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Books Like You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz

18 Thrillers to Read After You Should Have Known, aka the Book That Inspired The Undoing

Dec 11 2020

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After devouring Jean Hanff Korelitz's novel, You Should Have Known and binging the smash success of HBO's The Undoing, readers— myself included!— are eagerly searching where to get their next thriller and suspense fix. Whether you're craving more psychological thrillers centreed around complex marriages and intricate female friendships, or novels balancing an insolvable crime case and passionate love affairs, we've got you covered! Ahead, take a look at our best recommendations for thrillers like You Should Have Known. From forthcoming novels to newer releases, we guarantee these will hold you over until Nicole Kidman's next spine-chilling project, Nine Perfect Strangers (also a novel by Liane Moriarty), hits Hulu.

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The Couple Next Door

It's always the husband, or is it? In The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena, readers will notice quite a few parallels to You Should Have Known, especially in the marriage department. With the ongoing investigation of their missing daughter, Anne and Marco Conti quickly find themselves painted as the prime suspects. From a distance, the Conti's seem like a couple madly in love, but as secrets are uncovered, everything changes.

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For The Best

After a night of too much drinking and unconsciousness behaviour, Jules Worthington-Smith's wallet is found at a crime scene, casting her as the prime suspect of a murder case. A well-polished and established woman in the community, Jules believes she is innocent, and begins her own investigation. This whirlwind embarkment in Vanessa Lillie's For The Best, won't only test the limits of the media and justice, but will force her to evaluate demons she's suppressed all her life.


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A Good Marriage

Impressive job titles, the fancy city life, a picture-perfect spouse, A Good Marriage by Kimberly McCreight has all the workings of a sexy thriller but unbeknownst to its title, Lizzie Kitsakis and her husband Sam have anything but that. Things continue to unravel for Lizzie as she comes to the aid of an old friend named Zach and consequently, finds herself digging up the murky secrets and hidden agendas of those around him.


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The Husband's Secret

The Husband's Secret is a dark twist on the hypothetical question, "if you had an envelope with the exact date you were going to die, would you open it?" Except instead of a date, it's a detailed description of your husband's darkest, earth-shattering secrets, written by him for you to read on the day he dies. Oh, and you discover it when he's still alive. Liane Moriarty is also the author of the highly-acclaimed novel and limited-series, Big Little Lies.

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Little Deaths

All eyes are on Ruth Malone in Emma Flint's Little Deaths, when her two young children are bludgeoned to death while under her care. Similar to Grace Frasier, Ruth could never imagine her husband hurting anyone, let alone their children; however, her decision making is blinded by her alcohol dependency, and Ruth can't stop pointing the finger at everyone, including herself.

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Don't Look For Me

In a complete turn of events from You Should Have Known, Wendy Walker's Don't Look For Me, heeds the catastrophic relationship between a missing mother and her worried daughter. Since the night Molly Clarke went missing, life for Nicole and her family hasn't been the same and with a new lead on the table, she's determined now more than ever to piece together the mystery behind her mom's disappearance.


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Three Single Wives

It was just your typical book club meeting, until the topic of someone's husband, who is accused of having a wandering eye and casual flings, breaches the conversation. Before the night is over, someone is dead and no one is confessing to the murder nor the lies and skeletons lurking in the shadows. Gina Lamanna's domestic thriller, Three Single Wives, is a jumbled web of secrets and deceit.

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My Lovely Wife

For Jonathan Frasier, killing another woman (and sleeping with her) broke his marriage. But, for the husband in My Lovely Wife, murdering people with his wife is what keeps their marriage alive. Samantha Downing weaves a disturbing and suspenseful tale on how one couple is able to keep the love and lust going after 15 years of marriage.

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I Found You

Lisa Jewell's catalogueue is the epitome of thriller novels that'll leave your heart racing and palms clammy until the very last page. I Found You untangles the lives of Alice Lake, Lily Monrose, Gray and Kirsty Ross, and the residents of Ridinghouse Bay, a quaint town along the British coast. Told through multiple narratives, readers will learn how much one's upbringing can shape someone into the person they are today.


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Should Have Known Better

Kate is a protective single mom and when her daughter Chloe begins showing interest in a boy named Ben, who's devilishly good-looking father is also crushing on Kate, she must decide if this dual love story is something that happened by chance or a creepy, unhealthy obsession? AJ McDine gives a chilling depiction of the great lengths a mother will go to to protect her child in Should Have Known Better.

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The Wives

How far would you go to uncover every detail, no matter how disturbing it may be, about your husband? One out of three women in a polygamist marriage, Thursday has never met her husband's other wives, until she befriends one of the them, Hannah, under false pretences. The Wives is Tarryn Fisher's contorted narrative on living with someone with a split personality.

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Not That I Could Tell

A casual rendezvous among a group of exhausted neighbourhood moms was all it was, until one of them is missing come Monday morning. Not That I Could Tell by Jessica Strawser follows Kristin and her husband Paul, her best friend and neighbour, Clara, and Izzy, who recently moved into the neighbourhood, as they are investigated by authorities, drowning in media attention, and more specifically, questioning everything they once knew about their quote-on-quote friendly neighbours.

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The Affair

More times often than not, it's an unfaithful husband in fictional affairs. Sheryl Browne is shaking up the narrative in her thrilling novel, The Affair, which introduces Alicia, a woman who is personally responsibly for destroying her marriage. Fans of The Wife Between Us and You Should Have Know will eat this gripping, twisted read right up.


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When No One is Watching

As more and more of her Brooklyn neighbours move away, Sydney Green is at a lost for words and takes it upon herself to get to the bottom of the constant cycle of real estate turnover happening in her beloved neighbourhood. Intertwined with themes of race, social injustice, and class inequity, Alyssa Cole's When No One is Watching brings together unlikely friends, Theo and Sydney, and their quest to unearth the gentrification of their community.

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And Now She's Gone

And Now She's Gone by Rachel Howzell Hall is a trepidatious game of cat and mouse, as Grayson Sykes is on the search for Isabel Lincoln, a missing woman who necessarily may not want to be found.

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In Case of Emergency

E.G. Scott's thrilling nightmare will keep you up all night. In another novel based on a relationship hidden in the dark, In Case of Emergency revolves around Charlotte, who has somehow winded up as a suspect in the murder of a woman she's never seen or heard of before. Her new beau is conveniently MIA, and it's her word against the cop's...unless she can prove her innocence and find the killer.

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Sanctuary

When the death of the town's star quarterback is announced, the quaint town of Sanctuary is anything but that. V.V. James spins a capturing narrative, exploiting every character as the possible murder. Was it the ex-girlfriend? Or her mother who's also a witch? Detective Maggie Knight is on the case and it's on her to find the needle in the haystack while also keeping the town from rioting out of control.

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Do No Harm

Grace Frasier and Do No Harm's Emma have a lot more in common that what meets the eye; in hindsight, they both just want what's best for their families. On the outside looking in, selling opioids sounds like a horrible and irresponsible idea, but readers will quickly become fans of Emma, Christina McDonald's protagonist, when they discover the money is funding her son's cancer treatment.

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