You're in the right place for suspense fiction reading recs, writerly discussions, and more!

Sharing some of our favorite finds and epiphanies...

We got a nice little subscriber bump thanks to Elizabeth’s WHAT TO READ IF newsletter. Thank you, Elizabeth! Her multi-genre newsletter is the best.

To welcome new readers but also to help our regulars find the brilliant pieces (ahem) they might have missed, we have decided to start an occasional new tradition of recapping and updating some faves.

READERS: LOOKING FOR WEIRD, TENSE, EYE-OPENING SUSPENSE? This summer reading special remains our most popular piece, but now we can update it. After all that summer and fall reading, what still stands out?

Andromeda: Caitlin, You talked me into Whalefall by Daniel Kraus. It is THE book I never thought I’d read, even with that extremely surprising blurb by Gillian Flynn! A man swallowed by a whale? Really? I’ve got marine science in my background and I did not expect to be convinced. This is the most fast-paced, unexpected book I’ve read (actually, listened to via audio) this year. It’s emotional, too. And sometimes yucky, in a good way of course. Love short chapters? Get teary reading father-son tales? Need a road trip audiobook to share with a teenager or spouse who doesn’t generally read suspense? This one might be for you.

Caitlin: In that same reading special, Shana Wilson put me onto Lisa Jewell’s None of This is True, wherein successful podcaster Alix starts a new project with a woman she meets at a bar, not knowing the podcast is going to turn into a true crime story involving them both. This was an especially fun audiobook. I thought the voice acting was great, and there were tons of snippets of the podcast and recorded police interviews throughout.

Andromeda: Funny that we both mentioned audiobook editions. Readers, are we the only ones relying on audio to fit more suspense novels into our lives? Comment below if you have an audio suspense rec. Please!

Caitlin: Speaking of new recs, a recent fall read I’d recommend for “spooky season” is Kate Alice Marshall’s What Lies in the Woods, about three girls who sent away a serial killer the same summer they were running wild in the woods together, playing “the Goddess Game” and trying to conjure magic.

OTHER BOOKS (AND INTERVIEWS) YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

• A paranormal suspense novel with a chilling forensics angle, set in New Mexico’s Navajo Nation, autobiographically inspired by author Ramona Emerson’s experience as a crime scene photographer. National Book Award longlist!

• A prize winner we can’t stop thinking about, with convincing characterization at its heart and a different take on the serial killer trope, decentering the killer and focusing instead on the women he has affected most (this post has audio voiceover, ooh la-la!)

• A domestic suspense debut novel (we love debuts!) that hinges on family origin and the secrets our mothers kept

Now in paperback. Gorgeous cover, by the way!

WRITERS OF SUSPENSE: LOOKING TO LEARN FROM THE PROS?

This whole career business. It’s tough! Suspense authors, even the award-winning ones,

• sometimes don’t know what genre they writing in,

• get ideas turned down (even their favorite ones),

• resist the restrictions of genre and are often more

• interested in the big dramatic questions than bookstore categories.

They generally stumble their way toward success—at least the authors we know and like! (Our standards for the imaginary suspense sisterhood we are building here: You should be candid, sometimes funny, frequently confused, but always dedicated to telling a damn good story however those beautiful publishing folks decide to market it.)

One technique at a time. Our writers have helped us think beyond the basics about:

• how and why red herrings should be used,

• whether you can develop characters or only discover them,

• and the importance of setting—this post by Caitlin about Tana French’s The Witch Elm basically blew my mind and now I am thinking anew about choosing my settings very carefully.

• Sometimes, you gotta spoil a book, as Caitlin did here in explaining how I Let You Go by Claire Mackintosh uses POV to create a stunning plot twist.

• And sometimes, the most important thing we need as writers isn’t freedom, it’s constraints. This post by Jamey Bradbury looks at how limitations spark creativity. Also in it: cool stuff you may not know about the making of Jaws.

Learning from the greats. Here at PT we also bow down to the writers who came before us. Andromeda has a bit of a history obsession, so she dedicated a series of posts to Agatha Christie and discovered that the Queen of Crime is so much more frigging interesting and less fusty than you would ever guess! (Hint one: she was one of the first British women to surf!)

Agatha (and Andromeda) would love us to know that:

• Very few of us are what we seem;

• solitude and time matter;

• one should remain open to challenges;

• adversity and dire financial need can lead to success;

• and you don’t necessarily have to be organized to be productive!

Also, in the history category, we are reading The Life of Crime, a massive new tome about the history of the genre, and we are distilling some of its coolest findings here, once per month. So far, we’ve barely dipped our toes into its pages. Be warned: your TBR will explode. It’s not too late to join in the fun by reading along and commenting on the monthly posts!

By now, we have possibly lost some of you to all those links or kept the rest of you from getting back to your desk/bed/whatever. Back you go, now! Read! Write! Get to work! Or sleep!

To our lovely community of commenters. Don’t forget to tell us what books you are recommending for spooky season, what you’d like to learn about the craft of writing suspense fiction, or anything else that comes to mind.

If you’d like to join the party as a contributing writer, our specs are here.

Thanks for joining us!