College freshman Chloe Sevre has two secrets: 1) She’s a psychopath, and 2) she’s plotting to kill frat boy Will Bachman. Chloe has no sense of empathy or remorse, but she is acutely aware of being wronged.

Chloe thought Will was her friend, but he hurt her in an especially devastating way when she was just 12 years old, and she’s spent years plotting her revenge. Chloe got into Adams University, the same college Will attends, by enrolling in a special study. Along with seven other students who have been diagnosed as psychopaths, Chloe will get a free ride if she agrees to group therapy and biometric monitoring. For Chloe, this is purely a means to an end—access to Will—until someone begins murdering the students in the group. Suddenly, Chloe is in a cat-and-mouse game with a killer, even as she continues with her own murderous plot for justice.

While Chloe isn’t empathetic per se, she is vicariously fun to read about in a way that brings to mind Villanelle from “Killing Eve,” and author Vera Kurian gives readers two equally suspenseful plotlines to follow. First is Chloe’s mission to kill Will. Even though her actions are illegal and morally wrong, Will’s crime is so heinous that it’s not hard to understand why Chloe would resort to murder rather than turn to an unreliable justice system.

And then there’s the catch-me-if-you-can secondary plot of Chloe trying to discover who is killing members of the study she belongs to. She aligns with two other members of the group to flush out the killer, but her companions are as untrustworthy as she is. The fact that Never Saw Me Coming has multiple characters that lie and manipulate without issue makes detecting its central killer all the more challenging. All of this adds up to a unique reading experience: Even though there aren’t necessarily any “good guys” to root for, Kurian compels her readers to be deeply invested in Chloe’s success regardless.

With a satisfying (if bloodthirsty) quest for vengeance and a twisty mystery to solve, Never Saw Me Coming will tempt readers into staying up all night to get answers.

Fans of Alex Michaelides’ blockbuster debut The Silent Patient will eagerly dive into his newest thriller, The Maidens, which will immerse them in the world of Mariana Andros, a 36-year-old group therapist living in London and mourning the strange drowning of her husband Sebastian a year ago in Greece. (Mariana trained alongside Theo Faber, the criminal psychotherapist who unraveled the strange case of Alicia Berenson in Michaelides’ debut, and he makes an appearance or two here.)

Mariana is still overwhelmed by her grief when she is suddenly called to her alma mater, Cambridge University, after her niece Zoe’s friend is murdered. Mariana and Sebastian raised Zoe, whose parents died in a car accident. The distraught girl shares that her late friend, Tara, was part of a group of university students known as “The Maidens,” who are all devoted to their dashing American professor of Greek tragedy, Edward Fosca. The police have arrested a suspect, but Zoe proclaims his innocence. Mariana quickly gets swept up in the case, and soon is on the track of a serial killer as more Maidens are murdered. Each time, a strange postcard with a Greek quotation from a classical tragedy is found in the victim's rooms, and Mariana becomes increasingly convinced that the arrogant Fosca is the murderer.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Actors Louise Brealey and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith narrate as investigator and killer in the audio edition of The Maidens.

Michaelides’ page turner cleverly weaves together Mariana’s difficult and haunted past, her group therapy patients, Greek mythology and the increasing local tension as more girls are killed. He makes excellent use of the Cambridge University setting, with its Gothic architecture, traditions and hierarchy of students, professors and staff. As clues emerge and danger grows, Mariana becomes more and more sure of her sleuthing, although frustrated readers may often want to shake her and point her in other directions. A particularly needy patient named Henry seems obsessed with her. And then there’s Fred, a physics student whom Mariana meets on the train, who has fallen in love with her and keeps popping up—perhaps as friend, perhaps as foe.

The Maidens is a well-paced, suspenseful and easy-to-digest thriller. The Greek tragedy aspect is intriguing and Michaelides explains the mythology, so there’s no need to brush up beforehand. Be forewarned, however: There’s a supremely unsettling, sure-to-be-divisive twist at the end of this cliffhanger.

When Oliver Park visits a gay bathhouse in search of an anonymous hookup, he’s putting a lot at risk: his comfortable relationship with Nathan, his upper middle-class life, even his hard-won sobriety. The encounter takes a violent turn that he’s lucky to survive, but his bruises demand an explanation. While Nathan worries about Oliver’s safety, Oliver equivocates and dodges. Bath Haus starts out as a cat-and-mouse thriller, but by the end you’ll realize that everyone is both cat and mouse. You’ll also be a breathless wreck, because this book is not fooling around.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Summer reading 2021: 9 books to soak in this season

Author P.J. Vernon’s (When You Find Me) concoction moves with can’t-put-it-down quickness, but you may find yourself lingering over it nonetheless. The writing is economical when it needs to be, but descriptions of the couple’s swanky Georgetown home are full of visual pops. Nathan’s mother serves cutting lines with stiletto precision; she’s a villain to hate while secretly wishing you were her. (Just me? I’ll own it.) Sharp observations about addiction, relationship stagnation and the homogeneity of gay club culture fill in the story’s world while never slowing it down.

Shifts in points of view let readers see that there’s more at play than Oliver’s assault and the possibility that he’s being stalked. Nathan pays for both of their phones and has access to the passcodes. He clearly knows more than he’s letting on. Things come to a head in a finale that initially feels like a collision between The Boys in the Band and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? but quickly spirals into genuine nail-biting terror. 

Don’t miss Bath Haus. It’s intricate, speedy and scary.

There’s a darkness lurking in The Bright Lands, and it’s apt to give you a case of the shivers. John Fram’s debut novel is “Friday Night Lights” meets “Supernatural,” but it’s an enticing read any way you slice it.

Things start innocently enough (don’t they always?), as Dylan Whitley enjoys being the star quarterback for the Bentley, Texas, high school football team. Dylan has brought the team to the verge of winning the state championship while attracting the attention of college scouts, the adoration of players and fans alike and the enmity of rival schools and bullies.

But Dylan—who should be riding high on his on-the-field success and the myriad college offers about to come his way—is mysteriously despondent when he texts his older brother, Joel, a successful New York businessman. He hates the town (“it’s like I hear this town talking when I sleep”) and feels trapped (“i can’t sleep i can’t eat i can’t go to the bright lands”).

Joel, who fled the town’s persecution and bigotry after he came out, reluctantly flies home with plans of whisking Dylan out of there, only to arrive too late. Within days of Joel’s arrival, Dylan disappears while on a fishing trip with teammates and later turns up dead, his body ravaged by an unknown killer.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: John Fram shares what it’s like to be compared to Stephen King.

The only clues—and it’s not really a clue at all, but more of a nagging dread—are the nightmarish dreams Joel and many other Bentley residents have been experiencing of late, dreams of a dark presence and a dread place called the Bright Lands.

Joel and Sheriff’s Deputy Starsha Clark, who is still haunted by the disappearance of her own brother years ago, must team up to solve the weird happenings and restore some semblance of peace and sanity to the town—or die trying.

Fram, who was raised in Texas before moving to New York, effortlessly captures the reader’s attention with his fleshed-out characters and all the dark secrets you could want in this gripping debut.

Julie Clark’s The Last Flight is a delicious thrill ride of a read. It’s got swapped identities, minute-by-minute suspense, shadowy figures, murder mystery and enough twists and coincidences to make things exciting yet frighteningly realistic.

Clark’s two protagonists, Eva James and Claire Cook, take turns narrating their separate lives before and after they decide, together, to abandon them. When Claire fell in love with her husband, Rory, a handsome and wealthy would-be senator from a powerful family, it was almost a relief. While she’d excelled at Vassar and had a great job at Christie’s, she was still devastated by the deaths of her mother and sister. Rory was charming, with a glittering life—and, Claire realized not long after they wed, a penchant for control and abuse. She longs to escape, and knows she’s got to do it just right; she has a bad feeling about the untimely demise of Rory’s previous girlfriend.

She puts a plan in motion, only to encounter a major last-minute problem. And then, as she muses on her options in a JFK airport bar, Eva joins her and shares her desire for a new, better life. After a few tentative jokes about the movie Freaky Friday, the women decide to do a swap of their own. They exchange clothes, phones and tickets, with Eva taking Claire’s place on a flight to Puerto Rico, and Claire boarding Eva’s flight to California.

Upon touchdown in Oakland, Claire is shocked by the TV news: the Puerto Rico flight crashed, presumably leaving no survivors—and suddenly, she has more choices than she did before. Alas, assuming Eva’s identity has its own set of problems, as it turns out she, too, was at the mercy of dangerous men.

The Last Flight is a suspenseful, timely tale about smart, strong women who support one another in their determination to not just survive, but also thrive, uncertainty and risk be damned.

At just 6 years old, Arden Maynor was outside sleepwalking when a flash flood swept her away. Residents of her small Kentucky town searched for days, her mother made on-camera pleas and the national media broadcast it all. The country breathed a sigh of relief when Arden was found—and on every anniversary of that day, the media spotlight found her and her mother over and over again. The relentless attention made Arden feel hunted, “like nothing more than a character brought to life by my mother’s book.”

And so, in Megan Miranda’s The Girl from Widow Hills, we get to know the Arden of 20 years later: now 26, she goes by Olivia Wells and lives in North Carolina, where she has a job she loves. She’s finally beginning to feel secure in her life’s rhythms, even forging new friendships—but then, one horrible night, she sleepwalks outside and awakens with a bloodied body at her feet. Is the looming 20th anniversary stirring up tamped-down trauma? Or is someone from the past trying to torment her anew?

Newspaper articles, transcripts, book excerpts and other artifacts paint a fuller picture of the rescue and its aftermath, including conspiracy theories and bizarre expectations from those obsessed with the little girl. Step by suspenseful step, Miranda lays a path for readers to follow as Olivia tries to separate dreams and reality, fear and fact—with a tenacious local detective not far behind.

The Girl from Widow Hills is a creepy, compelling portrait of a life forever warped by unwanted fame, a timely theme in this era of internet celebrity and the fall from grace that often follows. (There are strong echoes of the real life 1987 “Baby Jessica” media explosion, too, wherein a toddler fell deep into a Texas well and the nation breathlessly tuned in to CNN’s live broadcast of the tension-filled, successful rescue effort.) It’s a shivery kind of fun to wonder along with Olivia whether those close to her should be trusted or feared, and to urge her on as she races to unravel the past without unraveling her sanity. She may have been rescued all those years ago, but now, only she can save herself.