Books like 'The Believing Game'
Readers who enjoyed The Believing Game by Eireann Corrigan also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
mystery horror psychological religion cults fundamentalism classics realistic boarding-school law-enforcement
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This Present Darkness by Frank E. Peretti
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 40 ratings"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:12Ashton is just a typical small town...Categorized as:
classics high-school religion spirituality 20th-century action-adventure angels audiobook -
After the Fire by Will Hill
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe 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
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsShe’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...Categorized as:
cults family fundamentalism law-enforcement religion spirituality abuse action-adventure -
Fallen by Karin Slaughter
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsThere'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... -
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Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsWhen they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car pulled up to their street. One boy got into the car, two did not, and something terrible happened -- something that ended their friendship and changed all three boys forever.Twenty-five years later, Sean is a homicide detective. Jimmy is an ex-con who owns a corner store... -
Primal Fear by William Diehl
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsMartin Vail, the brilliant "bad-boy" lawyer every prosecutor and politician love to hate, is defending Aaron Stampler, a man found holding a bloody butcher's knife near a murdered archbishop... -
A Gathering of Secrets by Linda Castillo
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA deadly fire exposes the dark side of Amish life in this harrowing new thriller in the New York Times bestselling series.When a historic barn burns to the ground in the middle of the night, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is called in to investigate. At first, it looks like an accident, but when the body of eighteen-year-old Daniel Gingerich is found inside—burned alive—Kate suspects murder... -
Small Spaces by Sarah Epstein
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWe 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...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family high-school law-enforcement action-adventure book contemporary crime -
Deadly Little Lessons by Laurie Faria Stolarz
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsCamelia Hammond's trying junior year of high school is finally over...but her troubles aren't. After she discovers a painful truth about her family, she escapes to a summer arts program in Rhode Island. Determined to put family - and boyfriend - drama behind her, she throws herself into her artwork.At the arts school, she gets caught up in the case of Sasha Beckerman, a local girl who is missing...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family high-school law-enforcement action-adventure book contemporary death -
Seven by Anthony Bruno
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMismatched partner cops Somerset and Mills are on the trail of a psychotic murderer who intends to avenge the seven deadly sins, starting with gluttony... -
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 79 ratingsIt 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...Categorized as:
classics cults high-school realistic spirituality 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Blood of My Blood by Barry Lyga
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsJazz 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...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family high-school law-enforcement realistic abuse action-adventure audiobook -
Game by Barry Lyga
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsBilly 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...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family high-school law-enforcement realistic abuse action-adventure anti-hero -
Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr., Darren Aronofsky
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsIn Coney Island, Brooklyn, Sarah Goldfarb, a lonely widow, wants nothing more than to lose weight and appear on a television game show. She becomes addicted to diet pills in her obsessive quest, while her junkie son, Harry, along with his girlfriend, Marion, and his best friend, Tyrone, have devised an illicit shortcut to wealth and leisure by scoring a pound of uncut heroin...Categorized as:
classics cults law-enforcement realistic spirituality 20th-century abuse action-adventure -
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Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsBrace yourself, America, for Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting—the novel and the film that became the cult sensations of Britain. Trainspotting is the novel that first launched Irvine Welsh's spectacular career—an authentic, unrelenting, and strangely exhilarating episodic group portrait of blasted lives. It accomplished for its own time and place what Hubert Selby, Jr...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age cults high-school realistic spirituality 20th-century action-adventure -
Along Came a Spider by James Patterson
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 79 ratingsWhat 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...Categorized as:
classics family high-school law-enforcement realistic 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsAn explosive, edge-of-your-seat read about three friends, one murder, and a whole world of secrets... Angela was one of the most popular girls in her high school before she disappeared without a trace. Nobody ever knew what became of her―not Georgina, her best friend, nor Kaiser, who was close with both girls... -
The Elephant Tree by R.D. Ronald
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsMark Fallon is an overworked detective investigating a spate of attacks at a string of high profile city centre nightclubs. Scott is a dejected 24 year old struggling to make ends meet working for his brother and supplementing his income with a small-scale drug dealing operation...Categorized as:
classics cults law-enforcement realistic spirituality 21st-century action-adventure book -
Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsA collection of linked stories narrated by a recovering alcoholic and heroin addict, Jesus' Son is a disturbing portrayal of loneliness and hope. He travels through an American underworld of burnt-out sports stars, hospital waiting rooms, doomed relationships and senseless violence... -
A Rose for Emily and Other Stories by William Faulkner, Washington Irving
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsEmily is a member of a family in the antebellum Southern aristocracy; after the Civil War, the family has fallen on hard times...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age high-school realistic 20th-century action-adventure anthologies audiobook -
Devil's Pocket by John Dixon
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe follow-up to the critically acclaimed Phoenix Island, which reads like "Lord of the Flies meets Wolverine and Cool Hand Luke" (F. Paul Wilson, creator of Repairman Jack) and inspired the CBS TV show Intelligence.With a chip in his head and hundreds more throughout his body, sixteen-year-old Carl Freeman was turned from an orphan with impulse control issues into a super-soldier... -
A Child for the Devil by Conrad Jones
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA Child for the Devil is a full length dark thriller based on the novella 'Nine Angels'. When the author Conrad Jones was asked to help the police with the investigation into a double murder by identifying occult symbols, which had been carved into the victims, he is plunged into a nightmare and forced to go on the run... -
Little One by Sarah A. Denzil, Claire Storey
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"Take my hand, little one."Fran finds her standing by the swings. A little girl, Esther, no older than seven years old, by herself in the dead of night, her pretty but old-fashioned yellow dress covered in grass stains and her hair dishevelled. She says she's waiting for Father, and that strikes Fran as particularly odd... -
Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsSome 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...Categorized as:
family law-enforcement realistic religion spirituality action-adventure adult audiobook -
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One Door Away from Heaven by Dean Koontz
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsMichelina 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... -
Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsRosemary and Guy Woodhouse, an ordinary young couple, settle into a New York City apartment, unaware that the elderly neighbors and their bizarre group of friends have taken a disturbing interest in them... -
Don't Look Back by Christine Kersey
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIt is strongly recommended that you read He Loves Me Not (which is FREE) before reading Don't Look Back. The following product description contains spoilers for He Loves Me Not. Hiding from her estranged husband Trevor, Lily Jamison has changed her name and settled in a small town in the California Central Valley... -
The Night We Burned by S.F. Kosa
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA new psychological thriller from suspense powerhouse S.F. Kosa featuring a decades-old secret, a mysterious cult fire, and a woman looking to outrun the ashes of her past...until they come roaring back once more.Dora is always aware of the line between fact and fiction. As a fact checker at an online magazine, her job depends on it. And as a woman outrunning her secrets, so does her life... -
13:24: A Story of Faith and Obsession by M. Dolon Hickmon
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsTHE HEART-POUNDING, RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES THRILLER HONORED WITH A STARRED REVIEW IN PUBLISHERS WEEKLY'S BEST BOOKS OF 2014 SPECIAL ISSUEDetective William Hursel has worked countless murder cases, staring down the cruelest deeds humanity has to offer... -
Carrie by Stephen King
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 81 ratingsA modern classic, Carrie introduced a distinctive new voice in American fiction -- Stephen King. The story of misunderstood high school girl Carrie White, her extraordinary telekinetic powers, and her violent rampage of revenge, remains one of the most barrier-breaking and shocking novels of all time.Make a date with terror and live the nightmare that is..Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age high-school religion spirituality 20th-century abuse audiobook -
Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsShe's a catwalk model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. But when a sudden motor 'accident' leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she goes from being the beautiful centre of attention to being an invisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge she exists...Categorized as:
classics cults high-school realistic spirituality 20th-century action-adventure audiobook -
Playing Saint by Zachary Bartels
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsRising mega-pastor Parker Saint was wrapped up in his ratings and his book deal. But that was before the cops and the serial killer, the Vatican operatives, and the centuries-old plot to conceal an ancient relic. Now he's just trying to stay alive.Parker Saint is an up-and-coming superstar pastor on the verge of achieving everything he's wanted--including a national TV program and major book deal... -
Cemetery Dance by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsPendergast-the world's most enigmatic FBI Special Agent-returns to New York City to investigate a murderous cult.William Smithback Jr., a prominent New York Times reporter, was killed in a brutal attack in his Upper West Side apartment. His wife, Nora Kelly, an archeologist at the Museum of Natural History, was injured as well...Categorized as:
cults fundamentalism law-enforcement religion spirituality action-adventure adult archaeology -
Obitelj s gornjeg kata by Lisa Jewell
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsAn alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am...Categorized as:
coming-of-age cults family fundamentalism realistic spirituality abuse action-adventure -
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The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly by Stephanie Oakes
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA hard-hitting and hopeful story about the dangers of blind faith—and the power of having faith in yourself The Kevinian cult has taken everything from seventeen-year-old Minnow: twelve years of her life, her family, her ability to trust. And when she rebelled, they took away her hands, too... -
The Girl Before by Rena Olsen
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn this powerful psychological suspense debut, when a woman’s life is shattered, she is faced with a devastating question: What if everything she thought was normal and good and true . . . wasn’t? Clara Lawson is torn from her life in an instant. Without warning, her home is invaded by armed men, and she finds herself separated from her beloved husband and daughters... -
I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsWhat if the world's worst serial killer...was your dad?Jasper "Jazz" Dent is a likable teenager. A charmer, one might say.But he's also the son of the world's most infamous serial killer, and for Dear Old Dad, Take Your Son to Work Day was year-round. Jazz has witnessed crime scenes the way cops wish they could—from the criminal's point of view.And now bodies are piling up in Lobo's Nod...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family high-school law-enforcement realistic abuse action-adventure audiobook -
Nearly Gone by Elle Cosimano
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsKeeping secrets is second nature to Nearly Boswell. Living in a trailer park outside Washington, DC, with a mom who works as an exotic dancer, she knows better than to share anything that would make her a target with her classmates...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family high-school law-enforcement realistic action-adventure book contemporary -
Dead Girls Don't Lie by Jennifer Shaw Wolf
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsRachel died at two a.m . . . Three hours after Skyler kissed me for the first time. Forty-five minutes after she sent me her last text. Jaycee and Rachel were best friends. But that was before. . .before that terrible night at the old house. Before Rachel shut Jaycee out. Before Jaycee chose Skyler over Rachel. Then Rachel is found dead... -
How to Lead a Life of Crime by Kirsten Miller
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsA meth dealer. A prostitute. A serial killer.Anywhere else, they’d be vermin. At the Mandel Academy, they’re called prodigies. The most exclusive school in New York City has been training young criminals for over a century. Only the most ruthless students are allowed to graduate. The rest disappear.Flick, a teenage pickpocket, has risen to the top of his class...Categorized as:
boarding-school family high-school realistic action-adventure book contemporary crime -
The Liar's Daughter by Megan Cooley Peterson
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsPiper was raised in a cult. She just doesn't know it. Seventeen-year-old Piper knows that Father is a Prophet. Infallible. The chosen one.She would do anything for Father. That's why she takes care of all her little sisters. That's why she runs end-of-the-world drills. That's why she never asks questions. Because Father knows best.Until the day he doesn't...Categorized as:
coming-of-age cults family fundamentalism high-school realistic religion spirituality -
The Kill Club by Wendy Heard
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsJazz will stop at nothing to save her brother.Their foster mother, Carol, has always been fanatical, but with Jazz grown up and out of the house, Carol takes a dangerous turn that threatens thirteen-year-old Joaquin’s life. Over and over, child services fails to intervene, and Joaquin is running out of time.Then Jazz gets a blocked call from someone offering a solution... -
The Quiet Ones by Brandon Massey
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom award-winning suspense author Brandon Massey comes a thrilling novel of buried secrets and stunning revelations... LOST Twenty-five years ago, a jealous ex-boyfriend murdered Mallory Steele's mother. With no close family to take in Mallory and her older sister, the girls became wards of the state--and were soon ripped apart, sent to live with different foster families... -
Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen M. McManus
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsEcho Ridge is small-town America. Ellery's never been there, but she's heard all about it. Her aunt went missing there at age seventeen. And only five years ago, a homecoming queen put the town on the map when she was killed. Now Ellery has to move there to live with a grandmother she barely knows.The town is picture-perfect, but it's hiding secrets...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family high-school law-enforcement realistic 21st-century audiobook book -
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The Reincarnation of Peter Proud by Max Ehrlich
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsDr. Peter Proud’s ordinary life as a professor in California is threatened by recurrent dreams that all end the same: with his murder in a lake at night by a mysterious woman named Marcia... -
The Sleeping Doll by Jeffery Deaver
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWhen Special Agent Kathryn Dance -- a brilliant interrogator and kinesics expert with the California Bureau of Investigation -- is sent to question the convicted killer Daniel "Son of Manson" Pell as a suspect in a newly unearthed crime, she feels both trepidation and electrifying intrigue...Categorized as:
cults family fundamentalism law-enforcement spirituality action-adventure adult audiobook -
Just Like Mother by Anne Heltzel
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA girl would be such a blessing...The last time Maeve saw her cousin was the night she escaped the cult they were raised in. For the past two decades, Maeve has worked hard to build a normal life in New York City, where she keeps everything—and everyone—at a safe distance.When Andrea suddenly reappears, Maeve regains the only true friend she’s ever had... -
The Half Truth by Sue Fortin
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsEvery marriage has its secrets… Tina Bolotnikov, widowed after her husband, Sasha, is killed in a car accident, relocates back to her hometown on the south coast of the UK, to bring up her young son. Her life back in London with her adored husband is now nothing but a memory; a history to pass onto her son... -
Dead Ringer by Kate Kessler
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA gripping thriller by Kate Kessler (author of the Audrey Harte novels), in which an FBI agent becomes entwined in a missing persons case that directly connects to a horrific event from her past.Eighteen years ago, FBI Agent Rachel Ward's mirror twin, Hannah, was taken by the Gemini killer, a serial killer who delights in sending photos of his victims to their twins...Categorized as:
family law-enforcement realistic mystery fiction audiobook contemporary psychological -
Keep This to Yourself by Tom Ryan
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsIt's been a year since the Catalog Killer terrorized the sleepy seaside town of Camera Cove, killing four people before disappearing without a trace. Like everyone else in town, eighteen-year-old Mac Bell is trying to put that horrible summer behind him—easier said than done since Mac's best friend Connor was the murderer's final victim...
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