If you spend about five minutes looking through the book reviews on this site, you’re going to notice something.
I apparently have a type.
Psychological thrillers. Mysteries. Murder. Haunted houses. Ghosts. Demons. Creepy families. Missing people. People who absolutely cannot be trusted.
You know, relaxing stuff.
I don’t really do romance. I don’t read comedy. Fantasy isn’t my thing. I can occasionally get into historical books, but when I’m choosing what I want to read next, I almost always end up right back where I started.
Give me a psychological thriller with a mystery to solve and a twist I don’t see coming.
Even better, throw in a haunted house.
I Think It Started Long Before I Started Reading Again
When I think about why I’m so drawn to psychological thrillers, it actually makes sense when I look at everything else I watch.
The Walking Dead. Supernatural. Criminal Minds. Bones. Paranormal Caught on Camera.
That’s my kind of entertainment.
Of course I watch other things. I absolutely love Ted Lasso. I watch comedies. I like plenty of movies that don’t involve murder, ghosts, serial killers, or the end of civilization.
But I’m drawn to the intense stuff.
I want the mystery. Who did it? What actually happened? Who’s lying? What are we missing?
Apparently I want the same thing when I’m reading.
This Actually Goes All the Way Back to High School
My reading history makes even more sense when I think about high school.
Literary fiction and I did not get along particularly well.
I never seemed to read a book or interpret it exactly the way my teachers wanted me to. Apparently I wasn’t thinking about things the “right” way, and that took a lot of the enjoyment out of reading for me.
So when I needed to read books for points, I found another solution.
R.L. Stine’s Fear Street.
I read a TON of them.
Looking back, this really shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Around that same time, my mom let me read Mary Willis Walker’s Under the Beetle’s Cellar. I remember loving that book.
Then life happened, and for a long time I really wasn’t much of a reader anymore.
The Book That Got Me Reading Again
When I decided I wanted to start reading again, I went all the way back to that book I’d remembered loving in high school.
I reread it, and that was basically the beginning of this entire reading journey.
From there, one thriller led to another. Then another. Then another.
Now I have an entire section of this website devoted to book reviews, so apparently things escalated.
I Want You to Fool Me
This may be my favorite thing about psychological thrillers.
I want the twist.
I want to think I know what’s happening and discover that I’m completely wrong.
And believe me, I’m wrong a LOT.
I try to figure these books out while I’m reading them. I come up with theories. I decide who I don’t trust. I think I’ve caught some tiny clue that’s going to reveal everything.
Then the author reveals what actually happened and…nope.
Apparently, I am terrible at this.
But that’s part of the fun.
If I do figure out the twist, it doesn’t necessarily ruin the book for me. A predictable ending can be a little disappointing, and it might make the story less exciting, but I care about more than just the final reveal.
I want the story.
I want good characters.
I want to care what happens to them.
And I want that moment when everything finally comes together, preferably in a way I didn’t expect.
I’m Apparently Pretty Easy to Please
There are psychological thriller groups online where people have VERY strong opinions about books.
A book I loved?
Someone else hated it.
A book I thought was fantastic?
Someone couldn’t even finish it.
And that’s fine.
But I’ve realized I’m really not that picky.
There have been very few books I’ve truly disliked since I started reading again. Part of that may simply be that I’m so happy to be reading again.
But I also don’t need every book to reinvent the genre.
Give me an interesting mystery, characters I care about, a decent pace, and some surprises, and I’m probably going to have a good time.
Just Please Don’t Spend 10 Pages Describing a Dresser
I can handle a lot.
Slow books are harder.
I LOVE fast-paced books and short chapters.
Part of that is just my life. I get interrupted. A lot. Short chapters make it easy for me to squeeze in some reading, stop when I need to, and come back later.
They also create the dangerous “just one more chapter” situation that somehow turns into another 100 pages.
I can enjoy a slow burn if something interesting is happening along the way.
But if we’re spending 10 pages describing a dresser?
You’ve lost me.
Let’s get back to the murder.
I Actually Like Police and FBI Procedurals
This is another area where readers have very different preferences.
I don’t mind police procedurals at all. In fact, I really enjoy them when they’re done well.
My first FBI series was by C.M. Sutter, and I loved it.
What made those books work for me was that they weren’t just about FBI procedures. They had characters I became invested in, and they spent time telling the victims’ stories, too.
That’s important to me.
I don’t just want an investigation.
I want a story.
Then There’s My Supernatural Side
Psychological thrillers probably make up the majority of what I read, but supernatural horror is always welcome.
Especially around Halloween.
Give me haunted houses.
Give me ghosts.
Give me demons.
Give me unexplained noises coming from a room nobody is supposed to be in.
I’m in.
Some of my favorites have been The Exorcist’s House series and The September House. Haunted houses in particular are very hard for me to resist.
Witches aren’t usually my thing, but most other creepy supernatural stories are fair game.
And unlike some of my seasonal reading, I can read supernatural books any time of year.
October just makes them even better.
How Dark Is Too Dark?
Considering my reading history, you might reasonably assume I don’t have a line.
I do.
It’s just…pretty far out there.
Gore doesn’t usually bother me. Murder obviously doesn’t stop me. Creepy, disturbing, dark, scary, paranormal, serial killers…apparently we’re good.
Abuse is harder for me, especially when it involves children or animals.
Sea Caummisar’s Raised by a Killer series got extremely graphic at times, and some parts were difficult to read. I still thought the story itself was great, but there were definitely moments I hated reading.
And I still haven’t been able to make myself read The Groomer.
So apparently I do have a line.
Or at least a semi-line.
The Authors Who Keep Pulling Me Back
At this point, there are certain authors whose names immediately get my attention.
Freida McFadden is obviously at the top of that list. I’ve read so many of her books, and she’s probably my favorite author.
But she’s far from the only one.
I also keep coming back to Darcy Coates, Alice Feeney, Colleen Hoover, Jeneva Rose, Jess Lourey, John Marrs, Lisa Jewell, Lucinda Berry, Nick Roberts, Riley Sager, and Ruth Ware.
Some lean more toward psychological thriller. Some venture into horror or supernatural territory. Some write across different genres.
But they’ve all given me the kind of stories that make me want to keep reading.
The Books That Explain My Taste Pretty Well
If you really want to understand what I like, my reading history probably explains it better than I can.
Books like Never Lie, Brain Damage, The Quarry Girls, The Perfect Child, Phantom Limb, The Woman in Cabin 10, Rock Paper Scissors, The Butcher, The Farmhouse, and Hunted are pretty good examples.
They’re not all exactly the same type of book.
That’s the point.
I don’t need every book to follow one specific formula. I just want something that pulls me in and makes me need to know what happens next.
I’m Probably Not Branching Out Anytime Soon
Every once in a while, I wonder if I should read more outside my usual genres.
And I do.
I’ve loved classics like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. I’ve enjoyed historical and nonfiction books, including War Stories: Operation Iraqi Freedom and Lone Survivor. I have plenty of other books sitting around waiting for me.
I’ll read them.
Eventually.
But when it’s time to choose a book purely because I want something fun to read?
I’m probably going back to the psychological thrillers.
I want the mystery.
I want the suspense.
I want characters I care about.
I want short chapters that convince me I can squeeze in just one more.
And most of all, I want the author to make me absolutely certain I know what happened.
Then prove me completely wrong.
Considering how often that happens, I’m definitely reading the right genre.
And if someone ever looked through my entire reading history without any context?
Yes.
They should probably be a little concerned.