There are so many books billed as having killer twists these days that this should be an easy list to produce. What I wanted to do was focus on books that genuinely made me do a double take, where I went back a couple of pages to make sure I’d read it correctly. These are twists I absolutely didn’t see coming and made my jaw drop or conjured up huge emotions. They’re the sort of twists that have you recommending the book to everyone and it’s no surprise that quite a few have been adapted for film or television streaming services. As the ‘twist’ is usually reserved for crime fiction and thrillers I’ve added some that are historical fiction, love stories and sci-fi to mix things up a little. There are no spoilers here, just a synopsis and why you should read it if you haven’t already. Enjoy.
On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl’s imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone. I remember going to see this at the cinema and people standing up and clapping at the end. It’s a rare thing to see in the cinema but it was so spontaneous. Similarly, if you’ve read the book I don’t think you can be anything but devastated by the twist. I first read this at university as part of my post-modern literature course and I loved the characters as well as Briony’s innocent but life-altering mistake. It’s amazing how differently we interpret things as children, especially the complexities of human relationships. Robbie and Celia will have their lives turned upside down as Briony tells us about that day that altered the course of all their histories. We follow their lives and how the consequences continue to affect all of them. This twist is not of the usual kind, it is emotional and devastating.
Sue has grown up among petty thieves in the dark underbelly of Victorian London, with her adopted mother, Mrs Sucksby, who is a “baby farmer”. One day they are visited by a confidence trickster known simply as “Gentleman” who has a devious plan for their consideration: he is trying to romance Maud Lily, a young naive lady who is heir to a fortune on the condition that she marries. She lives in a large house in the country and works as a secretary of sorts for her uncle. He is protective and keeps her close, so to be successful they must infiltrate the house. He proposes that Sue becomes Maud’s personal maid and once she is settled, gain the young woman’s trust. She must then convince Maud to take up an offer of marriage from a suitor named Richard Rivers, the ‘Gentleman.’ Once they have eloped he will declare Maud as mentally incompetent and commit her to an asylum taking charge of her inheritance. For her part in this plot, Gentleman promises Sue a reward.
At first their plans work well, but it isn’t long before Sue begins to have doubts. She is growing fond of Maud and realises she is not in love with Rivers at all. Actually Maud is terrified of him. Sue begins to fall in love with Maud herself, charmed by her innocence and lack of guile. It seems her feelings are returned, but as the girls consummate their relationship on the eve of Maud’s secret wedding, Sue doesn’t known how to stop the plan. The author splits the story between the two girls and there’s absolutely no warning of the huge twist that’s about to come. This is a brilliant novel from Sarah Waters with an audacious twist that’s one of the best in literary fiction.
Alicia Berenson seems to lead a charmed life. She’s a famous painter and her husband is an in-demand fashion photographer. The couple live in a smart house overlooking the park in a desirable area of London. Yet, one evening, when her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion campaign, Alicia shoots him five times in the face. Since that day she has never spoken another word.
Alicia’s refusal or inability to talk turns this domestic tragedy into public property and casts Alicia into notoriety. Her art prices go through the roof, and she is known as the silent patient, hidden away from the tabloids at the Grove, a secure forensic unit. Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist and he has waited a long time for an opportunity to work with Alicia. He is determined to get her talking again and unravel the mystery of why she murdered her husband becomes an all consuming search for the truth…. I still love this book years on and I’m very excited to see the film when it comes out. This twist was so good I actually swore out loud! I know that a book has me in its grip when I respond out loud. The author plays on the readers’ expectations of the characters in a clever way. If you haven’t read this yet where have you been?
From the outside, Emma has the dream life – a loving husband, a beautiful house, two gorgeous children.
But something is keeping Emma awake.
Scratching at her sanity at 1am.
She’s tried so hard to bury the past, to protect her family. But witching hour loves a secret – and Emma’s is the stuff of nightmares …
This is such a great read and I remember shouting about it a lot. I wasn’t surprised when it was adapted for television. The way Emma disintegrates over the course of a few days is shocking, but believable. Until now Emma has prided herself on being a competent solicitor, very organised and together. I was desperate to find out what happened in their childhood and why her sister Phoebe popped up at this moment. I did feel there was an element of her not processing her childhood trauma. She’s locked it away in the back of her mind, but Phoebe’s appearance and advice that she should visit their mother seems like the trigger that unlocks these memories. What the author does, very cleverly, is muddy the waters; just as I was starting to think Emma was having a breakdown, other things start happening. Her young son keeps creating a strange macabre drawing of a terrible memory that haunts Emma. How could he know? Who has told him this happened? Her dictated letters have turned into a mumbled series of numbers when her secretary plays back the dictaphone. Added to these seemingly inexplicable events the author throws in a number of outside stresses At work she is trying to avoid the advances of a client, his ex-wife confronts Emma over losing custody of their boys. It becomes hard for the reader to see which events can be explained away, which are normal daily obstacles made worse by Emma’s severe sleep deprivation and which are incredibly strange. I was never fully sure what was real and what was imagined or who was to blame. This twist is so clever because the author uses our psychological knowledge and our expectations of thrillers to keep us looking elsewhere. Very clever indeed.
Memories define us.
So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love – all forgotten overnight. And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story.
Welcome to Christine’s life.
I can’t believe this book is 12 years old this year! It was also S.J. Watson’s debut novel. Christine wakes up every morning with no memory of her life, helped by the notes her husband leaves for her to find she tries to navigate life where every day is finite and nothing is retained. One day a strange doctor visits with what he says is a private journal she has been writing while they work together. It is the first sign we have that not everything is at it seems and for Christine, the terrifying thought that she cannot trust the person she’s supposed to feel safe with. This is a very creepy and unsettling novel and the tension is stretched to breaking point because we know that as night draw in Christine will soon go back to sleep and lose everything she has learned. I felt like this was more of a slow release twist, but the horror definitely builds towards the end and I was completely engrossed. Again it was no surprise that this was picked up by a film company and the film is pretty good too.
Our narrator Fern Dostoy is a writer, one of the ‘big four’ novelists of the not too distant future. This is a future where the Anti-Fiction Movement’s campaign to have all fiction banned has been successful. It was Fern’s third novel, Technological Amazingness, that was cited as a dangerous fiction likely to mislead and possibly incite dissent in it’s readers. She had created a dystopian future where two major policies were being adopted as standard practice. To avoid poor surgical outcomes, only patients who are dead can have an operation. Secondly, every so often, families would be called upon to nominate one family member for euthanasia – leading to the deaths of thousands of elderly and disabled people. All fiction authors, including Fern, are banned from writing and the only books on sale are non-fiction. The message is that fiction is bad for you. It lies to the reader giving them misleading ideas about the world and how it’s run. Facts are safe, but of course that view is limited to those supplying the facts. AllBooks dominated the market for books until it became the only bookshop left, state sanctioned of course and only selling non-fiction. From time to time they hold a book amnesty where people can take their old, hidden novels to be pulped. Fern now cleans at a hospital and receives unannounced home visits from compliance officers who question her and search her house to ensure she’s not writing. Added to this dystopian nightmare are a door to door tea salesman, an underground bedtime story organisation, a mysterious appearing and disappearing blue and white trainer, re-education camps for non-compliant writers and a boy called Hunter. All the time I was reading about this terrible new world, I was taking in the details. and trying to imagine living in it. I also had an underlying sense that something wasn’t quite right with this story. When this twist comes it is astonishing, gut wrenching and reduced me to tears. An incredibly well written book about facts that is all about feelings.
Cole is the perfect husband: a romantic, supportive of his wife, Mel’s career, keen to be a hands-on dad, not a big drinker. A good guy.
So when Mel leaves him, he’s floored. She was lucky to be with a man like him.Craving solitude, he accepts a job on the coast and quickly settles into his new life where he meets reclusive artist Lennie.
Lennie has made the same move for similar reasons. She is living in a crumbling cottage on the edge of a nearby cliff. It’s an undeniably scary location, but sometimes you have to face your fears to get past them.
As their relationship develops, two young women go missing while on a walk protesting gendered violence, right by where Cole and Lennie live. Finding themselves at the heart of a police investigation and media frenzy, it soon becomes clear that they don’t know each other very well at all.
Wow! This blows your eyes wide open. I warn you not to start reading at night, unless like me you have a total disregard for the next morning. If I wasn’t reading this, I was thinking about it. I loved the way the author put her story together, using fragments from lots of different stories and different narrators. Just when we get used to one and start to see their point of view, the perspective shifts. I thought this added to the immediacy of the novel, but also reflected the constant bombardment of information and misinformation we sift through every day, with transcripts of radio shows and podcasts, Twitter threads and TV interviews. All give a perspective or commentary on the casual misogyny and violence against women that almost seems like the norm these days. It felt like a merry-go-ground of opinion, counter argument and trolling. Sometimes you’re left so twisted around you’re not sure what you think any more. I would believe one narrator, but then later revelations would blow what I thought right out of the water. It made me ask questions: about the nature of art and its ethics; about whether all men truly hate women; to what lengths do we go to protest; when is enough, enough? This controversial story was one of my reads of 2024 and I still think about it.
I didn’t expect a twist in a love story, but this is part love story and part mystery. Imagine you meet a man, spend seven glorious days together, and fall in love. And it’s mutual: you’ve never been so certain of anything. But after this whirlwind romance, he doesn’t call. You’ve been ghosted.
Your friends tell you to forget him, but you know they’re wrong – something must have happened, there must be a reason for his silence. What do you do when you finally discover you’re right?
Sarah met Eddie by chance on a country road while she was visiting her parents. She still thinks Eddie just might be the one. Could the Eddie she met really be a heartless playboy who never intended to call? Did Sarah do something wrong? Or has something terrible happened to him? Instead of listening to friends and writing this off as a one night stand, Sarah begins to obsess and is determined to find the answer. Every clue she has comes to a dead end and she is in danger of completely losing her dignity. As her time back home in the UK starts to run out, Sarah looks for clues to track Eddie down. What she hears is confusing her further. His friend doesn’t give the simple answer, that Eddie has moved on, but gives her a warning; if she knows what’s best for her, she needs to stop looking for Eddie. I never expected the twist in this story and all the time I was convinced of Sarah’s sense of ‘rightness’ to their meeting. As the months pass though, will she have to move on with her life? This novel is fully of emotion and the different ways life’s troubles affect us. It has everything you would expect from a romantic novel but with a healthy dose of realism and a smidgen of hope.
Marissa and Mathew Bishop seem like the golden couple – until Marissa cheats. She wants to repair things, both because she loves her husband and for the sake of their eight-year-old son. After a friend forwards an article about Avery, Marissa takes a chance on this maverick therapist who lost her licence due to her controversial methods.
If Avery Chambers can’t fix you in ten sessions, she won’t take you on as a client. She helps people overcome everything, from anxiety to domineering parents. Her successes almost help her absorb the emptiness she feels since her husband’s death.
When the Bishops glide through Avery’s door, all three are immediately set on a collision course. Because the biggest secrets in the room are still hidden, and it’s no longer simply a marriage that’s in danger.
The authors use alternate perspectives to drip feed details of this couple’s relationship and the events leading up to Marissa’s infidelity. It is compelling and really captures the intricacies of counselling a couple and the need to read body language and expression, not only of the person who’s speaking but their partner. I loved how therapy progressed the issues within the marriage, which are always somewhat different to the presenting issue. This was a clever thriller that showed just how complex we are psychologically.
If you feel like delving into a classic this could be for you. The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright’s eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. He’s been engaged as a drawing master for the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Sir Percival Glyde’s new wife and they’re often accompanied by her sister Marian. Walter slowly becomes drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival and his ‘charming’ and rather eccentric friend Count Fosco, who keeps white mice in his waistcoat pocket and enjoys both vanilla bonbons and poison. The novel pursues questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism, known as sensation fiction. This book is the Victorian equivalent of our psychological thrillers, but could just as easily be described as crime or mystery fiction and even has a feminist slant. Be sure to take note of every small occurrence because the novel is plotted so precisely that everything has a meaning. Again we’re dealing with men’s attitudes and behaviour towards women, but Marian is more than a match for any man and is one of fiction’s first female detectives. I love a gothic novel and this has everything from ghostly encounters, to stately homes and damsels in distress. I believe this book is the inspiration for so many detective novels and its category of ‘sensation fiction’ is very apt because it employs a twist I’ve read variations on ever since.
A few more unusual twists:
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
Life of Pi by Yan Martel
Fight Club by Chuck Palhaniuk
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey
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The Lotus Readers 