“You frighten me,” my husband told me a couple of months ago, after looking over my shoulder to Karin Slaughter Blindsighted. He was (obviously) freaked out about how calm I was reading a suspense novel, describing the details of the woman who was sexually assaulted and mutilated. But here’s the thing: I was more concerned with how well I could relate to the victim’s sister, seeking justice on their own terms in this page-turner.
You see, it is not the violence against the woman that gives me nightmares — is the fact that she was attacked while in the bathroom of a public place by someone very dear in the little village of the community. It’s that kind of realistic plot that the females of the authors know will shake women to the core. It is just one of the many reasons why women suspense writers are just better!
Long before the quarantine began, I binge-read books like other people watch TELEVISION. (Bachelor of villains have nothing by Lisa Gardner bad, especially in Touch & Go, where three men kidnap a whole family to torture in a high-tech abandoned prison.) What can I say? I am addicted to a good novel, a sucker for the romantic side-plots, and obsessed with the surprise twists. The main character has a split personality? The cop investigating the crime actually did it? The count. Me. In.
According to Slaughter (name coolest of the story), she is not interested in perfect characters “because, in reality, does not exist.” So, she prefers to write about people’s flaws to define who they are. When you read about talent dr. Sara Linton, for example, that are also inside of your head and on your fears, flaws, and desires. And this pattern is transferred to the villains as well. They are so scary because they are so real.
“The easiest way to get into the mind of a bad boy is to think that the first time that is projected on a school trip to a museum, or the time someone grabbed my breast on the subway, or the moment a hand brushed against my ass in a lift — the right mindset that motivates the Boy is in the same range as the guy who thinks he has a right to rape, torture, murder, and the killing of women,”Slaughter told me during an email interview. As someone who has also experienced similar sexual harassment in everyday life, their stories seem so familiar . . . and I’m cheering for That Guy to get caught.
During my reading, I began to notice something: it is much easier for me to get lost in a story if it was written by a woman. The sacrifice, Gardner, Megan Miranda, Mary Kubica — the list goes on and on. In the suspense world, women writers are everywhere, and each one is incredibly talented in their own right. So, why are more male thriller writers are household names? Opinion unpopular alert: James Patterson, Stephen King, and Dean Koontz are just a little overrated, if you ask me.
For example, I love Patterson women’s Murder Club series. But when Detective Lindsay Boxer went back to work A WEEK after delivery in 12 of Never, I had to stop reading it. I could barely take a shower, a week after having my firstborn, much less track down a killer. Although the series is co-written by a woman, Maxine Paetro, I still get lost in the way the four main characters talk, think and act when it comes to his wife, friends, sex life and relationships with their children. If the fundamental characters are not credible, I do not care nothing more.
“The women writers that I have read seem to understand that the real horrors lie in the concern of the minds of women, who do not know if that neighbor who was walking their dog is a threat or not.
Koontz, on the other hand, writes books that are so unbelievably strange that I have a hard time getting scared (for reference, I cry when I hear a knock on the door, so that’s saying something). Take The Bad Place, a story about a murderer of the family that can teleport. If far-fetched, science-fiction is your thing, sorry. But if you are looking for a suspenseful page-turner, it is not only him. The women writers that I have read seem to understand that the real horrors lie in the concern of the minds of women, who do not know if that neighbor who was walking their dog is a threat or not, in front of the mysterious clown who hunt to kill five dates that his grandfather foretold on his death-bed (yes, this is a true Koontz novel, The Life Expectancy).
Don’t even get me started on the Stephen King It is. At 1,138 pages, you will fall asleep before you ever get to nothing to fear.
Ready to support some authors, and get the best scare of your life at the same time? Take a look New York Times-the writer Kubica The Other Lady, a book about Sadie Foust, who recently moved to the small town of Maine with her husband when his neighbor is found dead, and Foust is suspected that the tragic crime. Reading this book makes you doubt each character, including the narrator, until you’re not sure if you’re actually going crazy or if the world is really fucked up (maybe it’s both?). This is for anyone who has ever doubted themselves — especially in the hands of the manipulator partners.
Another to add to the reading list The Girl of the Widow Hills on the other New York Times-writer and ex Reese Witherspoon’s book club pick writer, Miranda. The novel is about Arden, a girl who disappeared during a sleepwalking incident and found days later clinging to a system of storm sewers. After her mother wrote a popular book on the incident, Arden disappeared from public view and changed his name to avoid public scrutiny. Now she goes by Olivia, where she has been avoiding the bullies and the media with success over the years. Unfortunately, the 20th anniversary of the infamous incident is approaching, causing your sleepwalking to start a new one. One day, he wakes up in his backyard, and discovers the corpse of a man that she knew of his previous life. If you can relate with your past coming back to haunt you, then this book is for you.
If you want to be chilled to the bone, pick up the Sacrifice of the last, The Silent Wife, coming out of August. 4. When a woman is brutally attack in the today of Atlanta, a prisoner in the state penitentiary recognizes the MO — it was the same says the former chief of police Jeffrey Tolliver and his team falsely accused him of use in a string of killings nearly a decade before. Now GBI investigator will Trent looks to the past with the medical examiner (and Trent’s wedding!) Sara Linton to resolve this present the day of the crime and determine whether the prisoner is telling the truth about the past — that could tarnish the good name of Linton deceased husband, Tolliver. It’s complicated, it’s complicated, it’s of the graph, and it is absolutely fascinating.
Maybe you’ve just discovered the reading thanks to the social distance, or perhaps it has been a self-proclaimed lover of books all his life; either way, now is the perfect time to stock up on some of the new novels. You can also choose some written by some incredibly talented women, while you’re at it!
