Are you ready to be surprised? I've got 15 books with amazing twist endings that will blow your mind, and I can't wait for you to read them all.
Every reader knows that a twist ending can make or break a book. Make the ending too easy to see coming, and the reader is hardly surprised. If the reader isn't forewarned, however, the twist feels like cheating on the part of the author. And everyone knows that two of the most infamous, generic twist endings — All Just a Dream and Dead All Along — don't work for any book, ever.
The 15 novels on the list below are some of the twistiest, turniest books to come out in recent years. You won't find Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train anywhere on this list, but if you liked those books, you're going to love some of the reading material I've picked out for you here. I don't claim to have listed every shocking plot twist to come out of English-language publishing in the last few years, but I think this is a fine sampling of the twists and turns that contemporary genre and literary fiction have to offer.
'Someone You Know' by Olivia Isaac-Henry
Twenty years after her twin sister disappeared, Tess Piper must confront a painful and mysterious past when the discovery of a body casts a suspicious pall over her family.
'Looker' by Laura Sims
In Laura Sims' Looker, as the narrator's divorce from her ex-husband grows fraught, her fascination with her celebrity neighbor spirals quickly into a dangerous obsession.
'Yesterday' by Felicia Yap
Set in a near-future in which people can only remember a maximum of 48 hours into the past, Felicia Yap's Yesterday revolves around a murder investigation in which the victim is the mistress of a rising political powerhouse.
'The Perfect Mother' by Aimee Molloy
When a group of new mothers go out on the town for July 4, they aren't expecting to weather a tragedy. But after one woman's six-week-old son disappears, the rest of the women find themselves — and their secrets — exposed.
'Monday's Not Coming' by Tiffany D. Jackson
The follow up to Tiffany D. Jackson's hit novel Allegedly, Monday's Not Coming centers on a teenager named Claudia, who finds herself alone and searching for answers after her best friend disappears.
'Tangerine' by Christine Mangan
More than a year after their friendship fizzles, two women reunite in Morrocco, just before the disappearance of one's husband leaves her reeling.
'City of Saviors' by Rachel Howzell Hall
Set in L.A., Rachel Howzell Hall's City of Saviors follows Elouise Norton, a homicide detective, as she investigates the death of an old man, whose only family were the other members of the megachurch he attended.
'Long Black Veil' by Jennifer Finney Boylan
Decades after a youthful escapade ended in tragedy, a celebrity chef is charged with murder, and must rely on an old friend — who nurses many secrets of her own — to testify on his behalf.
'After the Bloom' by Leslie Shimotakahara
Set in mid-1980s Toronto, Leslie Shimotakahara's After the Bloom centers on Rita, who is pulled out of her routine when her mother, a vulnerable woman with a history of memory trouble, goes missing.
'Lying in Wait' by Liz Nugent
A successful couple attempt to cover up the murder of a drug-addicted sex worker by burying her in their garden, but the woman's tenacious sister, and the couple's own son, prove to be more than troublesome investigators.
'Bluebird Bluebird' by Attica Locke
From Empire writer Attica Locke comes this taut novel about Darren Matthews, a black Texas Ranger, sent to the East Texas town of Lark, where two murder cases have brought racial tensions to a new high.
'The Wife Between Us' by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
Told from the points of view of two different women, The Wife Between Us follows Vanessa, a bitter divorcée, who begins to stalk Nellie, her ex-husband's new wife-to-be, who has secrets of her own to keep.
'What We Were Promised' by Lucy Tan
Recently returned to China, the well-off Zhen family begins to implode after an heirloom, a beloved ivory bracelet, goes missing, bringing old secrets and lies to the surface.
'An Unwanted Guest' by Shari Lapena
From the author of The Couple Next Door, this novel plunges readers into the claustrophobia of a snowed-in Catskills resort, where guests begin to go missing, one by one.
'A Separation' by Katie Kitamura
Christopher and his wife quietly decide to separate, keeping the particulars of their arrangement to themselves. When he goes missing in Greece, she goes, reluctantly, to help search for him, but discovers that she may know nothing about the man she married.
