Books like 'The Understory'

Readers who enjoyed The Understory by Pamela Erens also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.

contemporary  psychological  mystery  literary-fiction  dark

  • The Light to My Darkness by Ivy Smoak

    The Light to My Darkness by Ivy Smoak

    Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    My relationship with my husband has been splashed all over the tabloids ever since we first started dating. What should I have expected when I took New York City's most eligible bachelor off the market? But no matter how long I'm with my husband, I can't shake the feeling that a stroke of luck brought me here. That I don't deserve the life around me...
  • The Boy Under the Table by Nicole Trope

    The Boy Under the Table by Nicole Trope

    Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    Tina is a young woman hiding from her grief on the streets of the Cross. On a cold night in the middle of winter she breaks all her own rules when she agrees to go home with a customer.What she finds in his house will change her life forever.Across the country Sarah and Doug are trapped in limbo, struggling to accept the loss that now governs their lives...
    Categorized as:
    dark  literary-fiction  abuse  adult  book  contemporary  crime  family
  • Del tiempo y sus demonios by Diego Armando Arciniegas Malagón

    Del tiempo y sus demonios by Diego Armando Arciniegas Malagón

    Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    DEL TIEMPO Y SUS DEMONIOS: PERSIGUIENDO LA VERDADEsta novela se desarrolla en un pequeño y misterioso pueblo. En un territorio hermoso, inhóspito a la luz de aquellas certezas que las mayorías consideran irrefutables. Lejos del tiempo que, arbitrariamente, tomara la sabia decisión de separar el bien del mal...
  • United Reign by Kylie Kent

    United Reign by Kylie Kent

    Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    Dark Mafia RomanceTheoEverything we’ve built is crashing down around me.I’m consumed by the darkness, my blood boiling with the need for revenge.My wife is the only light in my life; she’s the very reason I keep on fighting.They’re coming after me. And worse yet, they’re coming after her.But let them come…I’m waiting. We’re waiting.To send them all back to the hell they crawled out of...
  • Black Contract by Charlotte Byrd

    Black Contract by Charlotte Byrd

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    I don’t belong with her. Born into darkness, life made me a cynic incapable of love. But then Ellie waltzed in. Innocent, optimistic, kind. She’s the opposite of what I deserve. I bought her, but she she stole my heart. Now my business is going up in flames. I have only one chance to make it right. That’s where it happens…something I can never take back...
  • Tell Me to Lie by Charlotte Byrd

    Tell Me to Lie by Charlotte Byrd

    Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    There was a time when my debt was the only link we had. There was a time when I couldn’t tell him how much I loved him and he couldn’t tell me. There was a time when I thought I could never have enough money. Now, everything is different. Nicholas Crawford is a stranger who is becoming more strange with every moment. I used to think I could make a life with him, but now I’m not so sure...
  • Fire by John Boyne

    Fire by John Boyne

    Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    On the face of it, Freya lives a gilded existence, dancing solely to her own tune. She has all the trappings of wealth and privilege, a responsible job as a surgeon specialising in skin grafts, a beautiful flat in a sought-after development, and a flash car. But it wasn’t always like this. Hers is a life founded on darkness...
  • Sul lato selvaggio by Tiffany McDaniel

    Sul lato selvaggio by Tiffany McDaniel

    Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    Six women—mothers, daughters, sisters—gone missing. Inspired by the unsolved murders of the Chillicothe Six, this harrowing novel tells the story of two sisters, both of whom could be the next victims, from the internationally best-selling author of Betty."Capture[s] what goes horribly wrong when women don’t fit a customary victim profile..
  • The Pretty Dead Girls by Skylar Finn

    The Pretty Dead Girls by Skylar Finn

    Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    When two young girls go missing from a small Georgia town, the crime remains unsolved for nearly thirty years.When Savannah moves home to the small town of Humble, Georgia, she has no intention of getting involved in a kidnapping investigation. But when her older brother Mac becomes the main suspect, Savannah launches a secret investigation in order to clear her brother’s name...
  • Tell me to Fight by Charlotte Byrd

    Tell me to Fight by Charlotte Byrd

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    I’m a man who takes what he wants. What do I want? Her. Olive Kernes owned me a debt and she thought that she had paid it back. But now I want more. I want more than just her time. I want more than just her body. Her new life has torn us apart. Now, it’s up to me to make things right. I will make the pieces of our love fit back together if it’s the last thing I do...
  • Be Afraid by Mary Burton

    Be Afraid by Mary Burton

    Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    The Fear Is Terrifying When police rescue five-year-old Jenna Thompson from the dark closet where she's been held captive for days, they tell her she's a lucky girl. Compared to the rest of her family, it's true. But even with their killer dead of an overdose, Jenna is still trying to find peace twenty-five years later...
  • Shatter The Bones by Stuart MacBride

    Shatter The Bones by Stuart MacBride

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    A bestseller from the award-winning Stuart MacBride. The seventh DS Logan McRae thriller is a gripping page-turner in which fame and fortune crash head-on with crime and punishment.No suspects. No clues. No rest for the wicked.'You will raise money for the safe return of Alison and Jenny McGregor. If you raise enough money within fourteen days they will be released. If not, Jenny will be killed...
  • Right Behind You by Lisa Gardner

    Right Behind You by Lisa Gardner

    Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars
    · 26 ratings
    THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! Lisa Gardner's latest thriller following her runaway hit Find Her takes her wildly popular brand of suspense to new heights.Eight years ago, Sharlah May Nash's older brother beat their drunken father to death with a baseball bat in order to save both of their lives. Now thirteen years old, Sharlah has finally moved on...
  • His Addiction by Charlotte Byrd

    His Addiction by Charlotte Byrd

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    Book 4 in the Bestselling series - includes Book 1 as a BONUS! The hotly anticipated fourth book continues the sensual saga of Ellie and Aiden. Aiden Black is beautiful and flawless and tormented and damaged. I'm a good girl who never thought that she would fall for a man who would buy her at an auction. But what started out as a relationship of pure lust has evolved into something more..
  • Familiar Threat by Stephanie St. Klaire

    Familiar Threat by Stephanie St. Klaire

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    The Keepers series will keep you on the edge of your seat as Cane and Charlie find romance on the run amidst a cult uprising, a diabolical killer who won’t stay dead and a trail of bodies from Vegas to Portland...Victim turned witness, Charlie finds herself the center of a blood bath, back in protective custody and safe in the arms of bodyguard Cane O’Reilly...
  • Underneath by Andie M. Long, Michelle Dunbar

    Underneath by Andie M. Long, Michelle Dunbar

    Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    From the Author of The Alphabet Game comes a tale of drama and suspense. LAUREN LAWLER’s life is visually perfect. However husband Niall seems to have forgotten she exists. Running a Vintage shop on Ebay and meeting her best friend Monique for coffee and shopping, Lauren feels settled but bored...
  • The Domme Tamer by Kat Evans

    The Domme Tamer by Kat Evans

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    #1 BEST SELLERHow far would you go?The victims were as different as night and day: an exotic dancer, a beloved teacher, and a promising law student. What was the one thing they had incommon? A fetish for breath play...Homicide Detective Jillian Robichaux is smart and persistent...
  • Monstrous Souls by Rebecca Kelly

    Monstrous Souls by Rebecca Kelly

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    What if you knew the truth but couldn’t remember?Over a decade ago, Heidi was the victim of a brutal attack that left her hospitalised, her younger sister missing, and her best friend dead. But Heidi doesn’t remember any of that. She’s lived her life since then with little memory of her friends and family and no recollection of the crime.But lately, it’s all starting to come back...
  • The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis

    The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    A 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...
  • Not What It Seems by Nicky James

    Not What It Seems by Nicky James

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    They say I killed them. They say I’m sick. They’re wrong. Nothing is as it seems. Renowned psychiatrist Dr. Cyrus Irvine takes his job and his life very seriously. He is well-respected in his field and has worked hard to get where he is. But he’s lonely. When called in to do a mental health evaluation on a murder suspect, the last thing he expects to find is the man he slept with a few months ago...
  • Disillusioned by J.S. Cooper

    Disillusioned by J.S. Cooper

    Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    Following on the heels of Illusion , indie sensation and New York Times bestselling author J.S. Cooper brings us the second novel in the Swept Away series, a trilogy of dark and sexy romances about a woman marooned on a desert island with a sexy stranger—but is he friend or foe? When Bianca and Jakob awake on a sandy shore in the middle of nowhere, their first thoughts are of survival...
  • The Art of Murder by José Carlos Somoza

    The Art of Murder by José Carlos Somoza

    Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    In 2006, the art world has moved far beyond sheep in formaldehyde and the most avant-garde movement is to use living people as artwork. Undergoing weeks of preparation to become 'canvases', the models are required to stay in their pose for ten to twelve hours a day and, as art pieces, they are also for sale...
  • Heart of Light by T.K. Leigh

    Heart of Light by T.K. Leigh

    Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    Twelve years ago, Jolene’s adoptive mother died. Twelve years ago, a man showed up at Jolene’s door and promised to take care of her. Twelve years ago, Jolene was happy...
  • Hard Candy by Andrew Vachss

    Hard Candy by Andrew Vachss

    Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    In this mercilessly compelling thriller, Burke—the private eye, sting artist, and occasional hit man who metes out a cruelly ingenious vengeance on those who victimize children—is up against a soft-spoken messiah, who may be rescuing runaways or recruiting them for his own hideous purposes...
  • Dead Men's Trousers by Irvine Welsh

    Dead Men's Trousers by Irvine Welsh

    Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    A spectacular return of the wild, dissolute gang from Trainspotting, from the author the New York Times called “Blisteringly funny…. ”The gang from Trainspotting have mostly cleaned up their act…until they are drawn back together to Scotland for one last scheme—a scheme one of them won’t survive. It’s an action-packed, hilarious and rollicking trip, as well as a moving elegy to the crew...
  • 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...
  • Dear Mother by Angela Marsons

    Dear Mother by Angela Marsons

    Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    A story about three sisters brought together by the death of their cruel and abusive mother. Alex, the youngest, is a bitter, unforgiving woman who refuses to face the events of her childhood. She hides in a bottle and destroys any chance of happiness that comes her way. Her life is spiralling dangerously out of control but she doesn't have the strength to stop it...
  • The Good Samaritan by John Marrs

    The Good Samaritan by John Marrs

    Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars
    · 27 ratings
    She’s a friendly voice on the phone. But can you trust her?The people who call End of the Line need hope. They need reassurance that life is worth living. But some are unlucky enough to get through to Laura. Laura doesn’t want them to hope. She wants them to die.Laura hasn’t had it easy: she’s survived sickness and a difficult marriage only to find herself heading for forty, unsettled and angry...
  • The Truth in My Lies by Ivy Smoak

    The Truth in My Lies by Ivy Smoak

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    My name is Adeline Bell. I’m a suburban housewife. Period. My husband has always kept me on a tight leash. I’m not even supposed to leave the house. My husband leaves every Monday morning for business and comes back Friday night. I have the weekdays to myself. And I always leave the house every morning. What my husband doesn’t know won’t kill him...
  • Tell Me to Run by Charlotte Byrd

    Tell Me to Run by Charlotte Byrd

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    From the moment we met, Nicholas Crawford has been an enigma. He’s a man with an unknown past and a mysterious future. He’s a criminal, a liar, a mastermind and the love of my life. I became a criminal for him. I rescued him. Now it’s his turn to do something for me. When I discover that everything I believed about my family is a lie, I need his help to uncover the truth...
  • Eden by Candice Fox

    Eden by Candice Fox

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    'I fool myself that Eden has a heart – that she would at least have trouble killing me...'Most police duos run on trust, loyalty, and the desire to see killers in court. But Detective Frank Bennett's partner, the enigmatic Eden Archer, has nothing to offer him but darkness and danger. She doesn't mind catching killers – but it's not the courthouse where her justice is served...
  • Crossroads by Laurel Hightower

    Crossroads by Laurel Hightower

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    How far would you go to bring back someone you love? When Chris's son dies in a tragic car crash, her world is devastated. The walls of grief close in on Chris's life until, one day, a small cut on her finger changes everything. A drop of blood falls from Chris's hand onto her son's roadside memorial and, later that night, Chris thinks she sees his ghost outside her window...
  • Rainfall by Melissa Delport

    Rainfall by Melissa Delport

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    Paige’s father has Alzheimers, and her fiancé is shot and killed in an armed robbery. Paige fights her depression and pulls herself out of the dark place that she has succumbed to, with monumental effort and a new-found determination to live her life to the fullest, doing things that both terrify and exhilarate her.When Paige meets Adam, the attraction is instantaneous...
  • A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

    A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

    Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars
    · 27 ratings
    Food 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...
  • Rage by Kimberly A. Bettes

    Rage by Kimberly A. Bettes

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    Brian Boozer is a good kid in a bad situation. At thirteen, he's already endured the pain of losing his father and the agony of living with a step-father who hates and abuses him. At school, Brian suffers even more torment, delivered by bullies who seem to enjoy making his life miserable. The only bright spot in Brian's life is Carly, the girl on whom he's had a crush for years...
  • The Prize by Mika Lane

    The Prize by Mika Lane

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    When four mountain mercenaries found me in a dirty wedding dress, deep into several shots of tequila and with mascara stains under my eyes, they had a few questions. Like WTH? When they learned about the a-holes who used me in their quest to get ahead—who lied, stole, and tossed me aside like a piece of human garbage, they set out to exact revenge...
  • The Pursued by Mika Lane, Laurie West

    The Pursued by Mika Lane, Laurie West

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    4 hot mountain mercenaries charged with protecting me. So was I a houseguest? Or a prisoner? Because I sure as hell felt trapped, even if they were keeping me alive.So I split. Flew the coop. Got the hell out of dodge. I figured I could do better on my own. And how wrong I was.Why’d I do it? Because I’m stubborn. Spoiled. A pain in the *ss. And I hate the mountains.Although the guys were nice...
  • Scrublands by Chris Hammer

    Scrublands by Chris Hammer

    Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    In an isolated country town afflicted by interminable drought, a charismatic and dedicated young priest calmly opens fire on his congregation, shooting dead five parishioners before being gunned down himself. A year later, accompanied by his own demons from war-time reporting, journalist Martin Scarsden arrives in Riversend...
  • Loyalties by Delphine de Vigan

    Loyalties by Delphine de Vigan

    Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    From the bestselling French novelist. Adults are as lost as the children they should be protecting, in this compelling exploration of the destructive secrets and loyalties that are kept behind closed doors Thirteen-year-old Théo and his friend Mathis secretly drink on an almost daily basis...
  • Problem Child by Victoria Helen Stone

    Problem Child by Victoria Helen Stone

    Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    She’s cold, calculating, and can deceive with a smile. Jane Doe is back in the Amazon Charts bestselling series - and this time she's met her match.After a brutal childhood, Jane Doe has been permanently wired to look after herself and only herself. Now, looking next to normal, Jane has a lover and a job. But she hasn't lost her edge. It sharpens when she hears from her estranged family...
  • Boy A by Jonathan Trigell

    Boy A by Jonathan Trigell

    Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    A is for Apple. A bad apple. Jack has spent most of his life in juvenile institutions; he's about to be released with a new name, new job, and a new life. At 24, he is utterly innocent of the world, yet guilty of a monstrous childhood crime. To his new friends, he is a good guy with occasional flashes of unexpected violence. To his girlfriend, he is strangely naive and unreachable...
  • The Choice by Susan Lewis

    The Choice by Susan Lewis

    Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    Sometimes the choice is too hard to bear...Nikki Grant is only twenty-one when she discovers she's pregnant. Despite her parents' disappointment and anger, she welcomes the news with joy. The baby will complete the happy home she shares with the man she adores, Spencer James. Baby Zac arrives and is perfect in every way...
  • Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy

    Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy

    Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Road returns with the second volume of The Passenger Stella Maris is an intimate portrait of grief and longing, as a young woman in a psychiatric facility seeks to understand her own existence...
  • Fox by Joyce Carol Oates

    Fox by Joyce Carol Oates

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    A spellbinding novel of literary and psychological suspense about the dark secrets that surface after the shocking disappearance of a charismatic, mercurial teacher at an elite boarding school—by the legendary author 'who is surely on any shortlist of America’s greatest living writers' (New York Times Magazine)'Eerie, shocking, provoking, and beautifully written, Fox is yet further proof Oates...
  • Midnight Is the Darkest Hour by Ashley Winstead

    Midnight Is the Darkest Hour by Ashley Winstead

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 5 ratings
    From the critically acclaimed author of In My Dreams I Hold A Knife and The Last Housewife comes a gothic Southern thriller about a killer haunting a small Louisiana town, where two outcasts—the preacher's daughter and the boy from the wrong side of the tracks—hold the key to uncovering the truth...
  • Song for the Unraveling of the World by Brian Evenson

    Song for the Unraveling of the World by Brian Evenson

    Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    A newborn's absent face appears on the back of someone else's head, a filmmaker goes to gruesome lengths to achieve the silence he's after for his final scene, and a therapist begins, impossibly, to appear in a troubled patient's room late at night. In these stories of doubt, delusion, and paranoia, no belief, no claim to objectivity, is immune to the distortions of human perception...
  • Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda

    Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda

    Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    “Was desire something like being possessed by a nightmare?”Fernanda and Annelise are so close they are practically sisters: a double image, inseparable...
  • The Death of Us by Abigail Dean

    The Death of Us by Abigail Dean

    Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    Bringing together the slow-burn simmer of psychological suspense and the propulsive drive of crime thrillers, The Death of Us is the story of a marriage turned inside out by a violent encounter that sets fire to the hairline faults that were there from the start.Late on a summer’s evening when they are thirty years old, husband and wife Edward and Isabel’s home is invaded by a serial killer...
  • The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson

    The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson

    Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars
    · 29 ratings
    **A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' TOP BOOK OF 2018**The Largesse of the Sea Maiden is the long-awaited new story collection from Denis Johnson, author of the groundbreaking, highly acclaimed Jesus’ Son...
  • Perfect Circle by Sean Stewart

    Perfect Circle by Sean Stewart

    Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    William ""Dead"" Kennedy has problems. He's haunted by family, by dead people with unfinished business, and by those perfect pop songs that you can't get out of your head. He's a 32-year-old Texan still in love with his ex-wife. He just lost his job at Pet-Co for eating cat food. His air-conditioning is broken, there's no good music on the radio, and he's been dreaming about ghost roads...
The Understory by Pamela Erens
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