15 Books Like Silent Patient

Alex Michaelides’ psychological thriller, The Silent Patient, was published in 2019 and was an instant success. With an original plot, complex characters, and a mysterious main character, the novel is everything a mystery-seeking bookworm could want. In the wake of the book’s success, readers are looking for their next favorite book.

There are fifteen books like The Silent Patient, including The Guest List, Verity, The Woman In The Window, Then She Was Gone, Sharp Objects, and many others. They are categorized under the same genre types like mystery, thriller, crime, and suspense novels.

So, if you can’t get enough of the intrigue and excitement that this crime novel brings, our list of the best 15 books like The Silent Patient will keep you gripped from start to finish. Our recommendations are based on everything we loved about the original book. So sit back, relax, and indulge yourself in the mystery of our go-to reads.

1. The Guest List

• Author: Lucy Foley
• Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Crime
• Published: 2020
• Awards: 2020 Amazon Editors’ Picks – Mysteries & Thrillers

2020 Book Club Picks – Hello Sunshine (Reese’s Book Picks)

2020 Library Journal – Starred Review

2020 LibraryReads – Starred Review

2020 Goodreads Choice Award Winner – Mystery & Thriller

It’s the wedding of the century for the friends and family of the happy and well-known couple. The groom – an up-and-coming actor with a smile that makes women swoon – and his blushing bride – an intelligent magazine publisher with big dreams – are getting ready for their happily ever after.

Just off of the coast of Ireland on a picturesque island, the guests are buzzing excitedly, and the beautiful couple couldn’t be more ecstatic.

But after the festivities begin, there’s something other than marital bliss on the horizon. While the groomsmen are playing with fire with an old-school drinking game, and the bride’s oldest friend gives an awkward and overly romantic toast, there’s nothing more that could go wrong. Is there?

When a dead body is found on the island with little way to call for help, the wedding guests must ask themselves one question: Who didn’t want the young couple to have their fairytale wedding?

2. Verity

• Author: Colleen Hoover
• Genre: Mystery Thriller, Romance, Suspense
• Published: 2018
• Awards: Amazon Top 100 Bestseller

Struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh is at an all-time low. With no money, no boyfriend, and no way for her to pay her bills, she’s nothing short of desperate.

So when the most incredible writing opportunity of her life falls right into her lap, she has no choice but to take the job. After all, how could she deny the charming Jeremy Crawford?

Husband to bestselling writer Verity Crawford, the alluring and totally off-limits Jeremy tasks Lowen with completing the series that his wife was working on before a tragic accident left her unable to write.

After temporarily moving into the Crawford home to sort through Verity’s home office, Lowen discovers something that Verity would have rather kept hidden. Now Jeremy and his young son are in danger, and so is Lowen.

With manuscripts full of secrets, and things going bump in the night in the Crawford mansion, Lowen is running out of time to escape and save not only herself but Verity’s oblivious husband, too.

But convincing Jeremy to see the truth of the terrifying and chilling things going on within the walls of his grand home is proving more and more difficult for the down-on-her-luck Lowen. And her growing feelings for Jeremy aren’t making it any easier.

Lowen will have to use everything at her disposal to get out unscathed, including the manuscript that she found hidden in Verity’s office…

3. The Woman In The Window

• Author: A.J. Finn
• Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Crime, Suspense
• Published: 2018
• Awards: 2017 & 2018 Booklist – Starred Review

2018 Barnes & Noble Booksellers’ Favorites – Mysteries & Thrillers

2018 Indie Next – Starred Review

2018 LibraryReads – Starred Review & Year-End Favorite

2019 Book Club Picks – Target Club Picks

Anna, an agoraphobic divorcee, hardly ever leaves her home anymore. Because of her intense fear of the outside world, most of her time is spent watching passersby through her windows and speaking on the phone to her beloved daughter, Olivia, who now lives with her ex-husband.

But when the Russells move in across the street, Anna ventures out of her home to meet the new family and sparks up a friendship with their well-mannered teenage son and his upbeat mother, Jane.

Despite her growing friendship with Jane, Anna can’t help but watch them from the comfort of her home. After all, she’s just checking to see if they’re alright.

However, her curiosity gets the better of her when she witnesses something unthinkable happening at the Russells’ home. With the incident wreaking havoc on her already fragile state of mind and her friendship with Jane now over, Anna begins to unravel a mystery that could change the course of her life forever.

To complicate matters, the police seem to dismiss Anna’s story about what she saw that fateful night and the Russells deny that anything ever even happened.

Now, Anna’s growing skepticism of the family and her own memories begins to drive her to the point of no return…

4. Then She Was Gone

• Author: Lisa Jewell
• Genre: Mystery, Crime, Thriller, Suspense
• Published: 2017
• Awards: 2018 LibraryReads – Starred Review

Ten years ago, Laurel’s fifteen-year-old daughter Ellie was the light of her life. Young and full of radiance, she has the whole world at her fingertips.

But now, a decade after Ellie’s disappearance, Laurel still can’t bring herself to move on…

That is until the handsome and charismatic Floyd comes into her life and helps Laurel to start moving on from her past. Soon, the weight of her despair seems to be lifting off her shoulders, and everything is falling into place.

Laurel’s newfound happiness is short-lived, though. After she meets Poppy, Floy’s nine-year-old daughter, who bears an eerie resemblance to Ellie, she is sent right back into the dark depths of despair and questions she had tried to find answers to for the last ten years are resurfacing.

What happened to her precious Ellie? And who has some unexpected skeletons in their closet?

5. Sharp Objects

• Author: Gillian Flynn
• Genre: Mystery, Crime, Suspense, Thriller
• Published: 2006
• Awards: 2007 Edgar Allen Poe Award Nominee for First Novel

After a grueling time spent in a psych ward, Camille Preaker’s fragile mind is already facing a threat. As a reporter, her job had always been difficult – even at the best of times. But now, she will have to take on an assignment that could unravel her already delicate state of mind.

Camille must return home to the town where she grew up in order to cover the mysterious killing of a young girl and the sudden disappearance of another.

What’s more, she’ll be staying with her estranged family.

In a turn of events brought on by the sudden and drastic changes in her life, Camille must solve the unresolved trauma of her complicated past if she has any hope of solving the even more complex case she was hired to cover.

6. The Couple On Cedar Close

• Author: Anna-Lou Weatherly
• Genre: Thriller, Crime, Mystery, Psychological Thriller
• Series: Detective Dan Riley #2
• Published: 2019

Cedar Close. An idyllic little neighborhood where children play in the street and families gather together for an afternoon barbecue – a place where nothing ever goes wrong.

That is until the fateful August evening that Robert Mills’ body is discovered. Dead and sprawled out on his bedroom floor, the crime seems out of place for this family-friendly, seemingly safe neighborhood.

Downstairs, his wife Laurie sits alone. She knows that she didn’t kill Robert. But it’s hard to convince her neighbors otherwise when she has no memory of the hours leading up to his death.

All she knows is that she couldn’t have killed her husband. She loved him. Still…there’s no way of knowing that for sure. Is there?

7. The Wife Between Us

• Authors: Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen
• Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Psychological Suspense
• Published: 2018
• Awards: 2017 Publishers Weekly – Starred Review

2018 Indie Next – Starred Review

2018 LibraryReads – Starred Review

Living in New York City and working in sales at a clothing store, Vanessa wants nothing more than to move on from her failed marriage to Richard. But how can she when he has already found someone else?

Now, Richard is engaged to a nervous young preschool teacher, and his ability to move on so quickly has Vanessa reeling.

And so she watched him. And she watches his new fiancée, Nellie.

But there’s something not quite right about everything. Vanessa can feel it in her bones. Better yet, there’s something not quite right with her.

Plagued by vicious memories of her past, Vanessa has to find a way to free herself from the past and find a way to work through her the end of her marriage for good.

8. The Widow

• Author: Fiona Barton
• Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Crime
• Series: Kate Waters #1
• Published: 2016
• Awards: 2015 Publishers Weekly – Starred Review

2016 Indie Next – Starred Review

2017 Macavity Award Nominee – First Mystery

When the police came knocking at Jean Taylor’s door and started asking questions, she had nothing but good things to say about the accused: her husband. She maintained her tight-lipped silence, even when more terrible things began happening that seemed to line up with law enforcement’s accusations.

And she had maintained that same silence up until last week. The week her husband died.

But now, in the wake of her husband’s passing, Jean doesn’t have a reason to stay quiet anymore. What’s more, people want to hear what she has to say. They want to hear every detail that Jean has to offer about her suspicious spouse.

Despite the people’s interest in hearing the truth, Jean has learned a few new tricks of playing the perfect wife over the years. And sometimes, it’s more fun to make people believe a lie when you don’t want to face the truth.

9. Behind Closed Doors

• Author: B.A. Paris
• Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Crime
• Published: 2016
• Awards: 2016 Booklist – Starred Review

2016 Indie Next – Starred Review

2016 LibraryReads – Starred Review

2017 Book Club Picks – Target Club Picks

Jack and Grace are newlyweds, but you wouldn’t know it to look at them. The two young lovers are effortlessly in sync.

Jack is a wealthy attorney, and his perfect wife, Grace, is the ideal homemaker. And together, the couple is the envy of everyone lucky enough to know them. There’s just one detail that doesn’t seem quite right. They never seem to be apart.

There’s also something just slightly off about Grace. She never answers a telephone call, and she rarely ever leaves the house. Even when she does, she never seems to take anything meaningful with her.

Her mystery is only the tip of the iceberg, though, and people can’t help but wonder what goes on behind closed doors.

Or behind the metal shutters on all of their downstairs windows…

10. The Push

• Author: Ashley Audrain
• Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Contemporary, Suspense
• Published: 2021
• Awards: 2021 Indie Next – Starred Review

2021 Library Journal – Starred Review

2021 LibraryReads – Starred Review

2021 Publishers Weekly – Starred Review

2021 Book Club Picks – Good Morning America Book Club

After the birth of her daughter, Blythe Connor tried to be the perfect mother. The mother that she never had. But Violet doesn’t make it easy for her. She doesn’t act like the daughter Blythe dreamed of having. And the mother-daughter connection isn’t there, as much as Blythe wishes it was.

Her husband, Fox, doesn’t seem to understand her reservations about Violet. He can’t see any problems with their daughter. And the more Fox dismisses his wife’s worries and his daughter’s odd behavior, the more crazy Blythe begins to feel.

But just when it seems like she can’t take it anymore, her son is born. Sam. Beautiful, incredible Same who is everything Blythe wanted Violet to be. He is perfect. And everyone thinks so – even his older sister.

Blythe’s happiness is short-lived, though, when her life takes an unexpected turn and everything changes. And now it’s time for her to face the ultimate truth.

11. The Perfect Marriage

• Author: Jeneva Rose
• Genre: Psychological Thriller, Mystery, Crime, Suspense
• Published: 2020

Ambitious thirty-three-year-old defense attorney Sarah Morgan is finally reaching her goals, and her life seems to be going according to plan.

If only her husband, Adam, could do the same. Then maybe he could understand why she’s always working. But, as an unsuccessful writer with too much free time, he begins to grow bored of his staling marriage.

No wonder he feels justified when he starts his illicit affair with Kelly Summers. But no evil deed goes unpunished, and now he has to find a way to defend himself against the accusations and questions from the police.

After being found stabbed and murdered in Sarah and Adam’s secluded second home out in the woods, Kelly Summers seems to have brought more than just temptation into the Morgans’ marriage.

Surprisingly, Sarah jumps to her husband’s defense, despite his infidelity. But considering the state of their failing relationship, there’s only one question that remains: Why?

12. The Girl On The Train

• Author: Paula Hawkins
• Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Crime
• Published: 2015
• Awards: 2014 & 2015 LibraryReads – Starred Review

2015 Book Club Picks – Pennie’s Picks

2015 Indie Next – Starred Review

2015 Kirkus Reviews – Starred Review

2015 Publishers Weekly – Starred Review

2015 Goodreads Choice Award Winner – Mystery & Thriller

2015 Booklist – Starred Review

2015 Library Journal – Starred Review

2016 Anthony Award Nominee – Audiobook

2016 Thriller Award Nominee – Novel

Written from the perspective of three seemingly different women – Rachel, Anna, and Megan – this thrilling novel enmeshes their lives most unexpectedly.

In the aftermath of Rachel’s divorce from Tom, she begins falling back into her excessive drinking once again. And it has caused her to lose everything, including her job. So, with nothing but free time and a need to regain control over her life, she falls into a routine of taking the train every day.

Morning and night, she watches the scenery pass by. House after house. And then she passes Tom’s house. Her ex-husband now has a new life and a beautiful and put-together new wife, Anna. To Rachel, Tom’s newfound happiness is too much to take, and her addiction worsens.

But Tom’s isn’t the only house that she watches. Down the road is a couple. A young, beautiful couple that Rachel can’t help but begin to fantasize about as she watches them. She gives them names. The woman is ‘Jess,’ and she is the perfect woman. She is smart, and she is beautiful, and most of all, she’s mysterious.

So when ‘Jess’ goes missing, Rachel is accused by Anna of knowing something more about her disappearance. Except her name isn’t Jess, it’s Megan. And Anna remembers seeing Rachel drunkenly stumbling close to Megan’s home on the night that she vanished.

With Anna’s testimony threatening her, Rachel will have to find a way to clear her name and sift through her intoxicated memories in the hope that she can remember something, anything, that she might have seen that could prove her innocence.

13. Local Woman Missing

• Author: Mary Kubica
• Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Suspense
• Published: 2021
• Awards: 2021 Indie Next – Starred Review

In a quiet community, news of Shelby Tebow’s disappearance rocked the once sleepy town. And before anyone can return to the normalcy of their peaceful existence, it happens again.

This time, it’s Meredith Dickey and Delilah Dickey, her six-year-old daughter.

But, time passes, and the trail for the perpetrator grows cold. The searches for the women begin to stop, and people start to move on.

Then, more than a decade after the first unexplained vanishing, Delilah returns home. And now everyone is turning to her for answers. Answers they’ve waited years for.

When the truth is revealed, nobody is ready for the details that are about to be uncovered.

14. The Good Neighbor

• Author: Richard Jay Parker
• Genre: Thriller, Crime, Mystery, Psychological Thriller, Suspense
• Published: 2021

After hitting a deer outside of her small village and in need of help, Leah Talbot’s salvation comes in the form of a dim light in the distance.

Belonging to a nearby house, the light leads her straight to Martin Tate’s front door. Attractive and alluring, Martin invites Leah in, and she can’t help but feel drawn to him.

Feeling indebted to the handsome stranger that helped her in her time of need, Leah returns to his home the following day to thank him for his generosity. But when she arrives, the mysterious and charming gentleman is no longer there.

In his place are police, and they’re looking for him, too. The house’s owner was murdered, and the body was left in the house. And the body isn’t Martin. He has vanished, but it doesn’t take long for him to resurface. But this time, it’s Leah he’s after.

15. Don’t Look For Me

• Author: Wendy Walker
• Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Contemporary, Crime
• Published: 2020
• Awards: 2020 LibraryReads – Starred Review & Hall Of Fame

2020 Publishers Weekly – Starred Review

Nicole is desperate to find out the truth about her mother’s disappearance. It was too easy, too sudden, and too perfectly crafted.

Molly Clarke left her life with nothing but a note in her hotel room and an abandoned car miles from her home.

But the absolute truth of that night has haunted Nicole, and with a new lead surfacing, she has no choice but to return home to follow up on her last hope at figuring out the real reason her mother vanished. And the details become more apparent than ever.

A storm, a broken-down car, and a kind stranger that offered her mother a lift. But what happened after she got into his truck?

When the secrets of that fateful night begin to reveal themselves, Nicole must face the facts: She’s in danger, and her endless questioning of the town’s locals has rubbed someone the wrong way.

Time is of the essence, and she has to find out the truth before it’s too late. 

References:

Book Bub: Books Like The Silent Patient

Good Reads: The Silent Patient