Books like 'The Stepchild'
Readers who enjoyed The Stepchild by Nicole Trope also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary psychological mystery suspense crime family thriller dark
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Hello Again by Brenda Novak
Rated: 4.63 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom NYT bestseller Brenda Novak comes the next installment of Dr. Evelyn Talbot and her murderous home for psychopaths in Hello Again. SHE CAN MAKE SENSE OF A COMPLEX CRIMINAL MIND. Evelyn Talbot, a psychiatrist at a maximum-security prison in Alaska, studies some of the world's worst serial killers. But she’s about to meet her most elusive patient at Hanover House yet: Dr... -
Face Off by Brenda Novak
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTortured and left for dead at sixteen, Evelyn Talbot turned her personal nightmare into her life’s work—studying the disturbing psychopathy of some of the world’s most vicious serial killers... -
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Lost Angels by Stacy Green
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWhen Special Agent Nikki Hunt is called to the Boundary Waters near Stillwater, Minnesota, it’s not just the cold that shocks her to her core: the body of a young woman has been found frozen beside a remote lake... -
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Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died.Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and worried police, but also a sinister voice from a past she has no memory of... -
Little Lost Secrets by Cheryl Bradshaw
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWhen a dead body is found in the walls during a home renovation, detective Georgiana Germaine gets swept into a cold case murder...Categorized as:
suspense crime family thriller mystery fiction pollution-climate-change contemporary -
No Way Out by Cara Hunter
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIt's one of the most disturbing cases DI Fawley has ever worked. The Christmas holidays, and two children have just been pulled from the wreckage of their burning home in North Oxford. The toddler is dead, and his brother is soon fighting for his life... -
The Brighton Mermaid by Dorothy Koomson
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBrighton Beach, 1993Teenagers Nell and Jude find the body of a young woman and when no one comes to claim her, she becomes known as the Brighton Mermaid. Nell is still struggling to move on when, three weeks later, Jude disappears.Twenty-five years on, Nell is forced to quit her job to find out who the Brighton Mermaid really was - and what happened to her best friend that summer... -
Good as Dead by Susan Walter
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIt all starts with a promise from a stranger: We’ll take care of everything.Holly Kendrick’s husband is dead. Holly saw it all. In one violent moment, a hit-and-run accident turns Holly’s life upside down. Then a fixer for the high-powered guilty party approaches Holly with an offer she is in no position to refuse... -
The Night She Vanished by Wendy Dranfield
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsMy parents seem to be the perfect couple. But no one knows what I know... Everyone in the small Midwestern town of Henderson looks up to my perfect parents. With dependable jobs as a midwife and the town sheriff, they help this close-knit community feel safe. But the locals didn't grow up in my parents' house. They don't know what I know. And they wouldn't believe me if I told them.. -
Only The Good Die Young : And I'm Not A Saint by Akash Verma
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsSometimes when you're desperate to leave the past behind, the past is eager to catch up!Anuradha leaves Gurgaon when Dhruv chooses his family over her. She thinks that chapter of her life hasended, and starts afresh in Mumbai. But strangely, it seems her past is trying to catch up. Dhruv suddenlycomes back into her life... -
All That Is Mine I Carry with Me by William Landay
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 9 ratingsA mother vanished. A father presumed guilty. There is no proof. There are no witnesses. For the children, there is only doubt. From the New York Times bestselling author of Defending Jacob. . . .One afternoon in November 1975, ten-year-old Miranda Larkin comes home from school to find her house eerily quiet. Her mother is missing. Nothing else is out of place. There is no sign of struggle... -
Wicked Little Words by Stevie J. Cole, B.T. Urruela
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsEdwin Allen Mercer I want them all to read my words. And they do. Every last blood-stained sentence, they've read and praised me for. They love the gore and violence, the realness. And I get a sense of power with it all because I know a secret: the victims in my books—they’re real and have all died on my table. And maybe that’s why the last book had such awful reviews... -
All of Us Are Broken by Fiona Cummins
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIt’s been a long time since the Hardwicke family has been on holiday. But thirteen-year-old Galen has wanted to see the wild dolphins at Scotland’s Chanonry Point for as long as she can remember, and her mother Christine – a lone parent since her beloved husband left – is determined she gets her wish. But their serene trip is about to be interrupted... -
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The Thorn Girl by Laura Elliot
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA swallow flutters its wings into a dimly lit attic as Adele Foyle stumbles across the secret diary of the mother she has never met, and a shocking account of a crime committed over twenty-five years ago... -
Juste une ombre by Karine Giébel
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsCloé Beauchamp est une jeune femme à qui tout semble réussir; belle, brillante, sur le point d'être nommée à la tête d'une prestigieuse agence de publicité... Et amoureuse, depuis peu, d'un homme charmant. Elle cache à la perfection ses failles et les horreurs qui ont jalonné son passé. Mais lentement, sa vie va se transformer en cauchemar... -
The Girl She Wanted by K.L. Slater
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhat if my sister is unstable and everyone can see it but me? What was she really doing standing over Florence’s cot in the middle of the night?Alexa has always looked up to her older sister Carrie. Carrie lives in Alexa’s family home, and adores her one-year-old niece Florence. Alexa doesn’t know how they would cope without her... -
The Cabin in the Woods by Sarah Alderson
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe unmissable new thriller from the bestselling author and screenwriter of Netflix movie, The Weekend Away.In a cabin in a wood,A woman by the window stood.Glancing out, she thought she heardFootsteps, whistling, something stirred.Hiding here, she fears the night,For what’s done in the dark will come to light... -
The Lies You Wrote by Brianna Labuskes
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFor a brilliant forensic linguist, crimes of the past hold clues to new series of murders in a twisting novel of suspense by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of A Familiar Sight.The double murder of a married couple in a small Washington town draws FBI forensic linguist Raisa Susanto into an investigation that mirrors a decades-old crime... -
The Ex-Wife by Jess Ryder
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsYou’ve got everything she wants …Newly married Natasha has the perfect house, a loving husband and a beautiful little girl called Emily. She’d have it all if it wasn’t for Jen, her husband’s ex-wife who just won’t leave them alone …Then Natasha returns home one day to find her husband and Emily gone without trace... -
The Last Thing She Told Me by Linda Green
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsEven the deepest buried secrets can find their way to the surface...Moments before she dies, Nicola's grandmother Betty whispers to her that there are babies at the bottom of the garden.Nicola's mother claims she was talking nonsense. However, when Nicola's daughter finds a bone while playing in Betty's garden, it's clear that something sinister has taken place... -
Dead in the Water by Britney King
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsTHE PERFECT NEIGHBORS. THE PERFECT COVER. A GRIPPING ROMANTICS SUSPENSE THRILLER He’s a contract killer. She likes to even the score. Smack dab in the middle of suburbia, few married couples are as competitive as Jude and Kate. But then, most married couples don't keep score in the form of body counts. Each hell-bent on a silent pact to out-do the other, the games begin... -
A Lovely Lie by Jaime Lynn Hendricks
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIs it better to believe a lovely lie or know the horrible truth?1999: The night of their senior picnic, Scarlett Russo and her best friend Pepper were involved in a car accident that left two of their classmates dead. Afterward, they lied to the police, protecting each other from the consequences... -
Black for Remembrance by Carlene Thompson
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsCaroline Webb knows what it means to lose the person you love most. Twenty years ago, her five-year-old daughter, Hayley, was the light of her life, her treasure, her angle. Then came the terrible day when Hayley was kidnapped from her favorite swing. More than a month passed before her burned, lifeless body was found. All that remained was the silence of Caroline's heartache--and her guilt.. -
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Vicious by Kevin O'Brien
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsNO MOTIVE For more than two years, he held Seattle in a terror grip. A cold-blooded killer who abducted young mothers right in front of their sons and murdered them execution style. Then, as suddenly as the killings began, they seemed to stop.NO MERCY Susan Blanchette is looking forward to a relaxing weekend getaway with her fianc�, Allen, and young son, Matthew... -
The Perfect Family Man by M.M. DeLuca
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFive years ago, my little boy went missing. Now my husband’s vanished, too.I wish I could say that the tragedy of little Jack disappearing brought me and Nate closer together. But my husband is more distant from me now than he’s ever been. Perhaps that’s why I don’t ask him exactly where he’s going when he sets off on another business trip... -
Strangers She Knows by Christina Dodd
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsI have three deadly problems:1. I've seriously offended a maniacal killer.2. I just had a bullet removed from my brain.3. My new daughter is growing up too fast--and she's in the line of fire.Living on an obscure, technology-free island off California means safety from the murderer who hunts Kellen Adams and her new family... -
Stimmen by Ursula Poznanski
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEr hatte die Zeichen gesehen. Er sah sie seit Jahren schon, und hatte immer wieder versucht, die Menschen zu warnen, doch nie wollte jemand ihm glauben.Sie hatten ein Opfer dargebracht. Auf keinen Fall durften sie ihn hören. Sie wissen, wer du bist.Menschen, die wirr vor sich hinmurmeln... -
Missing Daughter by Rick Mofina, Mark Owen
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFamilies with nothing to hide don’t have so many secretsLife can change in an instant. For Ryan and Karen Lane, it happens on the morning they discover their twelve-year-old daughter’s window open, their beloved Maddie missing from her bed.Police investigate. Suspicions swirl. A teenage boy admits he was outside her bedroom window the night she disappeared... -
My Little Girl by Shalini Boland
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratings‘I’m sorry. Your daughter is missing…’Claire Nolan receives a panicked phone call, telling her that her seven-year-old daughter Beatrice has gone missing on a trip to the local fair.It’s every mother’s worst nightmare. And it’s happening to her... -
The Reunion by Samantha Hayes
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThey were all there the day your sister went missing...Who is lying? Who is next?Then–In charge of her little sister at the beach, Claire allowed Eleanor to walk to the shop alone to buy an ice cream. Placing a coin into her hand, Claire told her to be quick, knowing how much she wanted the freedom. Eleanor never came back... -
The Halo Effect by Anne D. LeClaire
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn this tour de force, a father, shaken by tragedy, tries to avenge his daughter’s murder—and restore his family’s shattered life. It was supposed to be a typical October evening for renowned portrait artist Will Light... -
In Her Eyes by Sarah Alderson
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsYou're at home with your family. You think you're safe. You're wrong... Ava's life is the kind other people envy: loving husband; great kids; beautiful house. Until the night a violent home invasion turns the dream into a nightmare, and leaves her beautiful daughter fighting to survive.And then things get worse. Ava realises that the attack wasn't random. Someone is targeting her family... -
You're Family Now by Jack Stainton
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratings⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘ EPIC!! EPIC!! EPIC!! This book had EVERYTHING I love in a book!! ' Goodreads ReviewerHe only had to do one thing. Love her family…Matt Walker was a chancer; he’d spent his entire profession chasing the next job. His personal life took on a similar mantra; a succession of one-night stands and brief relationships. Life was slowly drifting him by... -
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My Perfect Daughter by Sarah A. Denzil
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMost mothers hope their little girl turns out like their dad, but not Zoe. She hopes the apple falls far from the tree.Zoe didn't meet her daughter the way most mothers do. She finds five-year-old Maddie alone and dirty on a countryside road. Frightened for Maddie's safety, she picks her up and takes her back to her father, not knowing what she's about to step into... -
No One Saw a Thing by Andrea Mara
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsTwo children get on the train. Only one gets off...No one saw it happen.You stand on a crowded tube platform in London. Your two little girls jump on the train ahead of you. As you try to join them, the doors slide shut and the train moves away, leaving you behind.Everyone is lying.By the time you get to the next stop, you've convinced yourself that everything will be fine... -
People Like Them by Minka Kent
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsNobody’s perfect—although one beautiful couple certainly comes close. Discover the cracks beneath the polished surface in this unsettling short story from bestselling author Minka Kent.Veronica and Ryan Hartley are the envy of Auburn Drive. When the exclusive neighborhood hosts its annual progressive dinner party, the couple’s perfection is on display... -
The Perfect Wife by Blake Pierce, Laura Bannister
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsLength: 8 hrs and 15 mins Criminal profiler in training (and newlywed) Jessie Hunt, 29, discovers that dark secrets lurk in her new suburban town; when a body turns up dead, she finds herself caught in the crosshairs of her newfound friends, her husband’s secrets, her serial killer caseload—and the secrets of her own dark past... -
All the Lies by Nicola Sanders
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsShe thought he was the perfect husband. Now she’s running for her life.On the surface, Amy and Jason have the perfect marriage, but Amy is trapped in a nightmare with a controlling, violent husband. Then on a short cruise without Jason, Amy befriends Liz, a young woman travelling alone on her way to meet her birth mother for the first time. Liz looks so much like Amy that they could be sisters... -
Family Money by Chad Zunker, Kris Koscheski
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 28 ratings* Duration: 7 hours and 24 minutes *A dead man’s secrets put a family in peril in a twisting novel of suspense by the Amazon Charts best-selling author of the David Adams series.Alex Mahan is married to his high school sweetheart, Taylor... -
What Happened to the Bennetts by Lisa Scottoline
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFrom #1 bestselling author Lisa Scottoline comes a pulse-pounding new novel.Your family has been attacked, never again to be the same.Now you have to choose between law…and justice.Jason Bennett is a suburban dad who owns a court-reporting business, but one night, his life takes a horrific turn... -
Dark Secrets by Michael Hjorth, Hans Rosenfeldt
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIt all begins with a call to the police. A sixteen-year-old boy, Roger Eriksson, has gone missing in the town of Västerås. A search is organized and a group of young scouts makes an awful discovery in a marsh: Roger is dead... -
Over Her Dead Body by Susan Walter
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAn inheritance that comes with a warning.Ashley Brooks’s life isn’t working out as planned. After years of struggling to make it in Hollywood, she’s still waiting for her big break. When fate leads her to the doorstep of legendary casting director Louisa Lake George, Ashley thinks her luck is about to change: the prickly old pro knows about a role she’s perfect for... -
The Curfew by T.M. Logan
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsYour son said he was home. WHY DID HE LIE? It's time to preorder the brand new up-all-night thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Richard and Judy pick The Holiday, now a major TV Drama.I should have known something was wrong. I should have sensed it. Felt it in the air, like the build-up of pressure before a thunderstorm, that heavy, loaded calm... -
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Three Mothers by Hannah Beckerman, Kristin Atherton
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsFrom the bestselling author of The Forgetting : a tense, character-driven suspense with a final twist that will make you gaspA heartbroken motherWhen seventeen-year-old Isla Richardson is killed in a hit-and-run incident, a community’s lives are thrown into disarray. For Isla’s mum, Abby, it is her second devastating bereavement, having lost her husband five years ago... -
The Other Daughter by Shalini Boland
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNine years ago her daughter was taken. And now she’s back. Two-and-a-half-year-old Holly is playing happily in a pink plastic playhouse, while her mother Rachel sips coffee and chats with a friend nearby. It should be an ordinary day for all of them. But, in the blink of an eye, it turns into every family’s worst nightmare. Holly is taken by a stranger and never found... -
We Used To Live Here by Daniel Hurst
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsEvery house has secrets. But not all of them stay buried forever...When the Burgess family move into their 'forever' home, it seems like they are set for many happy years together at their new address. Steph and Grant, along with their children, Charlie and Amelia, settle into their new surroundings quickly... -
The Stalker by Sarah Alderson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNewly-weds Liam and Laura are spending their honeymoon in paradise: just the two of them on a remote island off the coast of Scotland. But they soon discover that all is not as it seems, and the island has a tragic past. And they can’t shake the feeling of being watched…When one morning, they wake to find a message scratched into the window, their worst fears are confirmed... -
Little Friends by Jane Shemilt
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTHE STUNNING NEW PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB SENSATION DAUGHTERTheir children are friends first. They hit it off immediately, as kids do. And so the parents are forced to get to know each other. Three wildly different couples. Three marriages, floundering.There are barbecues, dinner parties, a holiday in Greece... -
I Made a Mistake by Jane Corry
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIT STARTED WITH A KISS... AND ENDED WITH MURDER. The darkly addictive new novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of I Looked Away, Blood Sisters and My Husband's Wife. --------------------------------------------------------In Poppy Page's mind, there are two types of women in this world: those who are faithful to their husbands, and those who are not...
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