8 New Binge-Worthy Books You Won’t Put Down

Alex Michaelides thrilled readers the world over with his 2019 blockbuster debut, The Silent Patient. This summer, he’s back with a fresh tale of psychological suspense that some say is even better than his last. What would you do if you knew someone was a murderer but you had no way to prove it? This is Mariana Andros’ problem. Someone murdered a female student at Cambridge University in England. The victim was a member of The Maidens, an all-female secret society of students who idolize a popular Greek tragedy professor named Edward Fosca. Andros knows that Fosca is to blame; she feels it in her bones. When a second body turns up, Andros’ conviction turns into an obsession. Yet to unravel this dark mystery and stop the campus killer, she’ll have to risk everything, including her own life.

Chris Bohjalian beckons you to 1662 Boston in his witchy historical thriller. Twenty-four-year-old Mary Deerfield is married to Thomas Deerfield and chafing under the strict Puritan rules of her New World community. Thomas is abusive, but when Mary decides to divorce him, she’s exposed to a different threat: She’s accused of witchcraft. Once the accusation is leveled, a series of shadowy occurrences merely confirm what others already suspect. With time running out and her life on the line, Mary plots her escape from Thomas and from a town gripped by hysteria.

The Girl Who Died is the latest chilly mystery from Iceland’s Ragnar Jónasson, the bestselling and award-winning crime writer of the Ari Thór series. Una moves to the remote fishing village of Skálar to take up a teaching position that she hopes will get her life back on track. Little does she know how small the town actually is: 10 people live there, and just two girls are of school age. As winter approaches, the mood turns dark: The locals are cold and secretive, the sunlight has all but disappeared, and Una finds herself spending more and more time in her eerie rented attic space — itself the site of a rumored local haunting. As tensions mount, tragedy strikes. And from what little Una’s told, this isn’t the first of its kind. Trapped and with nowhere else to go, Una plunges into the surrounding darkness to uncover Skálar’s shocking secrets.

Delta Dawn is known in New York City’s wealthiest circles for her beautiful family portraits and sumptuous party photography. She makes her subjects look perfect, erasing any visible traces of pain. But when Amelia and Fritz Straub hire her to document their daughter’s lavish birthday party, Delta decides she doesn’t just want to photograph the family, she wants to be part of the family. It isn’t long before Delta is babysitting the little girl, growing closer to the parents, and taking long baths in the master bathtub. From the creepy way Delta worms her way into this Manhattan family’s life, it’s clear the situation will not end well; it’s just a question of how bad it will get. Told in Delta’s hypnotic voice, Mary Dixie Carter’s propulsive new psychological thriller will keep you reading long into the night.

The mystery of the past reveals new terrors in this “relentlessly creepy” (Alma Katsu, author of The Hunger) page-turner by Swedish author Camilla Sten. Alice Lindstedt and her film crew arrive in Silvertjärn to make a documentary about the forsaken mining town now known as “The Lost Village.” Decades ago, scores of villagers vanished from Silvertjärn — just two people were left behind, a woman who had been stoned to death in the village square and an abandoned newborn baby. For Alice, unraveling the mystery is personal, as her grandmother’s family were among those who disappeared. Just as the crew settle in, their camp is raided, someone goes missing. . . and Alice realizes that the town isn’t as abandoned as she thought. Someone still haunts Silvertjärn and holds its secrets. Who are they? And what do they want?

Annihilation author Jeff VanderMeer is back with his latest mind-bending narrative. Security consultant Jane Smith has no idea why a dead ecoterrorist named Silvina has sent her a storage unit key. Even weirder is what she finds inside the locker: a taxidermied hummingbird and clues that then lead to a taxidermied salamander. As Jane soon discovers, these are not mere decorations. Once Jane takes the hummingbird out of storage, she unwittingly triggers an escalating wave of catastrophic events. Now she’s in a race to save her family and to stop worldwide ecological collapse.

If you thought The Martian was a nail-biter, wait until you read Weir’s next outer space thrill ride. Astronaut Ryland Grace has just woken up from a deep sleep. He’s still in his spaceship, but his crewmates are dead. Confusion troubles Ryland’s exhausted mind; he can’t remember his own name, let alone the nature of his mission. What Ryland doesn’t know is that Earth is at risk of being wiped out completely, and he’s the only one who can stop it. That is, if he can remember his mission and unravel this interstellar mystery before it’s too late.

Bestselling author Laura Dave delivers yet another sizzling page-turner with her latest mystery. Hannah Hall loves the life she shares with her new husband, Owen, even if her relationship with his 16-year-old daughter Bailey could use some work. So when Hannah receives a mysterious note from Owen that simply says “protect her,” she isn’t sure what to make of it — until Owen fails to come home. Panic sets in as Hannah’s calls to Owen go unanswered. When federal agents show up, everything Hannah and Bailey thought they knew is turned upside down. Now they must work together to unravel Owen’s true identity and find a way to forge ahead as a family.