Books like 'Born Scared'
Readers who enjoyed Born Scared by Kevin Brooks also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary mystery psychological action / adventure realistic crime suspense survival family grief
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Dark Sky by C.J. Box
Rated: 4.46 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWyoming game warden Joe Pickett must accompany a Silicon Valley CEO on a hunting trip--but soon learns that he himself may be the hunted--in the thrilling new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author C. J. Box... -
In an Instant by Suzanne Redfearn
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 61 ratingsLife is over in an instant for sixteen-year-old Finn Miller when a devastating car accident tumbles her and ten others over the side of a mountain. Suspended between worlds, she watches helplessly as those she loves struggle to survive.Impossible choices are made, decisions that leave the survivors tormented with grief and regret... -
Bad Blood by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWhen Cassie Hobbes joined the FBI's Naturals program, she had one goal: uncover the truth about her mother's murder. But now, everything Cassie thought she knew about what happened that night has been called into question. Her mother is alive, and the people holding her captive are more powerful—and dangerous—than anything the Naturals have faced so far... -
In the Waning Light by Loreth Anne White
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsTwo decades after her sister’s brutal attack and murder, Meg Brogan has finally found happiness…or so it appears. A bestselling true-crime writer, Meg has money, fame, and a wealthy fiancé. But when a television-show host presses her to tackle the one story everyone claims she cannot write—the story of her own family’s destruction—her perfect life shatters... -
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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... -
The Last Exchange by Charles Martin
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratings“Here’s the catch—even if I make it out of here alive, I need a reason to breathe again.”When MacThomas Pockets finished his last tour as part of the Scottish Special Forces, he was hired to consult for a film director to finesse some scenes that weren’t working. In a twist he never saw coming, he ended up moving to L.A. to work as the bodyguard for movie star Maybe Joe Sue... -
You'd Be Home Now by Kathleen Glasgow
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Pieces comes a breathtaking story about a town, its tragedies, and the quiet beauty of everyday life.For all of Emory's life she's been told who she is. In town she's the rich one--the great-great-granddaughter of the mill's founder. At school she's hot Maddie Ward's younger sister... -
Shelter in Place by Nora Roberts
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsFrom Nora Roberts comes the #1 New York Times bestseller Shelter in Place (June 2018) — a powerful tale of heart, heroism...and propulsive suspense.It was a typical evening at a mall outside Portland, Maine. Three teenage friends waited for the movie to start. A boy flirted with the girl selling sunglasses... -
Stone Sober by Gwyn McNamee
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsStone Hawke is precisely the kind of man women are warned about—handsome, intelligent, arrogant, and intricately entangled with some dangerous people. I should stay away, but he manages to strip my soul bare with just a look and dominates my thoughts. Bad decisions are in my past. My life is (mostly) on track, even if it is no longer the one to medical school... -
Airliner Down by John Etzil
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFlight 2262 is bound for paradise, but a rogue terrorist could send it to the bottom of the ocean…Kevin can’t wait to land in Hawaii for a romantic getaway. But when the off-duty pilot takes a glance at his GPS, he’s in for a surprise: the plane is headed to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And he’s the only one who knows it…Expecting the worst, Kevin heads to the cockpit... -
The Shadow Box by Luanne Rice
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsAn Amazon Charts bestseller.The Amazon Charts bestselling author of Last Day delivers a haunting thriller about how far one wife is willing to go to expose the truth—and the lengths someone will go to stop her.After artist Claire Beaudry Chase is attacked and left for dead in her home on the Connecticut coast, she doesn’t know who she can trust... -
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... -
YOU DID THIS by Jamie Millen
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsA sister’s worst nightmare. A homicide detective’s destiny.Everybody loves Claire’s little sister, Tina. But only Claire sees the twisted psychopath hiding behind her sister’s angelic face. When Tina is brutally murdered on her fourteenth birthday, the day Claire failed to walk her home from school, Claire never forgives herself. And neither does their mother... -
Hide by Lisa Gardner
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsYou have good reason to be afraid. . . . It was a case that haunts Bobby Dodge to this day—the case that nearly killed him and changed his life forever. Now, in an underground chamber on the grounds of an abandoned Massachusetts mental hospital, the gruesome discovery of six mummified corpses resurrects his worst nightmare: the return of a killer he thought dead and buried... -
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The Truth of the Matter by Andrew Klavan
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"Never give in." Ever since he woke up in a terrorist torture chamber--with a year of his life erased from his mind--Charlie West has been on the run. He has one desperate hope of getting his life back: track down the mysterious agent named Waterman. But in fact, reaching Waterman--and recovering the secrets lost in his own memory--will only increase his danger... -
Unforgiven by Rebecca Zanetti
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsRun: Gemma Falls never expected to use her game theory expertise to outrun a killer. But for years, that skill is all that kept her one step ahead of a deadly stalker. When Gemma gets the chance to teach at D.C. University, she hopes she and her young daughter have found a safe harbor... -
Before He Vanished by Debra Webb
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsHis disappearance changed her life forever.Twenty-five years ago, Halle Lane’s best friend vanished from their Tennessee town. When a childhood photo brings Liam Hart to Winchester, Halle is certain the man is the same child who vanished. Now Liam seeks out Halle to help him investigate the circumstances of his mysterious past... -
Wrath by Gwyn McNamee
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAll I see is red.Blood.Pain.Rage.It consumes me.The moment he took her, wrath invaded my soul.I only have one purpose. End him and take back what’s mine. Love isn’t always clean, and wrath is the deadliest sin... -
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
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 Long Way Home by Andrew Klavan
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsSometimes you have to go home to find out who you really are.Charlie West went to bed one night an ordinary high-school student. He woke up a hunted man. Terrorists are trying to kill him. The police want to arrest him for the stabbing death of his best friend. He doesn t know whose side he s on or who he can trust... -
Dark Harvest by Chris Patchell
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsBecky Kincaid ventures out in the middle of a snowstorm to buy a car seat for her unborn baby and never makes it home. When a second pregnant woman disappears, Marissa Rooney and the team at the Holt Foundation fear a sinister motive lurks behind the crimes... -
Cardwell Ranch Trespasser by B.J. Daniels
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsCARDWELL BEWARE The Cardwell clan has a new, mysterious member. Dana Cardwell warmly welcomed her Justice cousin into the family fold and to the ranch for a reunion. But this cunning kin has other plans for Dana...and designs on her husband, Hud. Hilde Jacobson has known Dana too long to let her best friend get conned-or worse, killed... -
Running Cold by Susan Walter
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn this heart-pounding story of deception, murder, and survival, a former Olympian retreats to the Canadian wilderness for a fresh start, only to find out that the past will always catch up to her.Julie Adler’s perfect facade is shattered by grief when her husband commits suicide... -
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Payback by Kimberley Chambers
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Butlers are not a family to be messed with. Top dogs in the East End, they trample on anybody who gets in their way.Vinny Butler has upset many people on his rise up the criminal ladder. His best pal, mum, brother, dad, aunt, son and his girlfriend's father all hold grudges against him... -
Boetedoening (O'Loughlin by Michael Robotham
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsRay Hegarty, a highly respected former detective, lies dead in his daughter Sienna's bedroom. She is found covered in his blood. Everything points to her guilt, but psychologist Joe O'Loughlin isn't convinced.Fourteen-year-old Sienna is Joe's daughter's best friend ? Joe has watched her grow up and seen the troubled look in her eyes... -
Out of Bounds by Val McDermid
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsInternationally bestselling author Val McDermid is one of our finest crime writers, whose gripping, impeccably plotted novels have garnered millions of readers worldwide. In her latest, Out of Bounds, she delivers a riveting cold case novel featuring detective Karen Pirie... -
If I Run by Terri Blackstock
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsCasey Cox has blood on the bottom of her shoes, in her car, on her clothes. But there's no point in trying to defend herself. She just has to run. Casey didn't kill her friend Brent. She discovered his body, but she'd never try to hurt him. He's the only person she's ever trusted enough to tell the truth about what happened to her father . . -
Touch & Go by Lisa Gardner, Elisabeth Rodgers
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 28 ratings#1 New York Times bestseller Lisa Gardner, author of Catch Me and Love You More, returns with a heart-thumping thriller about what lurks behind the facade of a perfect family.This is my family: Vanished without a trace…Justin and Libby Denbe have the kind of life that looks good in the pages of a glossy magazine. A beautiful fifteen-year old daughter, Ashlyn... -
Room by Emma Donoghue
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 85 ratingsTo 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... -
I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsA tragic accident. It all happened so quickly. She couldn't have prevented it. Could she?In a split second, Jenna Gray's world descends into a nightmare. Her only hope of moving on is to walk away from everything she knows to start afresh... -
The Rise by Shari King, Shari Low
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen we bury our secrets, they always come back to haunt us...Their rise was meteoric.Only a few years before, they had been three friends from Glasgow, just trying to survive tough lives of danger and dysfunction.But on one Hollywood evening in 1993, they were on the world’s biggest stage, accepting their Oscar in front of the watching world.That night was the beginning of their careers... -
The Princess of Greektown by Suzanne Jenkins
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThirty years ago, Terry Smith was Detroit’s top news anchor. She set the standard for excellence in investigative journalism, staying at the news desk long after her time should have been over. Just as Terry’s son-in-law is murdered in the city, Detective Jill Zannos faces upheaval in her own life... -
After the Lights Go Out by Lili Wilkinson
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWhat happens when the lights go off after what might truly be an end-of-the-world event? How do you stay alive? Who do you trust? How much do you have to sacrifice?'After the Lights Go Out is a terrifying yet hope-filled story of disaster, deceit, love, sacrifice and survival... -
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Shock Point by April Henry
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsCassie discovers that her stepfather, Rick, a teen psychiatrist, has been illegally prescribing a new behavioral drug to his patients and three teens have died. Before she can report him, Rick commits Cassie to Peaceful Cove, a boot camp for troubled teens in Mexico. Cassie knows she has to get out now, before more teens die... -
The Blue by Lucy Clarke
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn the tradition of Alex Garland’s The Beach, a spine-tingling adventure novel about a group of friends whose journey around the world on a yacht turns from a trip to paradise into a chilling nightmare when one of them disappears at sea.A group of friends. A yacht. And a disappearance-at-sea that turns paradise into a chilling nightmare... -
Never Far Away by Michael Koryta
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOnce a wife, mother, and witness to a gruesome crime, Nina Morgan has been in hiding for a decade as Leah Trenton. She left behind her Midwestern roots to move to the northernmost tip of Maine. She also left behind a family... -
Iron House by John Hart
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAn old man is dying. When the old man is dead they will come for him. And they will come for her, to make him hurt. John Hart delivers his fourth novel -- a gut-wrenching, heart-stopping thriller no reader will soon forget.He would go to Hell At the Iron Mountain Home for Boys, there was nothing but time... -
The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die by April Henry
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratings“Take her out back and finish her off.”She doesn’t know who she is. She doesn’t know where she is, or why. All she knows when she comes to in a ransacked cabin is that there are two men arguing over whether or not to kill her.And that she must run.In her riveting style, April Henry crafts a nail-biting thriller involving murder, identity theft, and biological warfare... -
Dear Child: A Novel by Romy Hausmann
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA woman held captive finally escapes—but can she ever really get away?Gone Girl meets Room in this page-turning, #1 internationally bestselling thriller from one of Germany’s hottest new talentsA windowless shack in the woods. A dash to safety. But when a woman finally escapes her captor, the end of the story is only the beginning of her nightmare.She says her name is Lena... -
Pitch Dark by Paul Doiron
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsGame Warden Mike Bowditch must chase down a cunning and dangerous fugitive in the North Maine Woods in this nail-biter of a thriller from Edgar Award-nominated author Paul Doiron, Pitch Dark.Legendary bush pilot Josie Jonson can’t believe her luck when a skilled builder just happens to show up after she purchases land near Prentiss Pond... -
The Stillwater Girls by Minka Kent
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsTwo sisters raised in fear are about to find out why in a chilling novel of psychological suspense from the author of The Thinnest Air.Ignorant of civilization and cautioned against its evils, nineteen-year-old Wren and her two sisters, Sage and Evie, were raised in off-the-grid isolation in a primitive cabin in upstate New York... -
The Kindness of Strangers by Katrina Kittle
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA young widow raising two boys, Sarah Laden is struggling to keep her family together. But when a shocking revelation rips apart the family of her closest friend, Sarah finds herself welcoming yet another troubled young boy into her already tumultuous life.Jordan, a quiet, reclusive elementary school classmate of Sarah's son Danny, has survived a terrible ordeal... -
Find You First by Linwood Barclay
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe New York Times bestselling author of Elevator Pitch and master of psychological suspense returns with a riveting thriller in which the possible heirs of a dying tech millionaire are mysteriously being eliminated, one by one.Tech millionaire Miles Cookson has more money than he can ever spend, and everything he could dream of—except time... -
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Exposed by Lisa Scottoline
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIn this New York Times bestselling novel, a battle for justice pits partner against partner...Mary DiNunzio wants to represent her old friend Simon Pensiera, a sales rep who was wrongly fired by his company, but her partner Bennie Rosato represents the parent company... -
Girl in Trouble by Stacy Claflin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsHe gave up his daughter years ago, but now he’ll risk his life to save hers. Alex Mercer is no stranger to kidnappings. The emotional scars still run deep from his sister’s disappearance years earlier. His daughter Ariana remains safe long after her adoption, and he cherishes the few times a year he gets to see her. The joy is palpable when he takes her on their first one-on-one outing... -
She Rides Shotgun by Jordan Harper
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsEleven-year-old Polly is smart far beyond her years. But she's a loner. Her mother tells her she has 'gunfighter eyes', like the father she's never met. In prison, about to be released, Nate runs afoul of the powerful leader of the Aryan Brotherhood. Marked for death on his release, Nate soon realizes that everyone he has ever loved is a target - including his daughter, Polly... -
Right Behind You by Gail Giles
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen he was nine, Kip set another child on fire. Now, after years in a juvenile ward, he is ready for a fresh start. But the ghosts of his past soon demand justice, and he must reveal his painful secret... -
Girl Underwater by Claire Kells
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAn adventurous debut novel that cross cuts between a competitive college swimmer’s harrowing days in the Rocky Mountains after a major airline disaster and her recovery supported by the two men who love her—only one of whom knows what really happened in the wilderness. Nineteen-year-old Avery Delacorte loves the water... -
Underwater by Marisa Reichardt
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn order to move on after a traumatic experience, Morgan must learn to forgive - first someone who did something that might be unforgivable, and then herself.But Morgan can't move on. She can't even move beyond the front door of the apartment she shares with her mother and little brother. Morgan feels like she's underwater, unable to surface. Unable to see her friends. Unable to go to school...
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