9 Unputdownable Books that Will Grip You Till the Last Page

Readers from the Buffy generation will love this fast-paced, high-stakes vampire mystery. Set in a world where vampires are a protected community — and a frequently-attacked marginalised group — a detective has to travel to a remote town in Alaska to investigate a murder that may have been committed by a vampire and which threatens to cause the whole place to explode into violence. The Gathering is compelling, shocking, and keeps the reader guessing with every chapter.

Reid’s second book is as unputdownable as her debut, Such A Fun Age. In Come and Get It, Reid takes an uncompromising look at people’s relationships with money, through the relationship between researcher Agatha Paul and resident assistant Millie Cousins. Come and Get It is tense and often uncomfortable, pulling readers in with a sense of horrified fascination as they see the boundaries that people will push to make money in the current economic climate.

Another searing takedown of late-stage capitalism, Your Driver is Waiting follows Damani, a young woman who works for a ride-sharing service. Damani is on the peripheries of a revolution that she can’t get involved in, much as she might want to, because she simply doesn’t have time — she has to keep working to support herself and her bereaved mother. When events in the city reach boiling point, Damani is pulled into the struggle.

Koomson’s most recent thriller takes on social media oversharing and the dangers of the manosphere. One night, therapist Kez finds a baby abandoned in the back seat of her car. While she believes the child is the son of her unofficial adopted daughter Brandee, she doesn’t know why he’s been left there or where Brandee has vanished to. As Kez digs deeper into the mystery, readers are pulled into a terrifying world, not knowing whether Kez will be able to save her loved ones, or even herself.

Murder mysteries often make for unputdownable reads, and Over My Dead Body has the added twist of the main character having to solve her own murder. In this darkly comic detective story, Dr. Miriam Price has to work out who has killed her before she can move on to the afterlife, with only her cantankerous elderly neighbour to help her. The central mystery and the fantastic world-building of the afterlife make Over My Dead Body a story that hooks you in and keeps you there until it’s done.

In this complex debut, Ola and Michael, a soon-to-be-married couple, have their lives blown apart when Michael’s name is added to a list of sexual harassers and other abusers that is published on the internet. Michael insists that he hasn’t done what he’s been accused of, and Ola is torn between believing the man she loves and sticking to her principles of believing survivors when they talk about abusive men. As the question of who puts Michael’s name on The List deepens, the reader is pulled into a world of doubt, mystery, and the question of who to believe.