Carlene Thompson has a gift for crafting suspense thrillers that feel both chilling and intimate. Known for books like Black for Remembrance and Share No Secrets, she masterfully uses her signature Appalachian settings to create an atmosphere where small-town secrets fester and past sins refuse to stay buried. Her stories often feature relatable women thrust into terrifying situations, with loyal animal companions frequently playing a key role.
If you love Thompson’s unique blend of atmospheric suspense and character-driven mystery, you will enjoy these 15 authors.
These authors are masters of the genre Thompson excels in: stories centered on ordinary women who find their lives upended by danger, forcing them to uncover the truth to survive.
Often called the "Queen of Suspense," Mary Higgins Clark is a foundational author in this space. Like Thompson, her novels feature capable, everyday women who stumble into criminal conspiracies or become targets of hidden enemies. Her plots are known for their intricate twists and a focus on suspense over graphic violence.
A perfect starting point is Where Are the Children?, a classic thriller about a woman whose terrifying past seems to be repeating itself.
Joy Fielding specializes in psychological thrillers that expose the dark underbelly of domestic life. If you are drawn to the way Thompson explores secrets within families and relationships, Fielding's work will resonate. She excels at building suspense from familiar situations, making the danger feel chillingly plausible.
Her novel See Jane Run is a gripping tale of a woman found wandering with amnesia, who must piece together her identity before her dangerous past catches up with her.
If your favorite part of a Carlene Thompson novel is the atmospheric, claustrophobic feel of a small town where everyone knows each other—and their secrets—these authors are for you.
Tami Hoag is an expert at creating an immersive sense of place, often setting her dark, twisting mysteries in small, isolated communities. She shares Thompson's ability to make the setting a character in itself, where long-buried secrets and old grievances drive the plot. Her stories blend police procedurals with deep psychological tension.
Try Night Sins, where the disappearance of a young boy shatters the peace of a small Minnesota town and unearths its hidden darkness.
Heather Gudenkauf writes emotionally charged suspense novels centered on family drama and secrets in rural, tight-knit communities. Her pacing is similar to Thompson's, building suspense through character relationships and emotional stakes rather than high-octane action. Her focus on complex family dynamics will feel very familiar.
Her debut, The Weight of Silence, is a powerful story about two young girls who disappear in a deep woods, and the devastating secrets that emerge in the search for them.
Wendy Corsi Staub excels at "suburban noir," crafting mysteries where the danger is hiding in plain sight behind the closed doors of a seemingly perfect neighborhood. Much like Thompson, she often features protagonists whose pasts return to haunt them, proving that you can never truly escape who you once were.
In Live to Tell, a woman’s quiet suburban life is threatened when a killer from her past begins terrorizing her new town.
These authors expertly weave a strong romantic subplot into their thrilling mysteries, creating a compelling blend of danger and passion that will appeal to readers who enjoy this element in Thompson's books.
Sandra Brown is a titan of romantic suspense. Her novels are known for their fast-paced, high-stakes plots, sharp dialogue, and intense chemistry between the leads. If you enjoy the blend of mystery and relationship development in Thompson's work, Brown delivers it with an extra dose of heat and energy.
Her novel Envy is a standout, featuring a publisher entangled with a mysterious author whose manuscript seems to be about a real-life crime.
Linda Howard is another master of the genre, known for creating strong, capable heroines and equally formidable heroes. Her books combine intricate, suspenseful plots with a powerful and often steamy romance. She creates the same page-turning urgency found in Thompson's stories, where the characters must learn to trust each other to survive.
A great example is Mr. Perfect, where a lighthearted joke among friends about the perfect man turns deadly when a killer decides to take them seriously.
Lisa Jackson writes dark, atmospheric romantic suspense often set in remote, eerie locations. She shares Thompson's talent for creating a palpable sense of dread and mystery. Her novels frequently involve intricate serial killer plots and family secrets that span generations, with a central romance that develops amidst the chaos.
Her book Left to Die kicks off a popular series about a detective investigating a string of murders in the rural mountains of Montana.
Karen Robards seamlessly blends historical or contemporary romance with nail-biting suspense. Her heroines are often ordinary women caught in extraordinary circumstances, a theme central to Thompson's work. Robards' plots are full of surprising twists and emotional depth, ensuring readers are invested in both the mystery and the relationship.
Her novel Shattered follows a struggling single mom who witnesses a murder and finds herself on the run from a deadly assassin.
If you're ready for something a bit darker and more psychologically intense than Thompson's work, these authors take the suspense to the next level. Be advised, their content can be more graphic.
Lisa Gardner writes taut, intricate thrillers that often focus on the psychology of survivors. Like Thompson, she puts her characters through harrowing ordeals, but Gardner delves deeper into the trauma and its aftermath. Her books are a masterful blend of police procedural and intense psychological suspense.
Start with The Perfect Husband, a chilling story about a woman who believes she has escaped her psychopathic spouse, only to learn he is hunting her again.
Mary Kubica is known for twisty psychological thrillers where the truth is never what it seems. She explores the complex and often dark sides of human nature and relationships. If you love how Thompson slowly unravels a mystery through character perspectives, you will appreciate Kubica's clever use of shifting timelines and unreliable narrators.
Her debut, The Good Girl, is a gripping thriller about a kidnapping that goes wrong, told from multiple viewpoints.
Chevy Stevens writes raw, powerful, and deeply emotional psychological thrillers. Her stories are often harrowing explorations of trauma and survival, told from the victim's perspective. She captures the same feeling of a woman pushed to her absolute limit that is present in Thompson's novels, but with a grittier, more modern edge.
Her breakout novel Still Missing is an unforgettable story told by a woman recounting her abduction to her therapist.
As her name suggests, Karin Slaughter writes unflinching, gritty, and often graphic crime thrillers. She is a master of complex characters and intricate plotting, but her work is significantly darker and more violent than Thompson's. For readers who want to explore the grittiest corners of the crime genre, Slaughter is a top choice.
Her standalone novel Pretty Girls is a shocking and brutal story about two estranged sisters who reunite to find out the truth behind their other sister's long-ago disappearance.
Gillian Flynn redefined the modern psychological thriller with her morally ambiguous characters and razor-sharp prose. She deconstructs the "woman-in-jeopardy" trope, often revealing her female characters to be just as dangerous as the men. If you're fascinated by the hidden darkness in Thompson's characters, Flynn takes that exploration to a shocking new level.
Her most famous work, Gone Girl, is a cultural phenomenon that brilliantly dissects a toxic marriage after the wife mysteriously vanishes.
J.T. Ellison crafts sophisticated psychological thrillers with intricate plots and morally complex characters. She excels at exploring the dark secrets hidden within seemingly perfect lives and marriages. Her writing is sharp and compelling, perfect for readers who love a mystery that keeps them guessing until the very last page.
Her standalone novel Lie to Me follows the frantic search for a missing author, a search that uncovers a web of secrets and lies in her seemingly perfect marriage.