Drawing from her long career as a journalist, Jackie Kabler crafts gripping, high-concept psychological thrillers that are packed with authentic details and addictive twists. In bestselling novels like The Perfect Couple and Am I Guilty?, she excels at peeling back the layers of seemingly ordinary lives to expose the dark secrets, lies, and moral complexities simmering beneath the surface. Her fast-paced, plot-driven stories keep readers guessing until the very last page.
If you are a fan of Kabler's masterful blend of domestic suspense and shocking reveals, you will be hooked by these 15 authors who write in a similar vein.
These authors are masters of the "couple next door" thriller, exploring the terrifying idea that the greatest danger often lies within the walls of your own home or neighborhood.
B.A. Paris is an expert at creating a suffocating sense of entrapment within a relationship. If the "perfect couple" facade in Kabler's novels intrigues you, you'll love how Paris explores the nightmarish reality behind a seemingly flawless marriage.
Her iconic debut, Behind Closed Doors, is a chilling and propulsive thriller about a marriage that is a terrifying prison, a theme that Kabler fans will find both familiar and terrifying.
Shari Lapena excels at placing ordinary couples in extraordinary, high-pressure situations that cause their carefully constructed lives to unravel. She shares Kabler's talent for using a single catastrophic event to expose a web of lies, suspicion, and betrayal between partners and friends.
Start with The Couple Next Door, where a baby's disappearance during a dinner party next door leads to a cascade of shocking revelations among a group of supposed friends.
T.M. Logan writes incredibly addictive, fast-paced thrillers where an everyday person makes a discovery that sends their life spiraling out of control. He shares Kabler's skill for creating relatable characters caught in tense situations filled with paranoia and suspense.
His novel Lies follows a man who sees his wife's secret, pulling him into an addictive story of trust and betrayal where he doesn't know who to believe.
K.L. Slater delivers twisty, addictive domestic thrillers with flawed, believable characters. She shares Kabler's focus on family secrets and the psychological toll they take, crafting suspenseful and emotional stories that are impossible to put down.
In her book The Mistake, Slater explores how one moment from the past can shatter a family, creating a suspenseful and emotional read about dark histories and their consequences.
If you love the clever premises and shocking final reveals in Kabler's novels, these authors are masters of misdirection and the game-changing twist.
Clare Mackintosh is famous for crafting thrillers with huge, game-changing twists that force you to re-evaluate everything you've just read. She delivers the same kind of jaw-dropping reveals that make Kabler's books so memorable, combined with deep emotional weight.
Her debut, I Let You Go, starts with a tragic accident but soon morphs into something far more complex and shocking, featuring one of the most talked-about twists in modern fiction.
Alice Feeney is the queen of clever, intricately plotted thrillers and unreliable narrators. She shares Kabler's love for a shocking conclusion, crafting stories where nothing is as it seems and every character is a potential suspect.
In Sometimes I Lie, Feeney offers a masterclass in suspense, told by a woman in a coma who can hear everything as she tries to piece together what happened to her.
Freida McFadden has become a sensation for writing incredibly fast-paced, twisty thrillers that are impossible to put down. She shares Kabler's flair for creating jaw-dropping reveals and situations where you can't trust anyone, especially the people inside your own home.
Her blockbuster hit, The Housemaid, is an addictive story of a woman who takes a job with a wealthy family, only to discover their perfect facade hides a monstrous secret.
Gillian McAllister is known for her unique, high-concept plots that explore moral complexity and the consequences of a single choice. If you enjoy the intriguing premises of Kabler's books, you'll love McAllister's cleverly structured and emotionally charged stories.
Her novel Wrong Place Wrong Time turns the genre on its head, following a mother who witnesses her son commit a crime and then wakes up the day before, moving backward in time to uncover the truth.
These authors build suspense through deep psychological insight, exploring how past traumas and long-buried secrets come back to haunt the present.
Lisa Jewell is a master of character-driven suspense, creating intricate mysteries rooted in the long-buried secrets of families and communities. She shares Kabler's ability to create relatable characters whose pasts come back to haunt them in shocking ways.
Try Then She Was Gone, a gripping mystery about a mother searching for answers a decade after her daughter's disappearance, leading her to a truth more disturbing than she could imagine.
C.L. Taylor excels at creating psychological suspense from emotional tension and dark secrets. She shares Kabler's talent for crafting believable characters who find themselves trapped in gripping, mysterious circumstances where the threat feels deeply personal.
Her book Sleep follows a woman escaping a traumatic event to an isolated hotel on a remote Scottish island, only to realize that the danger has followed her, creating a tense and atmospheric thriller.
Gilly Macmillan writes emotionally resonant psychological thrillers that often explore a public crisis through the lens of private grief and suspicion. Her stories, like Kabler's, show how quickly relationships can fracture under pressure when secrets begin to surface.
Her debut, What She Knew, is a tense and emotional story about a mother's desperate search for her son, which exposes the secrets of everyone involved in the investigation.
Like Kabler, Fiona Barton draws on a career in journalism to bring authenticity and a unique perspective to her crime thrillers. She focuses on the stories of those adjacent to a crime—the wife, the mother, the journalist—to explore the secrets and lies hidden in relationships.
In The Widow, Barton masterfully explores the secrets kept within a marriage, telling the story of a notorious crime from the perspective of the man's wife after he has died.
These authors use evocative and often isolated settings to heighten the tension and claustrophobia, making the location a character in itself.
Often called a modern Agatha Christie, Ruth Ware specializes in "locked-room" mysteries with a contemporary psychological edge. If you enjoy the sense of paranoia in Kabler's books, you will love Ware's atmospheric and suspenseful settings where characters are trapped with a potential threat.
Try The Woman in Cabin 10, a suspenseful thriller set on a small luxury cruise ship where a journalist is certain she witnessed a body being thrown overboard, but no one believes her.
Sarah Pearse writes incredibly atmospheric thrillers where the setting is just as important as the plot. She shares Kabler's ability to build a creeping sense of dread and suspense, using isolated locations to amplify the characters' fears.
Her debut novel The Sanatorium brings together a remote, minimalist hotel in the Swiss Alps, a dark history, and a detective on leave, creating a tense, claustrophobic, and memorable read.
Lucy Clarke creates transportive thrillers set in vivid, often beautiful, and isolated locations that hide dark secrets. She excels at exploring themes of friendship, betrayal, and survival, which will appeal to readers who enjoy the relationship dynamics in Kabler's work.
Her novel The Castaways features a mysterious island setting and a compelling story of two sisters, forcing readers to uncover what really happened when a plane disappeared years before.