Books like 'The Familiar Dark'
Readers who enjoyed The Familiar Dark by Amy Engel also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary mystery horror psychological action / adventure thriller suspense crime dark family
-
The Body Keeper by Anne Frasier
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsThe Thriller Award–winning series continues as Detective Jude Fontaine finds a decades-old connection to missing children that will freeze her blood.A boy’s frozen body is found trapped in the ice of a Minneapolis lake. The horrifying discovery leads Detective Jude Fontaine and her partner, Uriah Ashby, to more bodies in the ice, all of twelve-year-old boys missing for twenty years... -
![The Night Window by Dean Koontz]()
The Night Window by Dean Koontz
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 20 ratings#1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz brings Jane Hawk's one-woman war to an explosive climax as the rogue FBI agent wages her final battle against a terrifying conspiracy--for vengeance, for justice, and for humanity's freedom."Jane Hawk is arguably the best character Koontz has created. Simply put, wow... -
![Our Stolen Pieces by James Hunt]()
Our Stolen Pieces by James Hunt
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhen 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 ratingsListening 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... -
-
![Heartbreak Bay by Rachel Caine]()
Heartbreak Bay by Rachel Caine
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThey’re hunting a killer so silent, so invisible, that his unspeakable crimes are the only proof he exists.A car submerged in a remote pond. The bodies of two girls strapped into their seats. The mystery of their mother, vanished without a trace, leads Gwen Proctor and Kezia Claremont into dangerous territory... -
![Finding Claire Fletcher by Lisa Regan]()
Finding Claire Fletcher by Lisa Regan
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn 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... -
![Billy Summers by Stephen King]()
Billy Summers by Stephen King
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 59 ratingsBilly Summers is a man in a room with a gun. He’s a killer for hire and the best in the business. But he’ll do the job only if the target is a truly bad guy. And now Billy wants out. But first there is one last hit. Billy is among the best snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet, a Houdini when it comes to vanishing after the job is done... -
![Criminal by Karin Slaughter]()
Criminal by Karin Slaughter
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsKarin Slaughter's new novel is an epic tale of love, loyalty, and murder that encompasses forty years, two chillingly similar murder cases, and a good man's deepest secrets. Will Trent is a brilliant agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Newly in love, he is beginning to put a difficult past behind him... -
![Bitter Falls by Rachel Caine]()
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... -
![Fallen by Karin Slaughter]()
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... -
![Genesis by Karin Slaughter]()
Genesis by Karin Slaughter
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsWhen a tortured young woman enters the trauma center of an Atlanta hospital, Dr. Sara Linton is thrust into a desperate police investigation with Special Agent Will Trent and his partner, Faith Mitchell. Though guarding their own wounds and their own secrets, Sara, Will, and Faith find that they are all that stand between a madman and his next victim... -
![A Dark Lure by Loreth Anne White]()
A Dark Lure by Loreth Anne White
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsTwelve 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 ratingsA 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... -
![Killman Creek by Rachel Caine]()
Killman Creek by Rachel Caine
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 34 ratingsEvery time Gwen closed her eyes, she saw him in her nightmares. Now her eyes are open, and he’s not going away.Gwen Proctor won the battle to save her kids from her ex-husband, serial killer Melvin Royal, and his league of psychotic accomplices. But the war isn’t over. Not since Melvin broke out of prison. Not since she received a chilling text…You’re not safe anywhere now... -
-
![Missed Connections by Alexandria Clarke]()
Missed Connections by Alexandria Clarke
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsHow 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... -
![Broken by Karin Slaughter]()
Broken by Karin Slaughter
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsWhen Special Agent Will Trent arrives in Grant County, he finds a police department determined to protect its own and far too many unanswered questions about a prisoner's death. He doesn't understand why Officer Lena Adams is hiding secrets from him. He doesn't understand her role in the death of Grant County's popular police chief. He doesn't understand why that man's widow, Dr... -
![Catch Me by Lisa Gardner]()
Catch Me by Lisa Gardner
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsDetective D. D. Warren has four days to stop a killer in this “shocking…‘must read’”* from #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner—one of Library Journal's Best Thrillers of the Year.Charlene Grant believes she is going to die. For the past few years, her childhood friends have been murdered one by one. Same day. Same time... -
![A Killer's Mind by Mike Omer]()
A Killer's Mind by Mike Omer
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsA chilling thriller of serial murder and dark secrets that will leave you wondering, is the past really in the past?Three Chicago women have been found strangled, embalmed, and posed as if still alive. Doubting the findings of the local PD’s profiler, The FBI calls on forensic psychologist Zoe Bentley to investigate... -
![Find Her by Lisa Gardner]()
Find Her by Lisa Gardner
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsLisa 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 ratingsNo 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 ratingsA 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 Secrets of the Shadows by Helen Phifer]()
The Secrets of the Shadows by Helen Phifer
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSophie was afraid of the man in the shadows. He terrified her, but he would always disappear when someone else came. But one day in June 1984, she didn't escape. He took her. When a young woman is found draped over a gravestone in a chilling murder, police officer Annie Graham experiences a familiar sense of dread... -
![The Girl in the Snow by Alexandria Clarke]()
The Girl in the Snow by Alexandria Clarke
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA 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 Pretty Dead Girls by Skylar Finn]()
The Pretty Dead Girls by Skylar Finn
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWhen 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... -
![Vanish by Tess Gerritsen]()
Vanish by Tess Gerritsen
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsA blessed event becomes a nightmare for pregnant homicide detective Jane Rizzoli when she finds herself on the wrong side of a hostage crisis in this timely and relentless thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Body Double. A nameless, beautiful woman appears to be just another corpse in the morgue... -
![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 ratingsFor 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... -
![Unseen by Karin Slaughter]()
Unseen by Karin Slaughter
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsKarin Slaughter’s novels featuring Special Agent Will Trent are utterly riveting and masterfully drawn. Her latest thriller, Unseen, pits detectives, lovers, and enemies against one another in an unforgettable standoff between righteous courage and deepest evil... -
![The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen]()
The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsThe Surgeon has been locked up for a year but his chilling legacy still haunts the city, and especially Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli. But now a new killer is at work and Rizzoli senses something horrifyingly familiar about this murderer's modus operandi... -
![Small Spaces by Sarah Epstein]()
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... -
![Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine]()
Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsGina Royal is the definition of average—a shy Midwestern housewife with a happy marriage and two adorable children. But when a car accident reveals her husband’s secret life as a serial killer, she must remake herself as Gwen Proctor—the ultimate warrior mom.With her ex now in prison, Gwen has finally found refuge in a new home on remote Stillhouse Lake... -
![Stranger in the Woods by Anni Taylor]()
Stranger in the Woods by Anni Taylor
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPhotographer 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...Categorized as:
crime female-mc kidnapping literary-fiction suspense thriller action-adventure adult -
![What Hurts the Most by Willow Rose]()
What Hurts the Most by Willow Rose
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsASIN B018A097LO moved to the most recent edition hereYou will never guess the ending!Am I pretty? Imagine being asked that question standing face to face with a killer. What would you answer? While her life is going from bad to worse, journalist Mary Mills receives a phone call from her father telling her that her brother has been arrested for murder...Categorized as:
crime female-mc literary-fiction suspense thriller action-adventure adult amateur-sleuth -
![The Kept Woman by Karin Slaughter]()
The Kept Woman by Karin Slaughter
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsHusbands and wives. Mothers and daughters. The past and the future. Secrets bind them. And secrets can destroy them. The author of Pretty Girls returns with an electrifying, emotionally complex thriller that plunges its fascinating protagonist into the darkest depths of a mystery that just might destroy him... -
-
![Malevolent by Jana Deleon]()
Malevolent by Jana Deleon
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFrom New York Times bestselling author Jana DeLeon, the first in a new thriller series. Everyone wondered about Shaye Archer’s past. Including Shaye. Shaye Archer’s life effectively began the night police found her in an alley, beaten and abused and with no memory of the previous fifteen years, not even her name... -
![The Dark Bones by Loreth Anne White]()
The Dark Bones by Loreth Anne White
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsShe’s come back to solve the mystery of her father’s death and confront her own dark past. When Detective Rebecca North left her rural hometown, she vowed never to return. Her father’s apparent suicide has changed that. The official report is that retired cop Noah North shot himself, knocked over a lantern, and set his isolated cabin ablaze. But Rebecca cannot believe he killed himself... -
![The Whisperer by Donato Carrisi]()
The Whisperer by Donato Carrisi
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA gripping literary thriller and smash bestseller that has taken Italy, France, Germany and the UK by storm.Six severed arms are discovered, arranged in a mysterious circle and buried in a clearing in the woods. Five of them appear to belong to missing girls between the ages of eight and eighteen. The sixth is yet to be identified... -
![Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton]()
Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsThe extraordinary new novel everyone is talking about from the Sunday Times best-selling author of SisterThree hours is 180 minutes or 10,800 seconds.It is a morning's lessons, a dress rehearsal of Macbeth, a snowy trek through the woods.It is an eternity waiting for news. Or a countdown to something terrible.It is 180 minutes to discover who you will die for and what men will kill for...Categorized as:
crime drama literary-fiction political-intrigue suspense terrorism thriller 21st-century -
![Wolfhunter River by Rachel Caine]()
Wolfhunter River by Rachel Caine
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA 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 ratingsA 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 ratingsThirteen 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... -
![Invisible by James Patterson, David Ellis]()
Invisible by James Patterson, David Ellis
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsEveryone thinks Emmy Dockery is crazy. Obsessed with finding the link between hundreds of unsolved cases, Emmy has taken leave from her job as an FBI researcher. Now all she has are the newspaper clippings that wallpaper her bedroom, and her recurring nightmares of an all-consuming fire... -
![The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes]()
The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsSeventeen-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 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... -
-
![Girl Found by Kate Gable]()
Girl Found by Kate Gable
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsDon’t look for me… A college student is found dead in the apartment of a US Marine who has disappeared.Where is he? Did he kill her and run? And if so, why? Detective Kaitlyn Carr will stop at nothing to find out what happened.The marine’s father is certain that his son would never do anything to harm his friend... -
![The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill]()
The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"Thefertility of Hill's imagination, the range of his power, the sheer quality ofhis literary style never ceases to delight." —Val McDermid,author of Fever of the BoneIn a stand-alone psychological thrillerfrom acclaimed mystery master Reginald Hill, a mysterious ex-con returns to hisremote childhood home on a deadly hunt for revenge... -
![Abandoned by Cody McFadyen]()
Abandoned by Cody McFadyen
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFor 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... -
![Into the Black Nowhere by Meg Gardiner]()
Into the Black Nowhere by Meg Gardiner
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn this exhilarating thriller inspired by real-life serial killer Ted Bundy, FBI profiler Caitlin Hendrix faces off against a charming, merciless serial killer.In Southern Texas, on Saturday nights, women are disappearing. One vanishes from a movie theater. Another, from her car at a stoplight. A mother is ripped from her home while checking on her baby... -
![Huntress Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff]()
Huntress Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsA Thriller Award nominee for Best eBook Original Novel... Book 1 in award-winning author Alexandra Sokoloff's riveting new Huntress FBI series about a driven FBI agent on the hunt for that most rare of all killers: a female serial... -
![Born To Die by Lisa Jackson]()
Born To Die by Lisa Jackson
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIn Lisa Jackson's thrilling new novel detectives Alvarez and Pescoli investigate a murderer who nearly makes his killings look like accidents - until a small-town doctor notices something disturbing. At first Kacey Lambert thinks it's a sad, strange coincidence. Two women with an amazing resemblance to her have died suddenly. But detective Selena Alvarez suspects otherwise...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.
