The best time of year is upon us! As we head into the chillier months of the year, now is the perfect moment to start stocking up on some equally-chilling reads. In today’s blog post, I’m rounding up my personal most-anticipated releases of Fall 2020! This list by no means encompasses all of the thrilling new crime books that will be published this fall, but it does highlight the books I’m personally most excited to read, and most excited to talk about with you! For ease of reference, I’ve organized this blog post in order of publication date. Some of these books I’ve already been lucky enough to read, others are still on my fall TBR list—but all of them look poised to deliver some truly outstanding crime fiction storytelling. Dive into this blog post and start building your own Fall 2020 crime fiction reading list!
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Book Review: WATCHING YOU by Lisa Jewell
There are few things better than finding a book that you can completely lose yourself in—and that’s exactly what I found in Lisa Jewell’s utterly irresistible psychological suspense novel WATCHING YOU. I’m a relatively recent convert to Lisa Jewell’s work, which, on the one hand, I now find utterly shocking (how on earth did I wait so long to start reading her?!), but on the other hand means that I’ve still got plenty of older titles from this incredibly talented author to catch up on. That’s what I call a silver lining. WATCHING YOU originally released in the US in late 2018, but if you, like yours truly, missed it when it first released, consider this your friendly nudge to check this book out. WATCHING YOU is an irresistibly sinister and dramatic story of relationships, voyeurism, and the dark secrets that lurk in a posh English neighborhood. Following a robust cast of characters whose lives intersect with deadly consequence, WATCHING YOU is the rare psychological thriller that manages to be both smart and delightfully juicy at the same time. This book’s intricate plot demands the reader’s attention from page one, and its binge-worthy entertainment value guarantees that your attention will never waver, not until the story’s final shocking page has been turned. (And even then, you might want to grab your friends and have your own book club to discuss it.) WATCHING YOU swept me up in its deliciously dark suspense tale, and proved the perfect piece of “popcorn reading” for a weekend at home.
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CBTB’s Best Psychological Thrillers of 2019
What a year it has been for new crime fiction!! At the end of the year, there’s nothing quite as fun as reflecting on all the incredible books we’ve been able to read thanks to the hard work of so many talented authors. Today I want to kick off a series of “Best of 2019” posts with a roundup of the best psychological thrillers and psychological suspense of the year! This year saw the release of so many exciting new debut novels and the return of tons of CBTB-favorite psychological thriller authors, and I am so excited to share this list with you all. It’s always so challenging to narrow down lists like this, but I had to cut this list off at 11 titles - otherwise I would have kept adding to it forever. Read on for my picks for best psychological thrillers of 2019!
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Q&A with Lisa Jewell, Author of THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS
I’m a self-confessed latecomer to Lisa Jewell’s work, and I’ll be the first to admit it: I’ve been missing out. I devoured Jewell’s newest release THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS earlier this fall, and there’s no going back—I’m a Lisa Jewell fan for life. Jewell is the author of seventeen internationally bestselling novels, and her newest release, THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS, debuted on the New York Times bestsellers list. All of this is to say: Lisa Jewell really needs no introduction, but on the off chance that you, too, are a latecomer to Jewell and her binge-worthy brand of psychological suspense, allow this blog post to serve as your point of entry into this prolific author’s work. I’m absolutely thrilled to welcome Lisa Jewell to Crime by the Book today to discuss her newest release, THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS. In this twisty, dark story of psychological suspense, a young woman inherits her birth parents’ abandoned mansion in a posh London neighborhood—and inherits a dark legacy, too. Years earlier, that mansion was the site of a bizarre - and unsolved - tragedy, involving the deaths of the home’s adult residents, and the disappearance of children who were thought to be living at the house at the time, too. Using multiple narrators and shifting timelines to pitch-perfect effect, Jewell crafts an utterly addictive and engrossing story of family secrets in THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS. If you’re looking for a fresh take on a domestic suspense novel, this book might just be your perfect fit. I’m so excited to share my Q&A with Lisa Jewell on her newest release with you today! Many thanks to Lisa Jewell for taking the time to answer my questions so thoughtfully, and to her fantastic US publicist for facilitating this conversation. Read on for more information about THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS, a direct link to my full review of the book, and, of course, my conversation with Lisa Jewell.
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Book Review: THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS by Lisa Jewell
Some family secrets should never see the light of day. In Lisa Jewell’s thrilling, addictive new release, a surprise inheritance sends a young woman on a journey into her own personal history—and what she discovers might be deadly. Libby Jones always dreamed of learning more about her origins. One day, not long after turning 25, Libby comes home to find an envelope waiting for her, its contents revealing the true identity of her birth parents… and the fact that she has inherited their vast mansion in a posh London neighborhood. Libby’s life suddenly seems to be changing for the better. But by claiming this inheritance, Libby is claiming a darker inheritance, too: a connection to an unsolved crime and an obscure, cult-like society, one which has been waiting, biding its time, until Libby makes herself known. THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS is a fresh, inventive take on domestic suspense; effortlessly traversing intimate family secrets and vast, far-reaching conspiracies, Lisa Jewell’s newest release is a masterclass in psychological thriller plotting. Come for this book’s gorgeous cover and twisty plot, stay for its genuinely surprising and original variations on a story of family secrets and interpersonal suspense. An excellent new release and a standout among 2019’s psychological thriller offerings.
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