Books like 'Idol'
Readers who enjoyed Idol by Louise O'Neill also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary mystery literary-fiction thriller unreliable-narrator drama lgbtq female-mc
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The Millionaire Murders by Rachel McLean
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAn anonymous murder victim and a missing journalist: can Lesley uncover the truth?DCI Lesley Clarke has too many suspects to choose from when a wealthy lawyer and her unidentified companion are found brutally murdered in a Sandbanks mansion... -
They Call Her Dirty Sally by Amy Matayo
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFor years, the town of Silver Bell, Arkansas has quietly mourned the hospital fire that claimed the lives of nine of its residents—the town doctor, a young expectant mother, and seven infants...Categorized as:
drama literary-fiction female-mc fiction historical-fiction mystery contemporary womens-fiction -
Body In The Woods by Behcet Kaya
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAward-winning author Behcet Kaya has once again brought his PI protagonist Jack Ludefance to life in a novel of suspense and mystery, filled with indelible characters, and laced with threads of credible circumstances, in his latest book titled Body in the Woods... -
Two Women by Martina Cole
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsDanger and violence have always been part of Sue Dalston's East End upbringing. Unloved by her mother, abused by her father, and brutalised throughout her entire marriage, she's convicted of smashing her husband's skull in a final act of desperation. All that keeps her sane is knowing that she's done it to protect her four children. At last, they are safe from harm... -
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Lies that Bind by Ashley Farley
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA missing young woman. A grieving mother. An investigative journalist determined to find answers. From the bestselling author of the Sweet Tea Tuesdays and Only One Life comes a suspenseful story of three women who, in search of freedom from the lies that bind them, experience personal growth, discovery, and forgiveness... -
The Surrogate's Gift by L.G. Davis
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsHer one good deed is about to turn into her worst nightmare.Becoming a surrogate for Marcia and Travis Thorpe is Grace’s chance to overcome her inner demons.Nothing can go wrong. Her life depends on it.Determined to focus on the pregnancy, she drops everything and accepts the Thorpes’ offer to move in with them until the baby is born. A simple decision. One big mistake... -
Dangerous Lady by Martina Cole
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMartina's explosive first novel of corruption and... -
Three by Valérie Perrin
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFrom the international bestselling author of Fresh Water for Flowers, a beautifully told and suspenseful story about the ties that bind us and the choices that make us who we are.1986: Adrien, Etienne and Nina are 10 years old when they meet at school and quickly become inseparable. They promise each other they will one day leave their provincial backwater, move to Paris, and never part... -
Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsA soul-stirring novel about what we choose to keep from our past, and what we choose to leave behind.Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising a beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side...Categorized as:
lgbtq literary-fiction female-mc fiction mystery contemporary audiobook romantic-love -
Dark Signal by Shannon Baker
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsDark Signal by Shannon Baker is the second installment in the Kate Fox mystery series, called "A must read" by New York Times bestselling author Alex Kava, starring a female Longmire in the atmospheric Nebraska Sandhills.Reeling from her recent divorce, Kate Fox has just been sworn in as Grand County, Nebraska Sheriff when tragedy strikes... -
Recipes for Melissa: The heartbreaking story of a mother's goodbye to her daughter by Teresa Driscoll
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIs it ever too late for the gift of goodbye? As I write now, you are eight years old – asleep in the bed next door in princess pyjamas, with a fairy costume discarded on the floor.Twenty-Five. The age I had you. The age our story began. And the age, I hope, that will see you truly ready for the things that I need to say to you… Melissa Dance was eight years old when her mother died... -
The Secret Child by Kerry Fisher
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsJust for a moment, I was young and invincible again, back before I made the decision that changed the rest of my life… Susie did something that she knows she will always regret: giving her baby son up for adoption, to keep her infidelity secret from her family... -
Tell Me Your Secret by Dorothy Koomson
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe gripping new emotional thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Ice Cream Girls, My Best Friend's Girl and The Brighton Mermaid. Pieta has a secretTen years ago, Pieta survived a weekend with a sadistic serial killer. She never told anyone what happened and instead moved on with her life... -
Talulah's Back in Town by Brenda Novak
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSometimes the past we leave behind leads us right where we belong.Talulah Barclay doesn’t like complications. Unfortunately, they seem to love her. Fourteen years after leaving her fiancé at the altar, Talulah returns to her hometown of Coyote Canyon, Montana, to settle her great-aunt’s estate...Categorized as:
drama female-mc literary-fiction romance contemporary womens-fiction fiction audiobook -
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One Minute Later: A Novel by Susan Lewis
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsInternational bestselling author Susan Lewis’ riveting, unforgettable novel of a woman whose life changes in an instant and the handsome young man with whom she shares a secret history—perfect for readers of Jodi Picoult, Diane Chamberlain, and Susan Wiggs. How well do you know the people you love? For one young woman returning to the past, the answer could be heart-shattering.. -
The Road to Zoe by Nick Alexander
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsShe ran away from the truth, but she can’t run forever. Seven years after his sister vanished without a trace, Jude is on the road, determined not to return home until he has found her. He wants to reunite his broken family, but more than this he wants to know why Zoe left—what happened when they were kids, on that terrible day when everything fell apart... -
Where The Story Starts by Imogen Clark
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA strange encounter. An unlikely friendship. But will it survive when they both know the truth?As single mother Leah struggles to get her children ready one morning, the doorbell rings. Standing on the doorstep of their terraced house in Whitley Bay is a well-dressed stranger, Clio, who feels an emotional tie to the house that she can’t explain... -
The Baltimore Boys by Joël Dicker
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsSwiss Sensation Joel Dicker's compulsive follow-up to the phenomenally bestselling The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair... -
Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsIf you knew your future, would you try to fight fate? Aside from a delay, there will be no problems. The flight will be smooth, it will land safely. Everyone who gets on the plane will get off. But almost all of them will be forever changed. Because on this ordinary, short, domestic flight, something extraordinary happens. People learn how and when they are going to die... -
The Insider by Craig Schaefer
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsMove over, Jack Reacher and Kinsey Millhone: cast-iron bodyguard Charlie McCabe is back in Craig Schaefer’s gritty sequel to The Loot.Hard-bitten bodyguard Charlie McCabe is lucky to be alive after her recent foray into Boston's criminal underworld... -
Death by Dark Roast by Kate P. Adams
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe annual Charleton House Food Festival is about to begin. But the first item on the menu is murder… Nestled in the idyllic setting of Derbyshire’s rolling hills, the ancestral home of the Fitzwilliam-Scott family seems an unlikely location for murder... -
No Time To Blink by Dina Silver
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA profoundly moving story of impossible risks and love without boundaries. Told from alternating points of view––that of a daughter whose past is a mystery, and that of a mother with painful secrets to share.Catherine Clarke defied her family’s expectations when she married Gabriel, a handsome Lebanese businessman... -
No More Words by Kerry Lonsdale
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom the Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author comes the first book in a trilogy about love, betrayal, and the secrets families keep.Forced to choose between abortion or adoption, Olivia Carson’s younger sister, Lily, runs away from home. Sixteen and pregnant, she never returns. But she writes... -
When I Was Invisible by Dorothy Koomson
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratings'Do you ever wonder if you've lived the life you were meant to?' I ask her. She sighs, and dips her head. 'Even if I do, what difference will it make?' In 1988, two eight-year-old girls with almost identical names and the same love of ballet meet for the first time. They seem destined to be best friends forever and to become professional dancers... -
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Her Mother's Shadow by Diane Chamberlain
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAnnie A loving mother and wife, Annie O'Neill was the heart of the small community of Kiss River. But her generous nature hid a darker side that remained secret for years after her tragic death. Lacey When Lacey O'Neill finally learns the shattering truth about the mother she's spent a decade emulating, the foundation of her life begins to crumble... -
The Art of Hiding by Amanda Prowse
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWhat would you do if you learned that the life you lived was a lie? Nina McCarrick lives the perfect life, until her husband, Finn, is killed in a car accident and everything Nina thought she could rely on unravels.Alone, bereft and faced with a mountain of debt, Nina quickly loses her life of luxury and she begins to question whether she ever really knew the man she married... -
Call the Canaries Home by Laura Barrow
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThree estranged sisters reconnect in their Louisiana hometown to face an unresolved past in a heartfelt novel about family, grief, secrets, and forgiveness.Savannah was four years old when her twin sister, Georgia, went missing from their small Louisiana town, fracturing their family...Categorized as:
drama literary-fiction female-mc fiction mystery contemporary audiobook womens-fiction -
The Love of my Life by Rosie Walsh, Imogen Church
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Ghosted comes a love story wrapped in a mystery: an up-all-night page-turner with a dark secret at its coreI have held you at night for ten years and I didn't even know your name. We have a child together. A dog, a house. Who are you?Emma loves her husband Leo and their young daughter Ruby: she’d do anything for them... -
An Unauthorized Fan Treatise by Lauren James, Wren James
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe exclusive online prequel to the novel Last Seen Online. An Unauthorized Fan Treatise (on the nature of the relationship between actors Rob Hennings and Nathan O’Donnell on TV show Loch & Ness, by @gottiewrites)Gottie is a fangirl for Loch & Ness, a TV show about paranormal detectives...Categorized as:
lgbtq thriller female-mc unreliable-narrator mystery contemporary young-adult fiction -
The Last Summer in Ireland: A gripping and emotional page-turner by Noëlle Harrison
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA lost girl. A mysterious house in Ireland. An invitation that changes everything.Twenty years ago, at the end of a long hot Irish summer, three sisters submerge themselves in the cool lake at their home, Swan Hall. As Maeve and Aisling watch their beautiful younger sister Nuala laughing and splashing, droplets of water clinging to her dark hair, it is hard to hide their envy of her... -
Another's Child: A Gripping Novel by Einat Danon
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsImagine inheriting a child that you don’t even know! One morning, Yael and Arik Katz are startled by a surprise inheritance: Noa, the ten-year-old daughter of Canadian friends with whom they had made a long-forgotten will-exchange agreement, is delivered to their doorstep with no warning...Categorized as:
drama literary-fiction female-mc romance contemporary fiction family action-adventure -
Vital Lies by Daniel Pyne
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the author of spy thriller Water Memory comes a riveting installment in the Sentro series in which past and present collide.When a Canadian spy comes to ex–black ops specialist Aubrey Sentro for help tracking down notorious Cold War spymaster Günter Witt, she wants to say no. It’s been thirty years since Aubrey’s captivity in East Berlin, and she has no desire to return... -
The Audacity of Goats: A Novel by J.F. Riordan
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAll is not well north of the tension line. A series of unsettling nighttime incidents have left the islanders uncertain whether to be nervous or annoyed... -
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...Categorized as:
female-mc literary-fiction thriller psychological crime contemporary suspense mystery -
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Exquisite by Sarah Stovell
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsBo Luxton has it all - a loving family, a beautiful home in the Lake District, and a clutch of bestselling books to her name. Enter Alice Dark, an aspiring writer who is drifting through life, with a series of dead-end jobs and a freeloading boyfriend. When they meet at a writers' retreat, the chemistry is instant, and a sinister relationship develops .. -
Around The Bend by Britney King
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIf you were to pass me on the street, you probably wouldn’t even look twice. I’m that normal. I’m just like you, only wealthier. I have it all. The kids, the family, the dog, a house on the hill. Hell—I’m so cliché, I even have a white picket fence. I guess you could say that I’ve dotted my I’s and crossed my T’s... -
One Little Mistake by Emma Curtis
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsVicky Seagrave is blessed: three beautiful children, a successful, doting husband, great friends and a job she loves. She should be perfectly happy. When she risks everything she holds dear on a whim, there's only person she trusts enough to turn to. But Vicky is about to learn that one mistake is all it takes; that if you're careless with those you love, you don't deserve to keep them . . -
Silent Witness by Rebecca Forster
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsJosie Baylor-Bates has a full plate caring for a troubled teen, but it's about to get fuller when her ex-cop lover, Archer, is accused of murdering his disabled stepson - a son Josie never knew he had. When Timothy Wren died at California's oldest amusement park it appeared to be a tragic accident. But now Timothy's biological father and the district attorney are out for blood... -
Dear Mother by Angela Marsons
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA 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 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... -
Penance by Eliza Clark
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsOne of Granta's Best Young British Novelists 2023From the author of the cult hit Boy Parts comes a chilling, brilliantly told story of murder among a group of teenage girls—a powerful and disturbing novel as piercing in its portrait of young women as Emma Cline’s The Girls...Categorized as:
literary-fiction thriller lgbtq unreliable-narrator fiction mystery contemporary crime -
When You Disappeared by John Marrs
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsWhen Catherine wakes up alone one morning, she thinks her husband has gone for a run before work. But Simon never makes it to the office. His running shoes are by the front door. Nothing is missing - except him.Catherine knows Simon must be in trouble. He wouldn't just leave her. He wouldn't leave the children.But Simon knows the truth - about why he left and what he's done... -
One Breath Away by Heather Gudenkauf
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsIn her most emotionally charged novel to date, New York Times bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf explores the unspoken events that shape a community, the ties between parents and their children and how the fragile normalcy of our everyday life is so easily shattered.In the midst of a sudden spring snowstorm, an unknown man armed with a gun walks into an elementary school classroom... -
The Secret Daughter by Kelly Rimmer
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAs I saw my new-born baby’s face for the first time I tried desperately to capture her face in my mind—to stamp it onto my eyelids. As she was taken from me I knew I might never see my daughter again. 38 years later… ‘You were adopted’. Three short words and Sabina’s life fractures. There would forever be a Before those words, and an After... -
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The Accident by Natalie Barelli
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIf only she'd said no... Katherine knew she’d had too many drinks, but they were only going a short distance. And as Eve pointed out, it was late, there was no traffic anyway... Now, Katherine would do anything to turn back the clock. If anyone ever found out about the accident, it would ruin Katherine’s life... -
What Remains True by Janis Thomas
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIn this mesmerizing drama, one life-altering event catapults a family into turmoil, revealing secrets that may leave them fractured forever . . . or bind them together tighter than ever before.From the outside, the Davenports look like any other family living a completely ordinary life—until that devastating day when five-year-old Jonah is killed, and the family is torn apart... -
Seven Types of Ambiguity by Elliot Perlman
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSeven Types of Ambiguity is a psychological thriller and a literary adventure of breathtaking scope. Celebrated as a novelist in the tradition of Jonathan Franzen and Philip Roth, Elliot Perlman writes of impulse and paralysis, empty marriages, lovers, gambling, and the stock market; of adult children and their parents; of poetry and prostitution, psychiatry and the law... -
One Small Act of Kindness by Lucy Dillon
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhat can you do to make the world a better place?Libby helps a stranger, and transforms her life in the process.Libby and her husband Jason have moved back to his hometown to turn the family B&B into a boutique hotel. They have left London behind and all the memories - good and bad - that went with it.The injured woman Libby finds lying in the remote country road has lost her memory... -
Clean by Alia Trabucco Zerán, Sophie Hughes
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsINTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER!From a global star and International Booker Prize finalist, a razor-sharp, unforgettable novel about a maid who’s seen too much and a family at a breaking pointA young girl has died and the family’s maid is being interrogated. She must tell the whole story before arriving at the girl’s death... -
A Woman Betrayed by Barbara Delinsky
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA classic novel from an exceptional storyteller, A Woman Betrayed, first published in 1991, is a stunning tale of troubling secrets that can hide beneath the placid surface of a seemingly good marriage—and the courage that's needed to move on.Laura Frye has been happily married to her husband, Jeff, for twenty years...
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