Books like 'Dear Child: A Novel'

Readers who enjoyed Dear Child: A Novel by Romy Hausmann also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.

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  • The Body Keeper by Anne Frasier

    The Body Keeper by Anne Frasier

    Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars
    · 19 ratings
    The 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...
  • 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...
  • Heartbreak Bay by Rachel Caine

    Heartbreak Bay by Rachel Caine

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    They’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...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  family  suspense  thriller  action-adventure  adult
  • 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...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  family  kidnapping  survival  suspense  thriller
  • Criminal by Karin Slaughter

    Criminal by Karin Slaughter

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 30 ratings
    Karin 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...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  family  kidnapping  suspense  thriller  abuse
  • 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...
  • Genesis by Karin Slaughter

    Genesis by Karin Slaughter

    Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars
    · 30 ratings
    When 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 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...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  family  kidnapping  secrets  survival  suspense
  • 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...
  • Killman Creek by Rachel Caine

    Killman Creek by Rachel Caine

    Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars
    · 34 ratings
    Every 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...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  family  survival  suspense  thriller  abuse
  • 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...
  • Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, Andy Weir

    Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, Andy Weir

    Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars
    · 87 ratings
    Jason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one night, looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with his wife, Daniela, and their son, Charlie—when his reality shatters.- - -'Are you happy in your life?'Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious...
  • 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...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  family  kidnapping  survival  suspense  thriller
  • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

    The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 101 ratings
    Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of iniquity and corruption...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  family  secrets  suspense  thriller  21st-century
  • 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...
    Categorized as:
    crime  suspense  dark  thriller  drama  survival  kidnapping  fiction
  • The Summer Children The Collector, Book 3 by Dot Hutchison

    The Summer Children The Collector, Book 3 by Dot Hutchison

    Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars
    · 26 ratings
    Series including The Butterfly...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  family  suspense  thriller  abuse  action-adventure
  • The Taking of Peggy Martin by Karen Glista

    The Taking of Peggy Martin by Karen Glista

    Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    The setting is East Texas, where Peggy, a young nurse, works at an institution for the criminally insane. After her husband Danny is mysteriously killed in a car accident, she convinces herself that it was murder… and she knows the murderer by name… Jasper Johnson...
  • 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...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  kidnapping  survival  suspense  thriller  abuse
  • Unseen by Karin Slaughter

    Unseen by Karin Slaughter

    Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars
    · 28 ratings
    Karin 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...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  kidnapping  suspense  thriller  21st-century  abuse
  • A Caller's Game by J.D. Barker

    A Caller's Game by J.D. Barker

    Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    DIE HARD meets TALK RADIO in this heart-pounding, relentlessly fast-paced thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Fourth Monkey—master of suspense, J.D. Barker. "I'm going to offer you a choice." Controversial satellite radio talk show host, Jordan Briggs, has clawed her way to the top of the broadcast world...
  • 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...
  • Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine

    Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine

    Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars
    · 43 ratings
    Gina 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...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  family  survival  suspense  thriller  abuse
  • Triptych by Karin Slaughter

    Triptych by Karin Slaughter

    Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars
    · 36 ratings
    In the city of Atlanta, women are dying—at the hands of a killer who signs his work with a single, chilling act of mutilation. Leaving behind enough evidence to fuel a frenzied police hunt, this cunning madman is bringing together dozens of lives, crossing the boundaries of wealth and race. And the people who are chasing him must cross those boundaries too...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  suspense  thriller  abuse  action-adventure  adult
  • 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...
  • The Kept Woman by Karin Slaughter

    The Kept Woman by Karin Slaughter

    Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars
    · 33 ratings
    Husbands 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...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  family  kidnapping  suspense  thriller  abuse
  • Malevolent by Jana Deleon

    Malevolent by Jana Deleon

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    From 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 Mercy of Snakes by Dean Koontz

    The Mercy of Snakes by Dean Koontz

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    A series of suspicious deaths in a retirement home draws Nameless into the confidence of a terrified former resident—and into the dark heart of a shocking conspiracy. In part five of the Nameless series, it’s time to hunt.Oakshore Park is Michigan’s most exclusive assisted-living community. Presided over by two killer angels of mercy, it’s also the go-to facility in assisted dying...
  • The Dark Bones by Loreth Anne White

    The Dark Bones by Loreth Anne White

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    She’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 ratings
    A 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...
  • 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...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  family  secrets  suspense  thriller  abuse
  • 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...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  family  kidnapping  suspense  thriller  abuse
  • The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter

    The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter

    Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars
    · 42 ratings
    Two girls are forced into the woods at gunpoint. One runs for her life. One is left behind.Twenty-eight years ago, Charlotte and Samantha Quinn's happy small-town family life was torn apart by a terrifying attack on their family home. It left their mother dead. It left their father—Pikeville's notorious defense attorney—devastated...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  family  survival  suspense  thriller  abuse
  • 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...
  • Kisscut by Karin Slaughter

    Kisscut by Karin Slaughter

    Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars
    · 30 ratings
    Saturday night dates at the skating rink have been a tradition in the small southern town of Heartsdale for as long as anyone can remember, but when a teenage quarrel explodes into a deadly shoot-out, Sara Linton--the town's pediatrician and medical examiner--finds herself entangled in a terrible tragedy...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  kidnapping  suspense  thriller  21st-century  abuse
  • Into the Black Nowhere by Meg Gardiner

    Into the Black Nowhere by Meg Gardiner

    Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    In 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...
  • 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...
  • Deeper Than the Dead by Tami Hoag

    Deeper Than the Dead by Tami Hoag

    Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars
    · 26 ratings
    California, 1985. Four children, running in the woods behind their school, stumble upon a partially buried female body, eyes and mouth glued shut. Close behind the children is their teacher, Anne Navarre, shocked by this discovery and heartbroken as she witnesses the end of their innocence...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  family  kidnapping  suspense  thriller  abuse
  • The Empty Chair by Jeffery Deaver

    The Empty Chair by Jeffery Deaver

    Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars
    · 26 ratings
    It's not easy being NYPD detective Lincoln Rhyme, the world's foremost criminalist. First of all, he's a quadriplegic. Secondly, he's forever being second-guessed and mother-henned by his ex-model-turned-cop protégé, Amelia Sachs, and his personal aide, Thom. And thirdly, it seems that he can't motor his wheelchair around a corner without bumping into one crazed psycho-killer after another...
  • The Blackhouse by Peter May

    The Blackhouse by Peter May

    Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars
    · 28 ratings
    A brutal killing takes place on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland: a land of harsh beauty and inhabitants of deep-rooted faith.A MURDERDetective Inspector Fin Macleod is sent from Edinburgh to investigate. For Lewis-born Macleod, the case represents a journey both home and into his past.A SECRETSomething lurks within the close-knit island community. Something sinister...
  • 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...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  family  kidnapping  survival  suspense  thriller
  • My Sister's Grave by Robert Dugoni, รอเบิร์ต ดูโกนี่

    My Sister's Grave by Robert Dugoni, รอเบิร์ต ดูโกนี่

    Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars
    · 42 ratings
    Tracy Crosswhite has spent twenty years questioning the facts surrounding her sister Sarah’s disappearance and the murder trial that followed. She doesn’t believe that Edmund House — a convicted rapist and the man condemned for Sarah’s murder — is the guilty party...
  • Roses Are Red by James Patterson

    Roses Are Red by James Patterson

    Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars
    · 35 ratings
    In this heart-pounding but touchingly romantic thriller, Detective Alex Cross pursues the most complex and brilliant killer he's ever confronted - mysterious criminal who calls himself the Mastermind. In a series of crimes that has stunned Washington, D.C...
  • 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...
  • The Tywi Estuary Killings by John Nicholl

    The Tywi Estuary Killings by John Nicholl

    Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    Is it revenge or is it justice?DI Gravel is supposed to be on mandatory leave, but when a severed head washes up on the estuary beach his holiday is cut short. Back on the job, he’s shocked when the case leads him to the victim from an old caseSeventeen years ago, the system failed Rebecca. They let the abuser of a six-year-old girl walk free...
    Categorized as:
    crime  dark  drama  family  suspense  thriller  action-adventure  adult
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