13 Thrillers That Are Perfect For a Chilly Fall Night

Henry James's The Turn of the Screw gets a modern update in Ruth Ware's latest thriller The Turn of the Key. Set in a malfunctioning smart house situated in the Scottish Highlands, the book focuses on live-in nanny Rowan Caine, who finds herself in prison for the murder of one of her charges. However, in true Ware fashion, things aren't as straightforward as they seem.

Zoje Stage's Baby Teeth creates a gnawing sense of dread that builds straight through to its shocking ending. Suzette's 7-year-old daughter Hanna is an angel for her father, but when Hanna is left alone with her mother, she's a different person — one who Suzette fears is trying to get rid of her for good.

Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg's The Nine is just as much of a coming of age tale as it is a thriller. The story centers on a mother who works her whole life to give her son the best of everything, and is delighted when he's accepted into a prestigious school. However, her son soon discovers a history of misconduct at his New England boarding school that he simply cannot ignore, even if it means jeopardizing all of his mother's sacrifices.

An Anonymous Girl is Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen at their twisty best. Featuring a psychologist with potentially dark intentions, and a woman who gets way more than she bargains for when she joins a psychological study to make some quick cash, this tale of ethics and obsession is a true page-turner.

What if you came home one day to find all of your things gone and a new family living in your home as if it had always been theirs? That's exactly what happens to Fiona Lawson in Louise Candlish's Our House. Fiona is left to untangle a web of lies that casts doubt on everything she thought to be true.

Parents beware, because Adrian McKinty's The Chain is pure nightmare fuel. A mother is on her way to her oncology appointment when she gets a call from a frightened parent informing her that they've abducted her daughter, because it's the only way to get their own child back from a kidnapper. Now, the mother must kidnap someone's else child so that the chain will continue, or risk losing her daughter forever.

Lucy Foley's The Hunting Party will give you Agatha Christie vibes in the best way possible. Set against the snowy backdrop of the Scottish highlands, a group of friends gather to celebrate the new year. However, by the end of the night one of them is dead, and they're forced to face the fact that one of them is a murderer.

Riley Sager's Lock Every Door is a modern nightmare. Jules Larsen's apartment sitting job in New York's most famous building sounds like a dream gig, but it quickly turns out to be too good to be true. The building comes with a long list of rules and a potential killer that Jules will have to face off with if she wants to survive her new gig in this breathtaking thriller.

Tana French is the queen of atmospheric thrillers, but if you have to choose just one, then The Likeness is the perfect pick for the Fall. Cassie Maddox is a detective who has seen it all, or at least she thinks she has until she's called to a crime scene to find the victim looks exactly like her and even went by one of her old undercover aliases. Now Cassie has to solve the murder, and figure out how it connects to her in the process.

Team-building exercises are already scary, but they become even more terrifying in Megan Goldin's The Escape Room. Co-workers Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam are invited to an escape room as part of a team-building exercise, but they soon discover that if they don't solve the puzzles and get out of the room before time runs out, the consequences will be deadly.

Technically, Megan Miranda's The Last House Guest takes place in the Summer, but the Maine coastal town setting is plenty moody enough to make this an exquisite Fall read. When Avery's friend Sadie seemingly dies by suicide in Avery's home, the whole town seems to believe she's responsible. Now the only way Avery can clear her name is by unraveling the secrets surrounding her friend's death.

Jo Baker's The Body Lies is set at a university in the English countryside, so you know it has plenty of atmosphere. It also has a downright frightening plot. A young writer who teaches at the university finds herself is the subject of one of her student's increasingly unsettling writings, and it seems he may be interested in seeing his tale play out in real life.

If you don't like legitimately scary reads, then T. Kingfisher's The Twisted Ones may not be for you. However, if you like a little horror mixed in with your thrillers, then you need this book in your life. Mouse is tasked with cleaning out her grandmother's secluded cabin in the woods, but she soon discovers that she's not as alone as she thought she was in this addictive and twist-filled novel.