“It was so easy to pretend that everything was normal. We’ve always been great pretenders here.”
On a Quiet Street is a 2022 mystery thriller novel by Seraphina Nova Glass. An Edgar Award nominee, the book whisks readers to the neighbourhood of Brighton Hills, an affluent community on the Oregon coast offering the perfect blend of luxury and natural beauty. The sort of place where everyone looks out for, and into, one another. Cora suspects that her husband, Finn, is cheating on her. She hires Paige, a woman still grieving over the loss of her son the year prior, to help her reveal the sort of man her husband truly is. Meanwhile, Cora’s newest neighbour, a young mother named Georgia, is acting stranger than ever. But, what are all these neighbours truly hiding behind the curtains? If you’re looking for more gripping stories of domestic dramas and secrets in suburban neighbourhoods, join us at What We Reading for the best books like On a Quiet Street!
Look Closer – David Ellis
Kicking off our list of books like On a Quiet Street is David Ellis’ gripping 2022 mystery thriller, Look Closer. Simon and Vicky are a wealthy, albeit uninspiring, wealthy Chicago couple with a solid marriage. Yet, nothing between the two of them is quite as it seems. When a beautiful socialite is found hanging in a mansion in a nearby neighbourhood, the couple’s complex web of secrets slowly begins to unravel.
From an intense whirlwind affair, a twenty-million-dollar trust fund about to come due to a decades-old grudge and an obsession with revenge, both Simon and Vicky are liars. But, which of them is truly conning the other?
Behind Closed Doors – B.A. Paris
From the outside, Jack and Grace look like the perfect couple. He is the dedicated attorney who has never lost a case, she is the effortlessly flawless homemaker who dotes on her disabled younger sister. They’re the sort of couple who you can’t help but love. But, stopping to process things for a moment, you would also realise that Jack and Grace are truly inseparable.
Whilst some might consider this cutesy, some might begin to wonder why Grace never answers her phone. Or why she is never able to catch up with her loved ones over a coffee, why she never leaves the house with any belongings, or why there are metal shutters on all the downstairs windows. Similar to On a Quiet Street, B.A. Paris’ Behind Closed Doors is a tense domestic drama about a seemingly perfect marriage that hides plenty of sinister secrets.
All The Dark Places – Terri Parlato
Another one of the best thriller books from 2022 like On a Quiet Street, Terri Parlato’s All the Dark Places opens with half a dozen close friends celebrating Jay Bradley’s birthday in his cosy home. The next morning, Jay’s wife, Molly, wakes up to find her husband brutally murdered in his office. Detective Rita Myers is tasked with investigating the crime and soon deduces that the killer resides much closer to the couple and their perfect life together.
As Rita works to unmask a murderer, Molly struggles to make sense of her husband’s death. Nevertheless, a series of shocking revelations soon begin to make her question whether Jay was everything he had seemed to her. As she bounces between who she can truly trust, she inadvertently finds herself in the crosshairs as the killer’s next victim.
Check Out Our All The Dark Places Book Review
Watching You – Lisa Jewell
Melville Heights is one of the most pleasant neighbourhoods in Bristol, England. As the headmaster credited for turning around the fortunes of the local school, Tom Fitzwilliam is a much-loved, much-respected member of the community. This is especially true for Joey Mullen, his new neighbour who is infatuated by the charming, albeit unavailable man. But, Tom’s teenage son, Freddie, a budding MI5 spy, begins watching Joey as she begins to act strangely around his father.
Meanwhile, one of Tom’s students, Jenna Tripp, also lives on the same street and is convinced that the headmaster isn’t all he appears to be. Like in On a Quiet Street, allegations of obsessive behaviour and stalking threaten to consume the community in Lisa Jewell’s suburban thriller, Watching You.
The Last Mrs. Parrish (Mrs. Parrish #1) – Liv Constantine
Amber Patterson is fed up. Tired of being a plain, invisible nobody that no one takes seriously, she is desperate for the sort of life of power and prestige enjoyed by the likes of Daphne Parrish. To everyone in the community of Bishops Harbor, Connecticut, Daphne and her property mogul husband, Jackson, are a couple ripped straight from the magazines.
But, Amber has a plan. Exploiting Daphne’s compassion and caring nature, she infiltrates the family household. Before long, she’s Daphne’s best friend and closest confidant, travelling to Europe with her and growing closer to Jackson the entire time. Yet, a skeleton from her past soon threatens to upend all of her hard work. If discovered, all of her meticulously planned may fall to pieces. Similar to On a Quiet Street, Liv Constantine’s The Last Mrs. Parrish is an addictive domestic thriller brimming with shocking turns and dark secrets.
The Other Mrs. – Mary Kubica
Sadie and Will have only just moved their family from the bustling surroundings of Chicago to small-town Maine when their new neighbour, Morgan Baines, is found dead in her home. The killing rocks the small coastal island, and Sadie becomes terrified by the thought a murderer could be lurking in her back garden.
But, it’s more than just Morgan’s death that has Sadie spooked. The couple’s home comes with a decrepit decor and a creepy attic, Will’s disturbed niece, Imogen, has a dark and threatening presence and a troubling past from the past continues to lurk in the shadows. As suspicions narrow around the new family in town, Sadie is pulled deeper into the mysteries of Morgan’s death. Similar to On a Quiet Street, she soon realises just how much she stands to lose if the truth ever comes to light.
The Lying Game – Ruth Ware
Another one of the best books like On a Quiet Street for readers looking for another author similar to Seraphina Nova Glass comes from Ruth Ware in The Lying Game. The story revolves around four friends – Fatima, Thea, Isabel and Kate. The girls had been best friends at Salten, a boarding school perched on the cliffs overlooking the English Channel. The clique were inseparable and notorious for their Lying Game, which included telling as many lies as possible to their fellow students and faculty alike.
The severity of their lies would vary but would have serious consequences on all four of their lives when they were expelled during their final year after the sudden and mysterious death of their eccentric art teacher, Ambrose.
The Paris Apartment – Lucy Foley
After losing her job in less-than-ideal circumstances, Jess is in need of a fresh start. Unsure where else to turn, she rings her half-brother, Ben, and asks if she can stay with him in his luxurious apartment nestled in the heart of Paris. Whilst he doesn’t sound thrilled about the idea, he reluctantly agrees. Only, when she arrives in the French capital, Jess is surprised to find that Ben has disappeared.
Living within the walls of this glamorous apartment complex, Ben’s neighbours are a strange and unfriendly collection. The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess begins to dig into her brother’s situation, and the cast of characters around him. Like On a Quiet Street, Lucy Foley’s The Paris Apartment is a deliciously twisty domestic mystery where every neighbour is a suspect, and every one of them has something to hide.
Check Out The Best Books Like The Paris Apartment
Such A Quiet Place – Megan Miranda
Hollow’s Edge used to be a quaint, quiet place. The sort of neighbourhood where neighbours dropped in on one another, celebrated graduations and holidays together and looked out for each other. But, following the murders of Brandon and Fiona Truett, the tension across Hollow’s Edge is starting to boil. All of the residents are haunted by the memories of the killings, as well as the trial testimonies that condemned one of their own, Ruby Fletcher. And now, Ruby’s back in town.
With her conviction overturned, Ruby waltzes back into the home she shared with Harper Nash, a man five years her elder. Within days, suspicions spread across the neighbourhood. It soon becomes apparent that not everyone had been telling the truth about the Truetts, or the night they were killed. When Harper begins receiving threatening notes, Ruby realises that she has to uncover the truth before someone else finds themselves as the killer’s next victim.
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
