A short while ago, one of the hardest books to get your hands on was the marriage thriller The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. Rachel is a washed-up thirty-something who creates a fantasy about the seemingly perfect couple she sees during her daily train ride into London. When the woman goes missing, Rachel manages to insert herself into the investigation of the woman’s disappearance. This dark psychological thriller is fast-paced with some pretty untrustworthy characters.
If you enjoyed this book, of if you are still waitng to read it and looking for a "similar" read, what about:
* Sophie Hannah's The Other Woman's House. It's past midnight, but Connie Bowskill can't sleep. To pass the time, she logs on to a real estate website in search of a particular house, one she is obsessed with for reasons she's too scared to even admit to herself. As she clicks through the virtual tour, she comes across a scene from a nightmare: a woman lying face down on the living room floor in a pool of blood. But when she returns to show her husband, there is no body, no blood—just a perfectly ordinary room, with a perfectly clean beige carpet.
* Or in The Good Girl by Mary Kubica the story is told using shifting viewpoints in a style that is similar to The Girl on the Train. Mia, the daughter of a Chicago judge is abducted, but her kidnapper decides to go against the plan.
* You could also try The Silent Wife by S. A. Harrison. Jodi and Todd are at a bad place in their marriage. Much is at stake, including the affluent life they lead in their beautiful waterfront condo in Chicago, as she, the killer, and he, the victim, rush haplessly toward the main event. He is a committed cheater. She lives and breathes denial. He exists in dual worlds. She likes to settle scores. He decides to play for keeps. She has nothing left to lose. Again, told in alternating voices, The Silent Wife is about a marriage in the throes of dissolution, a couple headed for catastrophe, concessions that can’t be made, and promises that won’t be kept.
* Then again, you could try Unbecoming by Rebecca Scherm. Julie from California is living in Paris with a big secret. Her real name is Grace and she's from Tennessee and two men have just been released from jail for a crime she had planned in great detail. But when things went bad, Grace got out and on a flight to Europe while two men took the fall. What will happen if they find her?
* You could also try A Small Indiscretion by Jan Ellison. At nineteen, Annie Black trades a bleak future in her washed-out hometown for a London winter of drinking to oblivion and yearning for deliverance. Two decades later she is a happily married wife and mother. But then a photograph arrives in her mailbox from days long ago and trouble begins anew. Annie had to put together the pieces of her life as the past threatens to ruin it all.
* Finally, a new title that just came out is The Widow by Fiona Barton. After Jean's husband dies, the community she lives in wants to know the real truth about the crime he was suspected of--but Jean has secrets of her own. Like The Girl on the Train, this novel is told from various perspectives and Barton's experience with journalism shows with the in-depth detail of the inner workings of the newspapers and media outlets.
