Books like 'If We Were Villains'
Readers who enjoyed If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary mystery horror thriller lgbtq crime dark-academia literary-fiction suspense dark
-
Different Seasons by Stephen King
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsFrom the Magical Pen of Stephen King, Four Mesmerizing Novellas…“Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”An unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge…the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award nominee The Shawshank Redemption... -
![Misery by Robin Waterfield, Stephen King]()
Misery by Robin Waterfield, Stephen King
Rated: 4.37 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsSimplified adaptation with language-learning materials.[Penguin Readers Level 6]Paul Sheldon is Annie Wilkes' favourite writer. She loves all his books about Misery Chastain. When she finds Paul injured after a car crash and takes him home she learns that he has decided to end the series by killing off Misery... -
![The Body by Robin Waterfield, Stephen King]()
The Body by Robin Waterfield, Stephen King
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsFrom Different Seasons The Body, as a media tie-in for the movie starring River Phoenix, Kiefer Sutherland, Wil Wheaton, Corey Feldman and Jerry O'Connell... -
![Untitled by Dot Hutchison]()
Untitled by Dot Hutchison
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA fourth book is coming with a release date estimated Spring 2019... -
-
![Angelica And Francesca by Kenneth Jarrett Singleton]()
Angelica And Francesca by Kenneth Jarrett Singleton
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAngelica and Francesca are the identical twin daughters of Pellrue, Duke of Doretay. Doretay is a state within a kingdom called Vidien, which Angelica's and Francesca's great uncle, King Oscar, rules. Pellrue attempts to keep control of his wicked, evil daughters as they keep entering his city and raising havoc by torturing and murdering the common citizens within...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense anthologies contemporary fiction -
![Ramonst by A.F. Knott]()
Ramonst by A.F. Knott
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsHidden in the mountains of East Tennessee, an eleven-year old goes about the business of being a boy during the summer of 1970. Within a balance of terror and innocence, he bears silent witness to ghosts of the dead and the cruelties of a teenage killer while local justice plays out in a community carved from legacies of coal mining and religion... -
![Nicu II and Victoria's Incestuous Romance by Kenneth Jarrett Singleton]()
Nicu II and Victoria's Incestuous Romance by Kenneth Jarrett Singleton
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWith love for one another resting within their inseparable hearts, and a secret occupying their active, yet silent souls, seventeen-year-old Prince Nicu II and his sixteen-year-old sister Victoria, First Princess of Exubertis, must make a choice between their incestuous love affair, and the maintaining of stability within their royal family... -
![High Lonesome: Selected Stories, 1966-2006 by Joyce Carol Oates]()
High Lonesome: Selected Stories, 1966-2006 by Joyce Carol Oates
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAn unprecedented collection of the best of Joyce Carol Oates's short stories combined with eleven new storiesNo other writer can match the impressive oeuvre of Joyce Carol Oates, and High Lonesome: Selected Stories, 1966-2006 gathers stories from Oates's seminal collections, including The Wheel of Love (1970), Marriages and Infidelities (1972), and Heat (1991), arranged by decade...Categorized as:
classics gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction adult anthologies contemporary female-author -
![The Likeness by Tana French, Heather O'Neill]()
The Likeness by Tana French, Heather O'Neill
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsListening length: 22 Hours and 18 MinutesIn this follow-up to Tana French’s runaway bestseller In the Woods, itʼs six months later and Cassie Maddox has transferred out of the Dublin Murder Squad with no plans to go back—until an urgent telephone call summons her to a grisly crime scene... -
![In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead]()
In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 29 ratings10 hours, 22 minutes Six friends. One college reunion. One unsolved murder.Ten years after graduation, Jessica Miller has been invited back to her university for a reunion and she is obsessed with dazzling everyone with her beauty and success. This time when they see her, it has to be perfect because she is perfect... -
![The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis]()
The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA sensational new novel from the best-selling author of Less Than Zero and Imperial Bedrooms that tracks a group of privileged Los Angeles high school friends as a serial killer strikes across the city...Categorized as:
classics crime dark dark-academia historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction suspense -
![Where I End by Sophie White]()
Where I End by Sophie White
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsMy mother.At night, my mother creaks. The house creaks along with her.Through our thin shared wall, I can hear the makings of my mother gurgle through her body just like the water in the walls of the house...Teenage Aoileann has never left the island. Her silent, bed-bound mother is a wreckage, the survivor of a private disaster no one will speak about... -
![The Body by Stephen King]()
The Body by Stephen King
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSet in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King’s timeless novella “The Body”—originally published in his 1982 short story collection Different Seasons, and adapted into the 1986 film classic Stand by Me—is now available as a stand-alone publication.It’s 1960 in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine... -
![These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever, Michael Crouch]()
These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever, Michael Crouch
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratings'The Secret History' meets 'Call Me by Your Name' in Micah Nemerever's compulsively enjoyable debut novel - a feverishly taut Hitchcockian story about two college students, each with his own troubled past, whose escalating obsession with one another leads to an act of unspeakable violence... -
-
![Disturbed by Jennifer Jaynes]()
Disturbed by Jennifer Jaynes
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA captivating psychological thriller from #1 USA Today bestselling author Jennifer Jaynes.On Halloween night five years ago, Chelsea Dutton’s college roommates were viciously stabbed to death, and Chelsea was critically injured. She was found hiding in her apartment’s bathtub, barely clinging to life... -
![Boy Parts by Eliza Clark]()
Boy Parts by Eliza Clark
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIrina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men she persuades to model for her, scouted from the streets of Newcastle.Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema... -
![Because She Loves Me by Mark Edwards]()
Because She Loves Me by Mark Edwards
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA gripping tale of jealousy, obsession, and murder, from the #1 bestselling author of The Magpies . When Andrew Sumner meets beautiful, edgy Charlie, he is certain his run of bad luck has finally come to an end. But as the two of them embark on an intense affair, Andrew wonders if his grasp on reality is slipping. Items go missing in his apartment. Somebody appears to be following him... -
![The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson]()
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 58 ratingsThe Lottery, one of the most terrifying stories written in this century, created a sensation when it was first published in The New Yorker. "Power and haunting," and "nights of unrest" were typical reader responses. This collection, the only one to appear during Shirley Jackson's lifetime, unites "The Lottery:" with twenty-four equally unusual stories... -
![The Stillwater Girls by Minka Kent]()
The Stillwater Girls by Minka Kent
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsTwo sisters raised in fear are about to find out why in a chilling novel of psychological suspense from the author of The Thinnest Air.Ignorant of civilization and cautioned against its evils, nineteen-year-old Wren and her two sisters, Sage and Evie, were raised in off-the-grid isolation in a primitive cabin in upstate New York... -
![Marathon Man by William Goldman]()
Marathon Man by William Goldman
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsTom "Babe" Levy is a runner in every sense: racing tirelessly toward his goals of athletic and academic excellence--and endlessly away from the specter of his famous father's scandal-driven suicide. But an unexpected visit from his beloved older brother will set in motion a chain of events that plunge Babe into a vortex of terror, treachery, and murder--and force him into a race for his life . .Categorized as:
classics crime drama historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense thriller 20th-century -
![Chasing the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar]()
Chasing the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe New York Times bestselling coauthor of Gwendy’s Button Box brings his signature prose to this story of small-town evil that combines the storytelling of Stephen King with the true-crime suspense of Michelle McNamara.In the summer of 1988, the mutilated bodies of several missing girls begin to turn up in a small Maryland town... -
![Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins]()
Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen the eight-year-old daughter of an Oxford College Master vanishes in the middle of the night, police turn to the Scottish nanny, Dee, for answers... -
![Clean by Alia Trabucco Zerán, Sophie Hughes]()
Clean by Alia Trabucco Zerán, Sophie Hughes
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsINTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER!From a global star and International Booker Prize finalist, a razor-sharp, unforgettable novel about a maid who’s seen too much and a family at a breaking pointA young girl has died and the family’s maid is being interrogated. She must tell the whole story before arriving at the girl’s death... -
![The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier]()
The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsHow long he fought with them in the darkness he could not tell, but at last the beating of the wings about him lessened and then withdrew...A classic of alienation and horror, The Birds was immortalised by Hitchcock in his celebrated film. The five other chilling stories in this collection echo a sense of dislocation and mock man's sense of dominance over the natural world...Categorized as:
classics crime gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction season-autumn spooky suspense -
-
![If It Bleeds by Stephen King]()
If It Bleeds by Stephen King
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 53 ratingsIf it Bleeds is a collection of four new novellas —Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, The Life of Chuck, Rat, and the title story If It Bleeds— each pulling readers into intriguing and frightening places.A collection of four uniquely wonderful long stories, including a stand-alone sequel to The Outsider.News people have a saying: 'If it bleeds, it leads'... -
![Surrender Your Sons by Adam Sass]()
Surrender Your Sons by Adam Sass
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsConnor Major’s summer break is turning into a nightmare. His SAT scores bombed, the old man he delivers meals to died, and when he came out to his religious zealot mother, she had him kidnapped and shipped off to a secluded island. His final destination: Nightlight Ministries, a conversion therapy camp that will be his new home until he “changes.” But Connor’s troubles are only beginning... -
![Petrified Women by Jeremy Ray]()
Petrified Women by Jeremy Ray
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSome pranks go too far. This one could be deadly.Harley has the perfect boyfriend. Why can’t her best friend see that? He’s nothing like the others, especially the one who still haunts her memories. She’s finally picked a “keeper” with Aiden.Sure, he’s a bit eccentric. His wood carving hobby is a little odd. His need for isolation while he carves his life-size female figurines is strange... -
![Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney]()
Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsThe New York Times bestselling Queen of Twists returns…with a family reunion that leads to murder.After years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80th birthday party in Nana’s crumbling gothic house on a tiny tidal island. Finally back together one last time, when the tide comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours... -
![Memento Mori by Jonathan Nolan]()
Memento Mori by Jonathan Nolan
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA man named Earl has anterograde amnesia. Because of his inability to remember things for more than a few minutes, he uses notes and tattoos to keep track of new information... -
![A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers]()
A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsFood critic Dorothy Daniels loves what she does. Discerning, meticulous, and very, very smart, Dorothy’s clear mastery of the culinary arts make it likely that she could, on any given night, whip up a more inspired dish than any one of the chefs she writes about... -
![Play Nice by Rachel Harrison]()
Play Nice by Rachel Harrison
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA woman must confront the demons of her past when she attempts to fix up her childhood home in this devilishly clever take on the haunted house novel from the USA Today bestselling author of Black Sheep and So Thirsty.Clio Louise Barnes leads a picture-perfect life as a stylist and influencer, but beneath the glossy veneer she harbors a not-so glamorous she grew up in a haunted house... -
![Light Up the Dark by Suki Fleet]()
Light Up the Dark by Suki Fleet
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFor two years Nicky has wandered the dark empty corridors of the overgrown Thorn Hall, unseen and untouched, feeling like a ghost. His only company, the cold man who promised to keep him safe from harm, Lance. But when Lance dies, Nicky’s assurance of safety disintegrates and his world suddenly becomes a lot more real and a lot more dangerous. Scared to leave the house, Nicky longs for daylight... -
![The Right Way to Wrong by Ashlynn Mills]()
The Right Way to Wrong by Ashlynn Mills
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhat happens when your delusions become your reality and the monsters are no longer only in your head?CallumTrying to escape his traumatic past, Callum leaves the life he once knew behind. A change of scenery. A new job. Different friends. He’s moving forward, and breaking free of the haunting memories by replacing them with new ones... -
![The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz]()
The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsThe Plot meets Please Join Us in this psychological suspense debut about a young author at an exclusive writer’s retreat that descends into a nightmare.Alex has all but given up on her dreams of becoming a published author when she receives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: attend an exclusive, month-long writing retreat at the estate of feminist horror writer Roza Vallo... -
-
![The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky, Голди Молдавски]()
The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky, Голди Молдавски
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNew girl Rachel Chavez is eager to make a fresh start at Manchester Prep. But as one of the few scholarship kids, Rachel struggles to fit in, and when she gets caught up in a prank gone awry, she ends up with more enemies than friends... -
![Suddenly Last Summer by Tennessee Williams]()
Suddenly Last Summer by Tennessee Williams
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsKerr, in the NY Herald-Tribune, describes: "This, says Mr. Williams through the most sympathetic voice among his characters, 'is a true story about the time and the world we live in.' He has made it seem true-or at least curiously and suspensefully possible-by the extraordinary skill with which he has wrung detail after detail out of a young woman who has lived with horror... -
![The Butcher by Jennifer Hillier]()
The Butcher by Jennifer Hillier
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA rash of grisly serial murders plagued Seattle until the infamous "Beacon Hill Butcher" was finally hunted down and killed by police chief Edward Shank in 1985. Now, some thirty years later, Shank, retired and widowed, is giving up his large rambling Victorian house to his grandson Matt, whom he helped raise... -
![We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson]()
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Rated: 3.99 of 5 stars · 71 ratingsMy name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had... -
![Wonderland by Jennifer Hillier]()
Wonderland by Jennifer Hillier
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"Top of the line thriller writing...You better call in sick, because you're not going anywhere until you finish reading it. Oh, and you might want to lock the door, too. Just to be safe." --#1 bestselling author Jeffery Deaver Fans of Chelsea Cain and Lisa Gardner will devour this edgy thriller about the gruesome secrets hidden beneath a small-town amusement park... -
![Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson]()
Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
Rated: 3.98 of 5 stars · 45 ratingsNew York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson weaves a delicate tale of murder and mystery in the first book of a striking new series, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and E. Lockhart.Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists...Categorized as:
crime dark-academia friendship historical-fiction lgbtq realistic season-autumn spooky -
![The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, Татьяна Телегина]()
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, Татьяна Телегина
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsSince his debut in 1955, Tom Ripley has evolved into the ultimate bad boy sociopath, influencing countless novelists and filmmakers. In this first novel, we are introduced to suave, handsome Tom Ripley: a young striver, newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan in the 1950s... -
![Mina and the Undead by Amy McCaw]()
Mina and the Undead by Amy McCaw
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNEW ORLEANS FANG FEST, 1995. MINA'S HAVING A SUMMER TO DIE FOR.17-year-old Mina, from England, arrives in New Orleans to visit her estranged sister, Libby. After growing up in Whitby, the town that inspired Dracula, Mina loves nothing more than a creepy horror movie. She can't wait to explore the city's darkest secrets - vampire tours, seedy bars, spooky cemeteries, disturbing local myths.. -
![Silent Victim by Caroline Mitchell]()
Silent Victim by Caroline Mitchell
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsEmma’s darkest secrets are buried in the past. But the truth can’t stay hidden for long.Emma is a loving wife, a devoted mother…and an involuntary killer. For years she’s been hiding the dead body of the teacher who seduced her as a teen.It’s a secret that might have stayed buried if only her life had been less perfect... -
![Poe: New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe by Ellen Datlow, Gregory Nassif St. John]()
Poe: New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe by Ellen Datlow, Gregory Nassif St. John
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsTo coincide with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, this anthology celebrates the depth and diversity of one of the most important figures in literature. Compiled by multi-award winning editor Ellen Datlow, it presents some of the foremost talents of the genre, who have come together to reimagine tales inspired by Poe.Sharyn McCrumb, Lucius Shepard, Pat Cadigan, M... -
-
![Vantage Point by Sara Sligar]()
Vantage Point by Sara Sligar
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSuccession meets Megan Abbott in this seductive Gothic suspense novel about the dramatic downfall of one of America’s most affluent families.The old-money Wieland family has it all—wealth, status, power. They’re also famously cursed. Clara and her brother Teddy grew up on a small island in Maine in the shadow of their parents’ tragic deaths, haunted by rumors and paparazzi... -
![Based on a True Story by Delphine de Vigan]()
Based on a True Story by Delphine de Vigan
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsOverwhelmed by the huge success of her latest novel, exhausted and suffering from a crippling inability to write, Delphine meets L. L. embodies everything Delphine has always secretly admired; she is a glittering image of feminine sophistication and spontaneity and she has an uncanny knack of always saying the right thing. Unusually intuitive, L... -
![Mygale by Thierry Jonquet]()
Mygale by Thierry Jonquet
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsRichard Lafargue is an eminent plastic surgeon haunted by dirty secrets. He has an operating theatre in the basement of his chateau and keeps his partner Eve imprisoned in her bedroom, a room he has equipped with an intercom and 300-watt speakers through which he bellows orders... -
![They Never Learn by Layne Fargo]()
They Never Learn by Layne Fargo
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsFrom the author of the “raw, ingenious, and utterly fearless” (Wendy Walker, USA TODAY bestselling author) Temper comes a dynamic psychological thriller about two women who give bad men exactly what they deserve.Scarlett Clark is an exceptional English professor. But she’s even better at getting away with murder... -
![Usher's Passing by Robert McCammon]()
Usher's Passing by Robert McCammon
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsIn this most gothic of Robert McCammon's novels, setting is key: the continuing saga of the Usher family (descended from the brother of Roderick and Madeline of Edgar Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher") takes place in the weird and picturesque heart of the North Carolina mountains...Categorized as:
classics crime gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction season-autumn spooky suspense -
![Only The Stains Remain by Ross Jeffery]()
Only The Stains Remain by Ross Jeffery
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFrom the Bram Stoker Nominated Author Ross Jeffery comes a new nightmare.Only The Stains Remain is the haunting story of Jude and Kyle, two brothers whose lives are destroyed when, following the death of their mother, their three abusive uncles Dwight, Lucius, and Lenny move in to the family home...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.
