Books like 'The Special Ones'

Readers who enjoyed The Special Ones by Em Bailey also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.

contemporary  mystery  horror  psychological  action / adventure  thriller  religion  cults  fundamentalism  crime 

  • Our Stolen Pieces by James Hunt

    Our Stolen Pieces by James Hunt

    Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    When the morning after a slumber party reveals two missing girls, a newly minted Detective and a young veteran are assigned the case. Recently partnered, the pair of detectives must set aside their troubled pasts to recover the pair of girls who may have been coerced by a stranger who had kidnapped before...
  • Beneath Blackwater River by Leslie Wolfe, Gwendolyn Druyor

    Beneath Blackwater River by Leslie Wolfe, Gwendolyn Druyor

    Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    Listening Length 13 hours and 4 minutesShe looked alive, her hair drifting freely in the water, her red lips gently parted, as if to let her final breath escape. A small locket floated by her face, attached to her neck with a silver chain…When Detective Kay Sharp first left Mount Chester—population 3,823—in her rear-view mirror, she promised never to look back...
  • Finding Claire Fletcher by Lisa Regan

    Finding Claire Fletcher by Lisa Regan

    Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    In the first book in bestselling author Lisa Regan’s new series, a one-night stand sets a detective on the trail of a terrifying unsolved crime.With his career on thin ice and fresh ink on his divorce papers, Sacramento PD Detective Connor Parks goes searching for solace at the bottom of a bottle…and winds up in the arms of a beautiful woman...
  • After the Fire by Will Hill

    After the Fire by Will Hill

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    The things I've seen are burned into me, like scars that refuse to fade.Before, she lived inside the fence. Before, she was never allowed to leave the property, never allowed to talk to Outsiders, never allowed to speak her mind. Because Father John controlled everything—and Father John liked rules. Disobeying Father John came with terrible consequences...
  • Bitter Falls by Rachel Caine

    Bitter Falls by Rachel Caine

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    She’s investigating a cold case no one else could—by going places no one else would dare.In spite of a harrowing past still haunting her, Gwen Proctor is trying to move forward. Until a new assignment gives her purpose: the cold-case disappearance of a young man in Tennessee. Three years missing, no clues. Just Ruth Landry, a tortured mother in limbo...
  • Two Footsteps by Belle Brooks, Karen Harper

    Two Footsteps by Belle Brooks, Karen Harper

    Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    "My life is in the Wolf's hands." He is the Wolf. I am his Red. The game has begun and he wants me dead. But who is the Wolf? And why has he chosen me? He whistles a tune that's haunting. He glares at me through eyes that are vacant. I feel his heart beating, yet I know he has no soul. He moves like the wind...I can't hear his footsteps. I want this to end. He's playing with my mind...
  • Fallen by Karin Slaughter

    Fallen by Karin Slaughter

    Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars
    · 30 ratings
    There's no police training stronger than a cop's instinct. Faith Mitchell's mother isn't answering her phone. Her front door is open. There's a bloodstain above the knob. Her infant daughter is hidden in a shed behind the house. All that the Georgia Bureau of Investigations taught Faith Mitchell goes out the window when she charges into her mother's house, gun drawn...
  • A Dark Lure by Loreth Anne White

    A Dark Lure by Loreth Anne White

    Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars
    · 28 ratings
    Twelve years ago, Sarah Baker was abducted by the Watt Lake Killer and sexually assaulted for months before managing to escape. The killer was caught, but Sarah lost everything: her marriage, her child, and the life she loved.Struggling with PTSD, Sarah changes her name to Olivia West and finds sanctuary working on Broken Bar Ranch...
  • The Moonlight Child by Karen McQuestion

    The Moonlight Child by Karen McQuestion

    Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars
    · 33 ratings
    A gripping and emotional novel that will leave you wondering about the neighbors next door...On a cold January night, Sharon Lemke heads outside to see a lunar eclipse when she notices something odd at the house behind her backyard. Through her neighbor's kitchen window, she sees what appears to be a little girl washing dishes late at night...
  • Missed Connections by Alexandria Clarke

    Missed Connections by Alexandria Clarke

    Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    How far would you go for revenge? Veronica Bauer isn’t above homicide. Twelve years after a ruthless attack killed her mother and put her father in prison, she embarks on a mission to bring the real culprits to justice. As bodies start to drop, Detective Sheila Arden is assigned to the gruesome case, but she soon discovers that the truth is more complicated than she thought...
  • Stranded by Sarah Goodwin

    Stranded by Sarah Goodwin

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    Eight strangers.One island.A secret you'd kill to keep.When eight people arrive on the beautiful but remote Buidseach Island, they are ready for the challenge of a lifetime: to live alone for one year.Eighteen months later, a woman is found in an isolated fishing village...
  • Find Her by Lisa Gardner

    Find Her by Lisa Gardner

    Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars
    · 31 ratings
    Lisa Gardner's runaway New York Times bestseller--a fast-paced thrill ride featuring Detective D. D. Warren. Seven years ago, carefree college student Flora Dane was kidnapped while on spring break. For 472 days, Flora learned just how much one person can endure...
  • These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant

    These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    No electricity, no family, no connection to the outside world. For eight years, Cooper and his young daughter, Finch, have lived in isolation in a remote cabin in the northern Appalachian woods. And that's exactly the way Cooper wants it, because he's got a lot to hide. Finch has been raised on the books filling the cabin’s shelves and the beautiful but brutal code of life in the wilderness...
  • The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean

    The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    A woman being held captive is willing to risk everything to save herself, her unborn child, and her captor’s latest victim in this claustrophobic thriller in the tradition of Misery and Room. On an isolated farm in the United Kingdom, a woman is trapped by the monster who kidnapped her seven years ago...
  • The Girl in the Snow by Alexandria Clarke

    The Girl in the Snow by Alexandria Clarke

    Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    A retired FBI agent. A heartstopping tragedy. Carolina Caccia, a divorced mother of two, confronts her worst fears when her son goes missing during a family ski trip. As she discovers her son has been taken, she must revisit her dark past to rescue her child...
  • The Body Reader by Anne Frasier, 安·費瑟

    The Body Reader by Anne Frasier, 安·費瑟

    Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars
    · 27 ratings
    For three years, Detective Jude Fontaine was kept from the outside world. Held in an underground cell, her only contact was with her sadistic captor, and reading his face was her entire existence. Learning his every line, every movement, and every flicker of thought is what kept her alive...
  • Small Spaces by Sarah Epstein

    Small Spaces by Sarah Epstein

    Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    We don’t pick and choose what to be afraid of. Our fears pick us.Tash Carmody has been traumatised since childhood, when she witnessed her gruesome imaginary friend Sparrow lure young Mallory Fisher away from a carnival. At the time nobody believed Tash, and she has since come to accept that Sparrow wasn’t real. Now fifteen and mute, Mallory’s never spoken about the week she went missing...
  • The Memory Wood by Sam Lloyd

    The Memory Wood by Sam Lloyd

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    THE MUST-READ RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK. Chilling, moving and unputdownable, The Memory Wood is a thriller like no other. 'Beautifully told, with two superbly drawn young protagonists, Lloyd is a rare new thriller talent' Daily Mail'Superbly creepy, with an unexpected twist' Guardian'Brilliant writing, a terrifying story, and characters so real it feels like you know them...
  • Stranger in the Woods by Anni Taylor

    Stranger in the Woods by Anni Taylor

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    Photographer Isla Wilson is thrilled she’s landed her dream job, but the clients who hired her are getting stranger by the day. It sounded so perfect - a month‘s assignment at the misty, sprawling Scottish Highlands property of brilliant architect Alban McGregor, and his wife, Jessica. But deep in the woods, there is a chilling playhouse...
  • Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

    Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

    Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars
    · 79 ratings
    It follows the experiences of an unnamed protagonist struggling with insomnia. Inspired by his doctor's exasperated remark that insomnia is not suffering, the protagonist finds relief by impersonating a seriously ill person in several support groups. Then he meets a mysterious man named Tyler Durden and establishes an underground fighting club as radical psychotherapy...
  • Blood of My Blood by Barry Lyga

    Blood of My Blood by Barry Lyga

    Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars
    · 21 ratings
    Jazz Dent has never been closer to catching his father.Jazz has been shot and left to die in New York. His girlfriend, Connie, is in the clutches of Jazz's monstrous father, Billy--the world's most notorious serial killer. And his best friend, Howie, is bleeding to death on the floor of Jazz's new home...
  • Wolfhunter River by Rachel Caine

    Wolfhunter River by Rachel Caine

    Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars
    · 26 ratings
    A Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller.She can’t ignore a cry for help. But in this remote hunting town, it’s open season.Gwen Proctor escaped her serial-killer husband and saved her family. What she can’t seem to outrun is his notoriety. Or the sick internet vigilantes still seeking to avenge his crimes. For Gwen, hiding isn’t an option...
  • No Exit by Taylor Adams

    No Exit by Taylor Adams

    Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars
    · 44 ratings
    A brilliant, edgy thriller about four strangers, a blizzard, a kidnapped child, and a determined young woman desperate to unmask and outwit a vicious psychopath.A kidnapped little girl locked in a stranger’s van. No help for miles. What would you do?On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Colorado...
  • The Last Child by John Hart

    The Last Child by John Hart

    Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars
    · 28 ratings
    Thirteen year-old Johnny Merrimon had the perfect life: a warm home and loving parents; a twin sister, Alyssa, with whom he shared an irreplaceable bond. He knew nothing of loss, until the day Alyssa vanished from the side of a lonely street. Now, a year later, Johnny finds himself isolated and alone, failed by the people he'd been taught since birth to trust...
  • Game by Barry Lyga

    Game by Barry Lyga

    Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars
    · 26 ratings
    Billy grinned. “Oh, New York,” he whispered. “We’re gonna have so much fun.”I Hunt Killers introduced the world to Jazz, the son of history’s most infamous serial killer, Billy Dent.In an effort to prove murder didn’t run in the family, Jazz teamed with the police in the small town of Lobo’s Nod to solve a deadly case...
  • The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

    The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

    Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars
    · 32 ratings
    Seventeen-year-old Cassie is a natural at reading people. Piecing together the tiniest details, she can tell you who you are and what you want. But it’s not a skill that she’s ever taken seriously. That is, until the FBI come knocking: they’ve begun a classified program that uses exceptional teenagers to crack infamous cold cases, and they need Cassie...
  • Along Came a Spider by James Patterson

    Along Came a Spider by James Patterson

    Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars
    · 79 ratings
    What have we got? A missing little girl named Maggie Rose . . . a family of three brutally murdered in the projects of Washington, D.C. . . . the thrill-killing of a beautiful elementary school teacher . . . a psychopathic serial kidnapper/murderer who is so terrifying that the FBI, the Secret Service, and the police cannot outsmart him - even after he's been captured...
  • Abandoned by Cody McFadyen

    Abandoned by Cody McFadyen

    Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    For FBI Special Agent Smoky Barrett, her colleague’s wedding is cause for celebration. Until a woman staggers down the aisle—incoherent, wearing only a white nightgown. A fingerprint check determines that she’s been missing for nearly eight years. Her coldly efficient captor toyed with her mind and body, imprisoning her, depriving her of any contact with the outside world...
  • A Stranger in Town by Kelley Armstrong

    A Stranger in Town by Kelley Armstrong

    Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    Detective Casey Duncan has noticed fewer and fewer residents coming in to the hidden town of Rockton, and no extensions being granted. Her boyfriend, Sheriff Eric Dalton, presumes it’s the natural flux of things, but Casey’s not so sure. Something bigger is happening in the small town they call home...
  • This Is Our Story by Ashley Elston

    This Is Our Story by Ashley Elston

    Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    Five went in. Four came out.No one knows what happened that morning at River Point. Five boys went hunting. Four came back. The boys won’t say who fired the shot that killed their friend; the evidence shows it could have been any one of them...
  • The Bitter Season by Tami Hoag

    The Bitter Season by Tami Hoag

    Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    #1"New York Times "bestselling author Tami Hoag explores the devastating consequences of the secrets families keep in this powerful thriller. As the dreary, bitter weather of late fall descends on Minneapolis, Detective Nikki Liska is restless, already bored with her new assignment to the cold case squad...
  • Trespassing by Brandi Reeds

    Trespassing by Brandi Reeds

    Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    In a novel of mounting psychological suspense, a young mother follows a dangerous path to find her missing husband.Veronica Cavanaugh’s grasp on the world is slipping. Her latest round of fertility treatments not only failed but left her on edge and unbalanced. And her three-year-old daughter, Elizabella, has a new imaginary friend, who seems much more devilish than playful...
  • Never Lie by Freida McFadden

    Never Lie by Freida McFadden

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 40 ratings
    Newlyweds Tricia and Ethan are searching for the house of their dreams.But when they visit the remote manor that once belonged to Dr. Adrienne Hale, a renowned psychiatrist who vanished without a trace four years earlier, a violent winter storm traps them at the estate… with no chance of escape until the blizzard comes to an end...
  • Room by Emma Donoghue

    Room by Emma Donoghue

    Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars
    · 85 ratings
    To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world....Told in the inventive, funny, and poignant voice of Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience—and a powerful story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play...
  • One Fear by Belle Brooks

    One Fear by Belle Brooks

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    “My one fear is now my reality.” He didn’t offer his name when he fulfilled his need to include me as a player in his game. I’m number thirteen. Just a number given to the bitches who wronged him. I was blindsided. Stolen from my life. In his devilled eyes, I have a debt to pay…he wants my final breath to see us even...
  • Either Side of Midnight by Tori de Clare

    Either Side of Midnight by Tori de Clare

    Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    WHAT IF THE BEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE TURNED INTO YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE? When nineteen-year-old Naomi Stone is snatched from her husband at knifepoint on the night of their wedding and taken to a deserted cemetery, she knows her life is finished. Drugged and disorientated, she loses consciousness as she lies in an open grave with a gun to her head...
  • Down the Darkest Road by Tami Hoag

    Down the Darkest Road by Tami Hoag

    Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    Four years after the unsolved disappearance of her 16-year-old daughter, Lauren Lawton and her younger daughter Leah move to idyllic Oak Knoll in search of a fresh start. But when Lauren's suspect turns up in the same city, it feels to all the world that history is about to repeat itself...
  • The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die by April Henry

    The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die by April Henry

    Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    “Take her out back and finish her off.”She doesn’t know who she is. She doesn’t know where she is, or why. All she knows when she comes to in a ransacked cabin is that there are two men arguing over whether or not to kill her.And that she must run.In her riveting style, April Henry crafts a nail-biting thriller involving murder, identity theft, and biological warfare...
  • The Retreat by Mark Edwards

    The Retreat by Mark Edwards

    Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars
    · 26 ratings
    A missing child. A desperate mother. And a house full of secrets. Two years ago, Julia lost her family in a tragic accident. Her husband drowned trying to save their daughter, Lily, in the river near their rural home. But the little girl’s body was never found—and Julia believes Lily is somehow still alive.Alone and broke, Julia opens her house as a writers’ retreat...
  • Dear Child: A Novel by Romy Hausmann

    Dear Child: A Novel by Romy Hausmann

    Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars
    · 26 ratings
    A woman held captive finally escapes—but can she ever really get away?Gone Girl meets Room in this page-turning, #1 internationally bestselling thriller from one of Germany’s hottest new talentsA windowless shack in the woods. A dash to safety. But when a woman finally escapes her captor, the end of the story is only the beginning of her nightmare.She says her name is Lena...
    Categorized as:
    crime  family  kidnapping  secrets  survival  suspense  thriller  abuse
  • The Murder House by James Patterson, David Ellis

    The Murder House by James Patterson, David Ellis

    Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars
    · 28 ratings
    No. 7 Ocean Drive is a gorgeous, multi-million-dollar beachfront estate in the Hamptons, where money and privilege know no bounds. But its beautiful gothic exterior hides a horrific past: it was the scene of a series of depraved killings that have never been solved. Neglected, empty, and rumored to be cursed, it's known as the Murder House, and locals keep their distance...
  • Thr3e by Ted Dekker, Rob Lamont

    Thr3e by Ted Dekker, Rob Lamont

    Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars
    · 42 ratings
    The nightmare has just begun... your world has changed forever. “Evil is beyond the reach of no man.” “But can a man remove himself beyond the reach of evil?” Kevin asked. “Indeed,” Dr. Francis said. “Can man step beyond evil’s reach? I think not. Not in this lifetime.” “Then all men are condemned to a life of evil,” Kevin said. “A lifetime struggle with evil, not a life of evil,” Dr...
  • The Stillwater Girls by Minka Kent

    The Stillwater Girls by Minka Kent

    Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars
    · 29 ratings
    Two 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...
  • Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo

    Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 28 ratings
    Some secrets are too terrible to reveal . . .Some crimes are too unspeakable to solve . . . In the sleepy rural town of Painters Mill, Ohio, the Amish and "English" residents have lived side by side for two centuries. But sixteen years ago, a series of brutal murders shattered the peaceful farming community...
  • One Door Away from Heaven by Dean Koontz

    One Door Away from Heaven by Dean Koontz

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 26 ratings
    Michelina Bellsong is on a mission. She is following a missing family to the edge of America...to a place she never knew existed--a place of terror, wonder, and shattering revelation.What awaits her there will change her life and the life of everyone she knows--if she can find the key to survival...
  • Left To Die by Lisa Jackson

    Left To Die by Lisa Jackson

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    Nothing's More Terrifying. . .One by one, the victims are carefully captured, toyed with, then subjected to a slow and agonizing death. Piece by piece, his exquisite plan takes shape. The police can't yet see the beauty in his work--but soon, very soon, they will. . . Than Being Left Alone. . . In the lonely woods around Grizzly Point, Montana, four bodies have been discovered...
  • Never Look Away by Linwood Barclay

    Never Look Away by Linwood Barclay

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    In this tense, mesmerizing thriller by Linwood Barclay, critically acclaimed author of Fear the Worst and Too Close to Home, a man’s life unravels around him when the unthinkable strikes. A warm summer Saturday. An amusement park. David Harwood is glad to be spending some quality time with his wife, Jan, and their four-year-old son...
  • Deadly Little Games by Laurie Faria Stolarz

    Deadly Little Games by Laurie Faria Stolarz

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    High school juniors Camelia and Ben have discovered a powerful bond: They both possess the power of psychometry, the ability to see the future through touch. For Ben, the gift is a frightening liability. When he senses a strong threat or betrayal, he risks losing control. Camelia's gift is more mysterious. When she works with clay, her hands sculpt messages her mind doesn't yet comprehend...
  • The Line Between by Tosca Lee

    The Line Between by Tosca Lee

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    An extinct disease re-emerges from the melting Alaskan permafrost to cause madness in its victims. For recent apocalyptic cult escapee Wynter Roth, it’s the end she’d always been told was coming...
  • Right Behind You by Gail Giles

    Right Behind You by Gail Giles

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    When he was nine, Kip set another child on fire. Now, after years in a juvenile ward, he is ready for a fresh start. But the ghosts of his past soon demand justice, and he must reveal his painful secret...
The Special Ones by Em Bailey
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