In Jeff VanderMeer’s eco-thriller Hummingbird Salamander, security analyst Jane Smith receives an envelope containing a key and a short list of animals. The contents of the envelope seem to be random, but Jane investigates them anyway and ends up at a storage unit where she finds a taxidermied hummingbird. After prying out the eyes of the bird, she finds another clue, which leads to an unraveling, deadly mystery that unravels Jane as well.

Jane has an exceptionally unique voice. Even from her first-person point of view, it’s apparent that she is selfish, brazen and highly unusual. She gives strange nicknames to her belongings, such as “Shovel Pig” the purse and “Bog” the cellphone. She is closer friends with her purse than with her husband.

Though Jane has “made it”—she has a high-paying job, a family, a nice house—she seems to experience life as an outsider. Perhaps that’s why it’s easy for her to throw it all away, though the reader must take certain leaps to understand this motivation: The story falls short when it comes to establishing why Jane would go to such excruciating lengths to solve the mystery. The reader’s questions are ultimately answered, though only in a sense, and far too late.

VanderMeer is a well-established, highly acclaimed author who is known for weird, inventive fiction, including his Southern Reach Trilogy, the first novel of which (Annihilation) was adapted to film. Hummingbird Salamander is not a great introduction to his style, but his existing fans will likely be carried through by its intriguing, propulsive plot.

The phrase “worst-case scenario” calls to mind extreme situations, like being on a hijacked plane or a bridge during an earthquake. But perhaps more realistically, most worst-case scenarios are mundane. They’re quieter and less violent. They might even happen while we’re on vacation. Such is the premise of Rumaan Alam’s novel, Leave the World Behind.

White parents Clay and Amanda leave Brooklyn for a gorgeous vacation rental home far out on Long Island. Their kids are thrilled about the pool, less thrilled about being isolated in the woods with no cell service. Their respite has barely begun, however, when the house’s owners, wealthy Black couple George and Ruth, appear at the door in the middle of the night. There’s been an epic blackout in New York City. Something seems very wrong, and the older couple thought they should get out.

At first, Amanda is annoyed that their vacation has been interrupted. How bad could a blackout really be? And couldn’t this rich couple just go stay in a hotel? But then eerie occurrences begin to happen where they are, too. It’s clear something terrible is happening.

Alam’s brilliance is less in what he reveals and more in what he doesn’t. Fear of the unknown ratchets up the reader’s anxiety, and yet Leave the World Behind unfolds slowly for a thriller. The internet and TV are down, and cell phones won’t work, so information about the crisis is scarce. “I can’t do anything without my phone,” Clay laments. “I’m a useless man.” Trying to reassure the children and each other, the two couples hit the expected notes for grown-ups in a crisis: We’ll be fine. The government will have everything under control. We’re safe here. None of this turns out to be true.

Leave the World Behind is certainly timely in the era of COVID-19, but it’s also relevant for anyone who has questioned our society’s dependence on technology or our unwavering faith in the social contract. The characters second-guess their beliefs about safety and security. Readers who are safe at home—maybe?—can’t help but do the same.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Rumaan Alam reveals the personal fears at the heart of his terrifying new novel.

Few novelists make an impression as quickly and effectively as Micah Nemerever does in his stirring debut, an explosively erotic and erudite thriller. Kicking off with an electrifying prologue, These Violent Delights is infused with a thick sense of dread and urgency that does not let up until the final page. 

The novel centers on two social outcasts, Paul and Julian, who first connect in their freshman ethics class in 1970s Pittsburgh. Painfully shy and awkward, Paul gravitates toward Julian’s effortless charisma and good looks like a moth to a flame. Much to the consternation of their families, the boys’ friendship soon morphs into something far more intimate and dangerously co-dependent, as each amplifies the other’s worst ideologies, insecurities and impulses. As their relationship becomes increasingly destructive, Paul begins to search for an act of fealty that will irrevocably bond him to Julian, but neither is prepared for the devastation their act of devotion will yield.

Channeling masters of suspense like Patricia Highsmith and Alfred Hitchcock, Nemerever ratchets up the narrative tension at a deliberately agonizing pace as he unspools the story of Paul and Julian’s ill-fated relationship, all leading up to the night teased in the novel’s opening pages. The two young men frequently engage in deeply cerebral conversations ranging from philosophy and psychology to entomology, and the narrative lends itself well to close reading, as often the most critical developments between the two men stem from the subtext of these weighty talks. 

Though the escalating relationship between Paul and Julian is mesmerizing in its own right, Nemerever’s novel so effectively evokes a state of unease that many readers will keep turning pages in desperate pursuit of the tension-breaking relief that can only come from seeing the story to its conclusion. Aptly titled, These Violent Delights is exhilarating, but not without pain and peril.

Anyone who has lived in Southern California for more than six months will already have heard—or will soon hear—a dad joke about its seasons: fire, flood, earthquake and that other one. Sometimes it’s drought, sometimes mudslide, but it’s never something cheery like spring. In some ways, this is the ironic underbelly of the Hollywood-starlet face that Los Angeles presents to the world. While the myth of Los Angeles stretches from the surfer-magnet shores of Malibu to the Hollywood sign and the last tie-dyed hippie enclave of Laurel Canyon, it is also a city that bears a scar: Western Avenue, which runs LA’s length until it crashes into Los Feliz Boulevard. This is where Ivy Pochoda, author of 2017’s mesmerizing Wonder Valley, set her latest stem-winder of a thriller, These Women.

If you drive along that avenue in West Adams, you might not suspect that, nestled among the likes of Antique Stove Heaven and the Barack Obama Global Preparation Academy, there’s a whole other economy devoted to every manner of vice that can be exploited for a buck, from chop shops to no-tell motels and bars that double as drug emporiums. It is in this milieu that “these women”—a restaurateur, a vice cop, a young “dancer,” an aspiring performance artist and her mother—all ply their trades. Suddenly, a string of murders intertwines these women’s lives in unexpected ways. Is it possible that this latest spree is related to a similar one that stopped mysteriously a decade and a half earlier?

Pochoda buttresses her narrative with a distinct and empowered group of women, and it is refreshing to see women in a thriller all acting with agency. Even the dancer is cognizant of her choices and acts only through the compulsion of her history, not controlled by some man. Not since Kem Nunn’s Tapping the Source (or perhaps Pochoda’s own Wonder Valley) has a mystery author so successfully and unflinchingly delved beneath the surface of a Southern California subculture to render a portrait that readers will find arresting—no matter the season.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Ivy Pochoda discusses the serial killer novel—and why she let the women do the talking.

Elizabeth Kay’s debut, Seven Lies, examines just how far a woman would go to maintain her oldest and closest friendship. June tells her story in seven parts, one part for each of the seven lies she tells her best friend, Marnie. It starts small, with the reassurance that, yes, of course Jane likes Marnie’s boyfriend, Charles. But after Charles and Marnie marry, the lies quickly grow out of control, leading to Charles’ death and throwing Jane’s own relationship with Marnie into jeopardy. The only way Jane sees to save herself is with still more lies, each one drawing her closer to losing not only her friend, but also her secret.

Seven Lies is a heart-pounding portrait of a sociopath committed to maintaining control of a friendship. What makes the novel remarkable is not that Jane is a sociopath—it’s how badly you want to like her anyway. Jane has gone through trauma and has lost people, and she is trying to hold on to the one thing in her life that has always been steady. As a reader, you begin to excuse some of the small lies, some of the little inconsistencies. It isn’t too big of a stretch to then start buying into the bigger lies, the bigger indiscretions. Kay uses the gentle cadence of her main character’s voice to pull readers down the slippery slope of rooting for the bad guy.

Full of uneasy suspense, Seven Lies may leave you wishing that just this once, the villain could get away with it. Be ready to wince, shudder and—above all else—exist for several hours at the edge of whatever seat you happen to be occupying.

Renowned photographer Miranda Brand was just 37 when she died by suicide in 1993, leaving behind her husband, Jake, a painter, and her 11-year-old son, Theo. The news stunned the art world—after years of struggle, eccentric and daring Miranda seemed to be once again hitting her stride—and the small beach town of Callinas, California, in which the family lived.

In 2017, erstwhile copyeditor Kate Aitken has been hired by Theo to archive his mother’s personal effects, a job that piques Kate’s journalistic curiosity and offers the potential for healing after sexual harassment drove her to flee her job in New York City. But in Sara Sligar’s engrossing and powerful debut novel, Take Me Apart, this exciting opportunity soon becomes something much darker.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Sara Sligar on the American cult of celebrity.

As Kate dives deep into the artifacts of Miranda’s life (including a lyrically written yet deeply disturbing diary), she becomes consumed by Miranda’s pain and neglects her own. It doesn’t help that Aunt Louise, who’s hosting Kate’s stay, is an accomplished manipulator, adept at pecking away at her niece in search of juicy details. As Kate fends off the town gossips, she struggles to keep her own counsel. Despite a nondisclosure agreement, she’s begun snooping around the house and Callinas in search of answers about Miranda’s death. Was it actually suicide, or is someone—Theo, the police, former friends, a smart but sleazy gallerist—keeping deadly secrets?

The novel is written in alternating timelines and perspectives, with well-researched nods to the 1970s-1980s Manhattan art scene and keenly felt deep dives into Miranda’s unraveling mental state as she contends with her husband’s increasing jealousy and resentment. As the past unfolds via Miranda’s flotsam-and-jetsam memories and Kate’s increasingly feverish investigation, Sligar prompts readers to muse on the ways in which artists often suffer greatly for their creations, especially if they are women. She also, with great empathy, explores the potentially devastating effects of untreated mental illness and the downsides of ambition, success and fame.

Take Me Apart is rife with fascinating dichotomies—gossip is corrosive but sometimes useful; trauma is torturous but may inspire powerful art; success is desirable but exhausting to maintain—and offers a fresh look at the legacies we leave behind, in all their painful and powerful humanity.

The Poison Flood is a bizarre and fascinating read that proves that anything is possible in the capable hands of author Jordan Farmer. The novel is immediately engrossing, its characters uniquely memorable, its prose both heartfelt and stunning.

As the hunchbacked son of an abusive West Virginia preacher, Hollis Bragg is a smart, deeply talented musician, albeit lonely and self-conscious about his condition. He used to jam with popular musical group the Troubadoors and penned some of their songs for band member/girlfriend Angela Carver, but now he’s more than content to hide out at his isolated farmhouse away from curious neighbors, even as he silently yearns for their acceptance.

Into the mix comes obsessed fan Russell Watson, a member of a punk-rock group and the son of a wealthy local chemical manufacturer, as well as Rosita Martinez, a journalist looking to make a name for herself. Both coax Hollis into coming out of his shell and attending a concert in town, even as they maneuver to get closer to a stash of songs in Hollis’ private collection.

When a chemical disaster happens on the outskirts of town and poisons the local water supply, Russell goes into a rage against his father. Rosita, who photographs the violent ordeal, manages to escape with Hollis to his home, with Russell hot on their heels.

The novel takes a number of unexpected and thrilling turns as Hollis struggles with haunted memories of his past life with his father and his relationships with girlfriends past and present. The mix of situations and characters is admittedly odd, but Farmer more than manages to keep things grounded through Hollis’ close viewpoint.

The result is a story rich in compassion and empathy as Hollis tries to find his place in a world that would just as soon shun him and silence his dreams altogether.

Stephanie Wrobel’s compulsively readable debut, Darling Rose Gold, explores Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSP), a psychological disorder in which a child’s caregiver, often the mother, seeks to gain attention from the medical community for made-up symptoms of the child in her care.

Earlier novels about this rare phenomenon focus on the modes of abuse the mother employs to gain attention, like starvation or putting ipecac in her child’s food to induce vomiting. Wrobel instead begins her eerie tale when Patty Watts is about to be released from prison after serving five years for aggravated child abuse. The reader learns the details of what Patty did to her daughter, Rose Gold, only in flashback chapters: “By the time I was ten,” Rose Gold remembers, “I’d had ear and feeding tubes, tooth decay, and a shaved head. I needed a wheelchair. . . . I’d had cancer scares, brain damage scares, tuberculosis scares.” Despite finally realizing that her own mother was the cause of all her suffering, Rose Gold still has ambivalent feelings about her mother’s sentencing and imprisonment: “Some days I was thrilled. Some days I felt like a vital organ was missing.”

The rippling effects of Rose Gold’s horrific childhood build up over the five years she’s on her own, until she’s 23 and the need for revenge begins to take hold. After Patty is released, their small town’s inhabitants are amazed to hear that Rose Gold has taken her mother into her own home—and even lets her care for her newborn son.

Wrobel explores this bizarre mother-daughter relationship in chapters that alternate between each woman’s point of view, both past and present. Each woman displays Jekyll and Hyde-style personalities, and the reader is kept guessing about which one will emerge the stronger. 

This creepy psychological thriller is sure to be enjoyed by those who devoured Gone Girl, Girl on the Train and domestic thrillers from authors like Megan Abbott and JP Delaney.