10 One-Sitting Thrillers You’ll Devour In a Single Night

Alex Michaelides delivers a riveting psychological thriller steeped in suspense in his blockbuster debut. The Silent Patient centers on a famous painter named Alicia Berenson, who has gone mute since the night she shot and killed her husband. In the aftermath of the violent act, Alicia’s art skyrockets in value as she’s locked away in an institution. Criminal psychotherapist Theo Faber takes up Alicia’s case, determined to break through to her. But is he ready for what he'll find out? Arrive for the riveting murder mystery, stay for the fully realized characters, shocking plot twists, and hints of Greek tragedy in this expertly crafted read!

Amy Tintera’s New York Times bestseller Listen for the Lie is a fantastic thriller you’ll want to read in a single sitting. A twisty whodunit interlaced with wicked dark humor, the novel centers on a woman named Lucy who was found wandering the streets, splattered in her best friend’s blood. Lucy can’t remember what happened the night her friend Savvy died, but the residents of her small town in Texas certainly believe she’s a murderer. So Lucy packs up, leaves Texas, and tries to put the dark chapter behind her. But when true crime podcaster Ben Owens announces his next season will cover Savvy’s unsolved murder, Lucy is forced to return home to try to piece together what really happened. She’s determined to unmask the killer — even if it turns out to be her. 

Bestselling author Riley Sager is a surefire bet when it comes to unputdownable reads — crack open any of his thrillers, and you’ll be on the edge of your seat until the early hours. In the award-winning Final Girls, Quincy Carpenter is the sole survivor of a vacation massacre. The media links her with a handful of other so-called “Final Girls,” who all survived bizarre and horrific attacks. Despite this, Quincy settles into a somewhat peaceful routine, until a fellow Final Girl named Lisa turns up dead. As Quincy searches for the truth about Lisa’s shocking demise, she also strives to unravel what happened to her that fateful night on vacation — and whether the wickedness that struck all those years ago has returned. 

Ruth Ware is the renowned author of multiple psychological thrillers, including The Woman in Cabin 10 and The Lying Games. In a Dark, Dark Wood is one of our favorites. The novel centers on Leonora, a reclusive writer whose English countryside getaway with friends quickly turns into a nightmare after dark secrets emerge and the party realize they’re not alone in the woods. Forty-eight hours later, Leonora wakes up in the hospital, uncertain of what happened out there in the forest. She strives to piece together the order of events — but can we really trust her? With a compelling unreliable narrator at its center, Ware’s novel is thrilling and addictive. You’ll happily race through it. 

By now, everyone and their second cousin has obsessed over Caroline Kepnes’s bestselling and binge-worthy novel You. Even horror author Stephen King recommends it, calling the narrative “hypnotic and scary.” Kepnes’s dark thriller centers on Joe Goldberg, an East Village bookstore manager whose affection turns dangerous. After meeting Guinevere Beck at the store, Joe begins secretly infiltrating her life while also presenting himself as the perfect suitor. Along the way, he goes from obsessive stalker to murderous psychopath — and you won’t want to put this book down until you hit the back cover.

Jennifer Hillier’s Little Secrets delivers such a darkly delicious thrill ride that you won’t want it to stop. The psychological thriller centers on Marin, who seems to lead the perfect life: She’s married to her college sweetheart, she owns a chain of hair salons, and she’s the matriarch of a loving family. But Marin and her husband Derek’s lives are shattered the day their young son is kidnapped. Cut to a year later, and a devastated Marin is barely speaking to her husband. She hires a private investigator to take over the still-unsolved cold case, but instead finds out about Derek’s mistress. 

If you’re searching for a chilling one-sitting read, No Exit by Taylor Adams is an excellent choice. The icy thriller centers on strangers caught in the middle of a blizzard. College student Darby Thorne becomes stranded in the Colorado mountains on a drive home to see her dying mother. She has no choice but to hunker down at a rest stop with three others and wait out the storm. That’s when Darby discovers a little girl locked in an animal crate in the backseat of one of the cars. It’s clear one of the strangers is a kidnapper, but which one? Unable to call for help as the storm rages outside, Darby must figure out how to help the little girl, fast. 

We love the everyone-is-a-suspect setup of Lisa Foley’s The Guest List. The acclaimed novel keeps you guessing until the end, making it nearly impossible to put down. Foley’s Agatha Christie–like thriller invites you to a wedding off the coast of Ireland, where the groom is a rising television star and the bride an ambitious magazine publisher. At first glance, the wedding appears picture-perfect. Beneath the posh surface, however, resentments, jealousies, and hostilities roil. When someone turns up dead, the guest list becomes a list of suspects…and everyone is the potential killer.  

Sarah Pinborough’s buzzed-about domestic thriller Behind Her Eyes will hook you right away, starting with its striking front cover. Once you start reading, you’ll realize you’re not putting this one down until you finish. Single mom Louise is stuck in a personal and professional rut when she meets a man at a bar and shares a kiss. When she arrives at work on Monday, she discovers that the man from the bar last night is her new — and very married — boss, David. Louise then meets David’s wife, Adele, and befriends her. It isn’t long before she gets caught up in a kind of love triangle with the couple. But the more time she spends with David and Adele, the more she senses something is terribly wrong.