All the Colors of the Dark was one of the biggest new titles of 2024. I fell in love with Chris Whitaker’s writing a few years ago when I read We Begin at the End. I am happy to see him receive the acclaim and attention his novels deserve. The only problem with a great novel is trying to the next book to read.
I have compiled a list of books with similar elements for anyone looking to read something similar to All the Colors of the Dark.
We Begin at the End
Chris Whitaker
Right. Wrong. Life is lived somewhere in between. We Begin at the End is an extraordinary novel about two kinds of families―the ones we are born into and the ones we create. At times devastating, with flashes of humor and hope throughout, it is ultimately an inspiring tale of how the human spirit prevails and how, in the end, love―in all its different guises―wins.
Review | Amazon | Bookshop.org
Mystic River
Dennis Lehane
This New York Times bestseller from Dennis Lehane is a gripping, unnerving psychological thriller about the effects of a savage killing on three former friends in a tightly knit, blue-collar Boston neighborhood. A tense and unnerving psychological thriller, Mystic River is also an epic novel of love and loyalty, faith and family, in which people irrevocably marked by the past find themselves on a collision course with the darkest truths of their own hidden selves.
When the Stars Go Dark
Paula McLain
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Wife comes a bold combination of true crime, psychology and a hint of the metaphysical. A detective hiding away from the world. A disappearance that reaches into her past. Weaving together actual cases of missing persons, trauma theory, and a hint of the metaphysical, this propulsive and deeply affecting novel tells a story of fate, necessary redemption, and what it takes, when the worst happens, to reclaim our lives—and our faith in one another.
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
Bryn Greenwood
A beautiful and provocative love story between two unlikely people and the hard-won relationship that elevates them above the Midwestern meth lab backdrop of their lives. Achingly raw and beautifully written, All the Ugly and Wonderful Things is both a hypnotic coming-of-age story and a heartbreaking tragedy that challenges all we know and believe about love.
The Current
Tim Johnston
In the dead of winter, outside a small Minnesota town, state troopers pull two young women and their car from the icy Black Root River. One is found downriver, drowned, while the other is found at the scene—half frozen but alive. What happened was no accident, and news of the crime awakens the community’s memories of another young woman who lost her life in the same river ten years earlier, and whose killer may still live among them. Brilliantly plotted and unrelentingly propulsive, The Current is a beautifully realized story about the fragility of life, the power of the past, and the need, always, to fight back.
The Last Child
John Hart
Thirteen year-old Johnny Merrimon had the perfect life: a warm home and loving parents; a twin sister, Alyssa, with whom he shared an irreplaceable bond. He knew nothing of loss, until the day Alyssa vanished from the side of a lonely street. Now, a year later, Johnny finds himself isolated and alone, failed by the people he’d been taught since birth to trust. Determined to find his sister, Johnny risks everything to explore the dark side of his hometown. It is a desperate, terrifying search, but Johnny is not as alone as he might think. The Last Child is an intricate, powerful story of loss, hope, and courage in the face of evil.
Blood Sisters
Vanessa Lillie
A visceral and compelling mystery about a Cherokee archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs who is summoned to rural Oklahoma to investigate the disappearance of two women . . . one of them her sister. To save her sister, she must expose a darkness in the town that no one wants to face—not even Syd.
This Tender Land
William Kent Krueger
The unforgettable story of four orphans who travel the Mississippi River on a life-changing odyssey during the Great Depression. This Tender Land is an enthralling, big-hearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.
Ordinary Grace
William Kent Krueger
From New York Times bestselling author William Kent Krueger, a brilliant new novel about a young man, a small town, and murder in the summer of 1961. Told from Frank’s perspective forty years after that fateful summer, Ordinary Grace is a brilliantly moving account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him. It is an unforgettable novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom and the enduring grace of God.
She Rides Shotgun
Jordan Harper
A propulsive, gritty novel about a girl marked for death who must fight and steal to stay alive, learning from the most frightening man she knows—her father. She Rides Shotgun is a gripping and emotionally wrenching novel that upends even our most long-held expectations about heroes, villains, and victims.
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line
Deepa Anappara
In a sprawling Indian city, a boy ventures into its most dangerous corners to find his missing classmate. . . .
Drawing on real incidents and a spate of disappearances in metropolitan India, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is extraordinarily moving, flawlessly imagined, and a triumph of suspense. It captures the fierce warmth, resilience, and bravery that can emerge in times of trouble and carries the reader headlong into a community that, once encountered, is impossible to forget.
Miracle Creek
Angie Kim
In a small town in Virginia, a group of people know each other because they’re part of a special treatment center, a hyperbaric chamber that may cure a range of conditions from infertility to autism. But then the chamber explodes, two people die, and it’s clear the explosion wasn’t an accident. A stunning debut about parents, children and the unwavering hope of a better life, even when all hope seems lost, Miracle Creek uncovers the worst prejudice and best intentions, tense rivalries and the challenges of parenting a child with special needs.
The Child Finder
Rene Denfeld
A haunting, richly atmospheric, and deeply suspenseful novel from the acclaimed author of The Enchanted about an investigator who must use her unique insights to find a missing little girl. The Child Finder is a breathtaking, exquisitely rendered literary page-turner about redemption, the line between reality and memories and dreams, and the human capacity to survive.
Bluebird, Bluebird
Attica Locke
When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules — a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger, knows all too well. When his allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders — a black lawyer from Chicago and a local white woman — have stirred up a hornet’s nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes — and save himself in the process — before Lark’s long-simmering racial fault lines erupt. A heartbreakingly resonant thriller about the explosive intersection of love, race, and justice from a writer and producer of the Emmy-winning Fox TV show Empire.
The Berry Pickers
Amanda Peters
A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a mystery that will haunt the survivors, unravel a family, and remain unsolved for nearly fifty years. An unforgettable exploration of grief, love, and kin, this show stopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.
Boy Swallows Universe
Trent Dalton
A thrilling novel of love, crime, magic, fate and a boy’s coming of age in 1980s Australia, named one of the best literary fiction titles of 2019 by Library Journal. Powerful and kinetic, Trent Dalton’s debut is sure to be one of the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novels you will experience.
Lost Man’s Lane
Scott Carson
A teenager explores the darkness hidden within his hometown in this spellbinding thriller. Lost Man’s Lane is a coming-of-age tale that proves why its author has been hailed as “a master” by Stephen King who consistently offers “eerie, gripping storytelling” (Dean Koontz).
Girl A
Abigail Dean
She thought she had escaped her past. But there are some things you can’t outrun. For readers of Room and Sharp Objects, an absorbing and psychologically immersive novel about a young girl who escapes captivity–but not the secrets that shadow the rest of her life.
Nothing More Dangerous
Allen Eskens
Missouri native Allen Eskens’ stunning small-town mystery is a necessary exploration of family, loyalty, and racial tension in America and a coming-of-age book to rival some of the best, such as Ordinary Grace.
Some Choose Darkness
Charlie Donlea
A modern master of suspense, critically acclaimed author Charlie Donlea delivers a taut, gripping novel about the deadly secrets hiding in plain sight. Forensic reconstructionist Rory Moore sheds light on cold-case homicides by piecing together crime scene details others fail to see. Cleaning out her late father’s law office after his burial, she receives a call that plunges her into a decades-old case.
Burn It All
Maggie Auffarth
This propulsive debut psychological thriller set in small-town Georgia explores rage, redemption, and the many layers of toxic friendship, perfect for fans of Andrea Bartz and Rachel Hawkins.
