characters are easy to love even when they’re making terrible decisions. Queenie Jenkins has always been one of those characters. But while I adored watching her stumble through her twenties in Queenie, I found myself sharing her friends’ frustration in Queenie Is Working on It, Candice Carty-Williams’ highly anticipated sequel releasing July 2, 2026.

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Nearly ten years after readers first met her, Queenie is thirty-three and appears to have her life together. She’s the editorial director of a successful media network dedicated to amplifying Black women’s voices, she’s completed years of therapy, and she’s spent time intentionally stepping away from dating while she worked on herself. Compared to the woman readers met in Queenie, she’s come a long way. Or at least that’s what it looks like on the surface.

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Honey by Imani Thompson: A sharp, unsettling debut that turns rage into something intoxicating

Mandy Webster

There’s a moment early in Honey by Imani Thompson—out May 5, 2026—when a tiny, impulsive act spirals into something irreversible, and from that point on, the novel never loosens its grip. This is a dark, provocative debut that knows exactly what it’s doing, luring you in with something almost playful before revealing just how far it’s willing to go.

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Just like its title, this book is delicious. Yrsa’s first kill is so sweet in its construction—unplanned, quick, and disturbingly easy. What makes it even more compelling is that it’s not really the act itself that kills the man, but her decision not to intervene once things go wrong. It’s petty. It’s spiteful. And it’s chilling in the way Yrsa immediately recognizes the opportunity in front of her and simply… lets it happen. That moment sets the tone for everything that follows.

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Five by Ilona Bannister: A tense moral experiment that puts the reader on trial

Mandy Webster

There’s something quietly unsettling about the opening premise of Five by Ilona Bannister—five strangers on a train platform, one of whom will be dead in minutes—and the novel wastes no time making you complicit in that outcome. From the first pages, you’re not just observing these characters; you’re weighing them.

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Set against the ticking clock of an approaching train, the novel stretches a matter of minutes across its entire length. It’s an ambitious structural choice, and at times, a challenging one. Bannister intersperses the present-moment tension with flashback chapters that unpack each character’s history—the struggling gambler, the abrasive elderly woman, the overwhelmed mother and her volatile child, the polished yet fractured businessman. These glimpses into their lives are essential to the book’s central question: who deserves to live?

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Dark is When the Devil Comes by Daisy Pearce: A chilling, slow-burn horror that burrows under your skin

Mandy Webster

I knew exactly what I was getting into when I picked up Dark Is When the Devil Comes by Daisy Pearce—or at least I thought I did. After how deeply Something in the Walls unsettled me (to the point that I had to stop reading it before bed), I expected dread. I expected unease. What I didn’t expect was just how suffocating this story would feel once it took hold.

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Set in the English countryside, the novel follows Hazel, who returns to her hometown of Idless after a traumatic divorce, intending to quietly rebuild her life. But when she fails to reconnect with her sister Cathy as planned, concern quickly turns into something darker. The town whispers. The woods loom. And the sense that something has gone very, very wrong settles in almost immediately.

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Harmless Women by Rebecca Sharpe: A twisty thriller with a rebellious Thelma & Louise vibe

Mandy Webster

What happens when a professional con artist finishes a job—only to walk straight into a murder scene that turns everything upside down? Harmless Women by Rebecca Sharpe, releasing April 7, 2026, is a fast-paced thriller built around a clever premise. Avalon Dale is a skilled grifter who targets wealthy victims, sedates them, drains their bank accounts, and alters their appearance so they can’t easily prove who they are when they wake up. Her latest victim is Primrose Meath, a wealthy workaholic whose chaotic personal life makes her seem like an ideal target.

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By the time the story really kicks into gear, Avalon has already completed most of the job. She returns to Prim’s house to tie up loose ends and instead finds Prim’s cheating husband dead. The situation quickly spirals when a witness reports seeing a suspicious bald woman at the house, suggesting Prim may have been kidnapped. As the investigation unfolds, however, the police begin to suspect that Prim may have been involved in the scheme all along.

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