80 books like Blood and Salt

This book is an awesome locked-room thriller about six teens who are invited to a dinner and find themselves trapped in a room with a bomb, a syringe filled with poison, and a note with instructions that they have to decide who among them to kill within the next hour or they’ll all be murdered.

There’s something about close-proximity thrillers that gets me every single time. As a person who is definitely not a big fan of enclosed spaces in real life, these types of books have me breathless.

The coolly creepy cover of Survive the Night compelled me to pick it up, but I was hooked by the set up: four teen girls at an all-night rave in an abandoned section of New York City’s underground subway system where someone or something is hunting them. It hits all my worst fears: being trapped underground, total darkness, and tunnels filling up with water. Casey, the main character was fresh from rehab, vulnerable, and unsure of where she fits in and her unease with herself and her friends added such a delicious tension to the story. She goes to the rave out of peer pressure but quickly realizes this is a big mistake. This book is an off-the-rails ride with unexpected twists and the sort of scares that made me keep the lights on while I read.  

I read a lot of Agatha Christie growing up and Ten by Gretchen McNeil is a modern And Then There Were None with a cast full of snarky teens with secrets stranded on an island with a killer who just might be one of them. I love a good mystery and this one had me at hello. Gretchen knows how to write a good twist and delivers such clever one-liners that I bet she would make an excellent script writer. This is the sort of book that plays in my head like a movie. I read it all in one go and stayed up way too late, but I regret nothing.

I have been a fan of Marieke Nijkamp ever since I read This Is Where It Ends. She is such a powerful writer. The way she delves into the psychology of her characters had me riveted. Even if We Break is a layered story with a slower pace than the other books I’ve chosen, but the characters feel so real. I found myself thinking about them long after I closed the book. The creepy factor snuck up on me and then sunk its claws in deep. I was unsettled in the best way. It's a step off the beaten path of your standard isolation thrillers, but one I highly recommend taking if why people do the bad things they do is as important to you as how. 

Greta Helsing’s family dropped the ‘Van’ half a century ago. And they don’t hunt vampires so much as heal them. That’s right, Greta is a supernatural doctor. Vivian Shaw has created a world where the good guys are genuinely good, unselfish people. I love me an antihero, but it’s a refreshing change of pace when the good guys really just want to help other people without ulterior motives. Despite the fact that most of the characters aren’t human, it restores my faith in humanity. I also appreciate the historical references and subtle geekery in these books. For example, Greta is a specialist in mummy reconstruction, and the detail Shaw goes into, just tickles me.

Amanda is a language whiz, and does an amazing job showing how cultism is a spectrum; that we are all victims of undue influence.

She talks about the language that communities and organizations use as the key to gaining undue influence over people, and that this influence pervades everything from startups to skincare to workout programs.

It’s well researched and fascinating to read, and will make you question your strong affiliations to the most basic things. 

Once again I became interested in a book thanks to a documentary!

When I watched the documentary about Sarah Lawrence College, I wanted to know more. Daniel Barban Levin’s story really demonstrates how a fragile young mind can be influenced by someone with sinister intentions.

He vividly describes his time spent with a manipulative cult leader (Larry Ray), and his narrative disturbingly shows us just how easily something like this could've happened to us. Very sadly relatable, for people who lose their voice when they fall victim to gaslighting or abusive friends, mentors, or partners. 

I came to this one after watching and loving the television version and found the book even more fulfilling (although very different). It focuses on what happens when millions of people suddenly disappear from the world’s population and it looks not only at how people deal with this massive loss but also how they deal with the mystery of it, the not knowing why. People don’t only lose loved ones in this book but also their own sense of how the world should work, leaving them with a lot to deal with. I loved the characters, the tight focus on one community (and mostly one family within that community), and I loved how Perrotta made such a wild possibility seem entirely plausible.

This novel is a masterclass in unreliable narration. It follows Will, a young man estranged from his family and religion, as he attends college and falls in love with Phoebe.

As Will takes over and narrates his recollections of their relationship, Phoebe’s friendship with a man named John Leal, and her inculcation into a religious cult, he becomes increasingly untrustworthy. Will rails against John Leal, his lies, and the damage he has done to Phoebe, revealing his complicity in toxic masculinity and his own harmful actions.

Kwon renders her characters as entirely believable, frightening people, in lyrical and considered prose.

It was a brilliant decision on Natalie's part to create a graphic novel that lays out the many facets and layers that make up the dynamics of cults. It has been a pleasure for me to get to know Natalie. A former member of the Jehovah's Witnesses, she is now a dynamic and independent individual. This graphic novel explores a wide variety of aspects of the tactics used by Jehovah's Witnesses, including shunning, the reasons why cult family members will disavow non-cult family members, and a great deal more. This seemed to me to be an excellent option for storytelling geared for minds that have a tendency to gravitate toward visuals.