Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Seven novels built on the weight of a shared secret

Anna Snoekstra is the author of Only Daughter, Little Secrets, and The Spite Game. Her novels have been published in over twenty countries and sixteen languages. She has written for many publications including The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, CrimeReads and is a profile writer for The Saturday Paper. In 2023 she released her first audio drama This Isn’t Happening.

Snoekstra's new novel is The Ones We Love.

At CrimeReads the author tagged seven top novels built on the weight of a shared secret, including:
The Lying Game, by Ruth Ware

Like [Peter Straub's] Ghost Story, The Lying Game revolves around a group who tell stories. But instead of elderly men they are teenage girls, and rather than telling the stories to one another, they are telling them to other people. The titular ‘lying game’ is about competitively using their powers of deception and manipulation to convince others of outrageous stories. The game culminates in a dramatic act of violence and the girls make a pact to protect one another and never reveal the truth of what happened. But, of course, bodies don’t stay buried in mystery novels and almost two decades later the secret they’ve kept is revealed.
Read about another novel on the list.

The Lying Game is among Stephanie Barron's seven top mystery novels set in academe and Kathleen Barber's ten unputdownable suspense novels, thrillers, & other creepy books.

--Marshal Zeringue