“People bury the parts of history they don’t like, pave it over like African cemeteries beneath Manhattan skyscrapers.”
When No One Is Watching is an instant New York Times bestselling mystery thriller novel by Alyssa Cole. Sydney Green is Brooklyn-born and bred, but her beloved neighbourhood appears to be changing every time she blinds. FOR SALE signs are sprouting up everywhere and the neighbours she has known all her life are fading fast. To cling to the past and present of her community, she begins a walking tour where she encounters her neighbour, Theo. But, Sydney and Theo’s guide through history soon becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and terror. It turns out their neighbours may have not moved out to the suburbs after all and that this attempt to ‘revitalise’ the community may be more deadly than first advertised. If you loved the themes explored in Alyssa Cole’s suspenseful thriller, join us at What We Reading for the best books like When No One Is Watching!
Your House Will Pay – Steph Cha
Kicking off our list of books like When No One Is Watching is Steph Cha’s Your House Will Pay, another powerful novel about racial tensions. In the wake of a police shooting of a black teenager, Los Angeles is on edge. Grace Park lives a sheltered existence. Still at home with her Korean parents and working at the family pharmacy, she tries her best to understand why her sister and mother no longer speak. Feeling that their family fracture is growing wider every day, she is desperate for reconciliation, and frustrated by the feeling the truth is being hidden from her.
Shawn Matthews is dealing with a torn family of his own. His sister, Ava, had been murdered years prior, but the recent shootings continue to stir up painful memories. What’s more, his cousin, Ray, has just been released from prison and needs to reconnect. When another shocking crime hits LA, the Parks and Matthews will find their worlds colliding in ways they could have never imagined.
She’s Not Sorry – Mary Kubica
Meghan Michaels is doing her best to find the balance between working as a full-time nurse and being a single parent to a teenage daughter. While on duty at the hospital one day, a patient named Caitlin arrives in a coma with a traumatic brain injury. She had jumped from a bridge and landed on the train tracks over twenty feet below.
But, when a witness comes forward with alarming details about the fall, everything is called into question. Meghan always does her best to keep her emotions detached from her patients but, this time, she mistakenly gets too close. She soon finds herself dangerously entangled in Caitlin’s and her family’s lives. Similarly to Sydney in When No One Is Watching, it is only when it is too late that Meghan finally realises that she and her daughter are in danger of becoming the next victims.
These Toxic Things – Rachel Howzell Hall
Mickie Lambert creates ‘digital scrapbooks’ for clients, ensuring that valuable souvenirs are never lost or forgotten. When her latest client, Nadia Denham, a curio shop owner, dies from an apparent suicide, Mickie decides to honour the old woman’s last wish and begins curating the objects she left behind. In all, there are twelve mementoes that Nadia amassed during her flea market scavenges across the country.
But, Nadia’s tokens mean a lot to someone else too. Mickie begins to receive threatening messages, telling her to leave Nadia’s past alone. Nevertheless, Mickie is determined to crack the mystery, even if it leads her down a path of discovering a long-dormant serial killer and navigating the secrets of an especially sinister past.
Home Is Where The Bodies Are – Jeneva Rose
After their mother passes, three estranged siblings reunite to work out what’s to become of her estate. Beth, the eldest, never left home. Nicole, the middle child, has always been kept at arm’s length thanks to an ongoing battle with substance abuse. Michael, the youngest, has lived out of town ever since their father walked out on them seven years earlier.
While rummaging through their parents’ belongings, the siblings happen upon a collection of old home videos. However, their nostalgia trip is derailed when one of them reveals a night back in 1999 that none of them remember. What follows are the images of their father covered in blood, a dead body and a pact between the two parents to dispose of it. Now, Beth, Michael and Nicole must decide whether to leave the past in the past or, like Sydney in When No One Is Watching, dig deeper to unearth the dark secret their mother took to her grave.
Check Out The Best Jeneva Rose Books
The Teacher – Frieda McFadden
Eve has a good life. She wakes up each morning, kisses her husband Nate, and sets off to teach Maths at a local high school. All things are as they should be. Except, last year, Caseham High was rocked by a scandal involving a student-teacher affair. One student in particular, Addie, is at the centre of the scandal’s orbit.
But Eve knows there is far more to the scandal than what meets the eye. She knows Addie can’t be trusted. She lies, hurts people, destroys lives. At least, that’s what everyone says. But no one knows the real Addie or the secrets that could destroy her. And Addie will do anything to keep those secrets quiet. One of the best mystery thriller books from 2024, Frieda McFadden’s The Teacher is similar to When No One Is Watching with its feeling of things being unsettling, without ever knowing exactly why until the very end.
The Good House – Tananarive Due
Like When No One Is Watching, Tananarive Due’s The Good House is a supernatural thriller that explores themes of gentrification, history and race. Angela hoped her grandmother’s renowned ‘healing magic’ could save her marriage while she and her family stayed in the old house for the summer. Instead, an unexpected tragedy ripped her and her family’s lives apart.
Two years on, Angela is moving past her grief and is finally ready to revisit the rural house she had always loved. But, upon her arrival, she quickly discovers that she is just one of many victims of senseless tragedies. With the help of Myles Fisher, her old high school boyfriend, and clues left from beyond the grave, Angela races to solve a deadly puzzle that has followed her family for generations. She is forced to summon her own hidden gifts to overcome the timeless adversary stalking her in her own grandmother’s house and in the sprawling Washington woods beyond.
The Other Black Girl – Zakiya Dalila Harris
Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions she experiences day-to-day, she is thrilled when Harlem born and raised Hazel starts working in the cubicle next to her. However, just as their friendship appears to be at the point of blossoming, Hazel is elevated to the position of Office Darling, whilst Nella is left on the fringes again.
Then a note appears on Nella’s desk instructing her to leave Wager immediately. It’s hard to believe Hazel could be responsible for such threatening messages. But, as Nella begins to obsess over the sinister forces at work, she soon discovers there is far more at stake than just her professional career in Zakiya Dalila Harris’ bestselling mystery novel, The Other Black Girl.
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).
