15 Pulse-Pounding Thriller Books of 2025 That Will Leave You Breathless [May Edition]
Last updated: May 10, 2025
The clock is ticking. The room is locked. And the twist you never saw coming is about to change everything...
That’s the thrill of a great suspense novel, and 2025’s crop of thrillers delivers these heart-stopping moments better than ever.
Whether you’re a die-hard psychological thriller enthusiast or just discovering the genre, our carefully curated May 2025 list showcases the year’s most buzz-worthy page-turners-books that critics and readers alike are calling "un-put-down-able."
From remote Scottish islands to snowbound mountain retreats, here are the stories that redefine suspense for a new era:
If you’re always searching for books you simply can’t put down, don’t miss my unputdownable books readers can’t stop reading collection for even more gripping recommendations.
What Makes 2025’s Thrillers Unforgettable
In 2025, the thriller genre is undergoing a renaissance.
Authors are blending classic tension with cutting-edge themes—algorithmic manipulation, climate anxiety, and the dark side of influencer culture-to create stories that feel both timeless and urgently modern.
This year’s standouts feature morally ambiguous protagonists, settings that double as psychological traps, and twists that defy prediction.
Unlike the formulaic thrillers of the past, these novels reward close reading, with layered narratives that linger long after the final page.
The best 2025 thrillers also push boundaries by merging genres.
Expect historical mysteries infused with magical realism, domestic noirs that double as tech parables and espionage tales reimagined through a feminist lens.
What unites them all is a mastery of pacing, a knack for making the familiar feel sinister, and endings that will leave you gasping.
If you love books that cross genres and defy expectations, explore my picks for dark, creepy dystopian novels and dark romance plot-driven novels.
The Must-Read Thrillers of 2025
Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
Psychological Thriller | Released January 2025
Alice Feeney, the queen of the jaw-dropping twist, returns with her most audacious work yet.
When true-crime podcaster Po Web invites anonymous confessions, she never expects a caller to claim responsibility for her mother’s murder—a crime that occurred before the caller was born.
The investigation leads Po to a remote Scottish island where a reclusive author’s wife vanished years earlier, and where Po’s own memories begin to unravel.
Feeney masterfully blends meta-commentary on true crime obsession with a claustrophobic locked-island mystery, delivering a finale that redefines "unreliable narrator".
The Crash by Freida McFadden
Survival Thriller | Released January 2025
Freida McFadden trades domestic suspense for survival horror in this white-knuckle ride.
Eight months pregnant and fleeing an abusive relationship, Tegan’s escape through a Maine blizzard turns catastrophic when her car skids off an icy road. Rescued by a seemingly benevolent couple, she soon realizes their isolated cabin hides grotesque secrets—and that her due date aligns with their sinister schedule.
McFadden’s tight prose and relentless pacing transform a simple premise into a primal fight for survival, with a third-act revelation that recontextualizes every prior chapter.
Fans of mind-bending suspense will also enjoy my list of psychological thrillers better than The Silent Patient.
A Killing Cold by Kate Alice Marshall
Gothic Mystery | Released February 2025
In this atmospheric chiller, Theo arrives at her fiancé’s family estate to find a photo of herself as a child—taken decades before she supposedly first visited.
As a blizzard traps the wedding party, Theo uncovers the estate’s ties to her forgotten past, including a childhood friend who vanished mid-blizzard in 1999.
Marshall elevates the "returning to a haunted house" trope with dual timelines and a shocking exploration of inherited trauma.
The frozen Adirondack setting becomes a character itself, its howling winds masking whispers of a generations-old pact.
The Woman in Suite 11 by Ruth Ware
Sequel Thriller | Released June 2025
A decade after The Woman in Cabin 10, investigative journalist Lo Blacklock resurfaces for a luxury hotel opening in the Swiss Alps.
When a guest in the adjacent suite disappears mid-storm, Lo must confront her own PTSD from the Nordic Star incident while unraveling a conspiracy involving black-market art and a billionaire’s pathological need for control.
Ware cleverly subverts expectations by making Lo both hero and suspect, weaving in Easter eggs for longtime fans while delivering a standalone mystery that rivals Gone Girl in its exploration of public perception vs. private truth.
The Last Days of Kira Mullan by Nicci French
Psychological Suspense | Released April 2025
Nancy North’s fresh start in a London flat crumbles when she hears voices through the walls—voices that eerily recount the final hours of Kira Mullan, a neighbor found dead days prior.
French’s dual narrative shifts between Nancy’s spiraling mental state and DI Maud O’Connor’s fight against institutional sexism in the police force.
The result is a blistering commentary on how society dismisses women’s voices, wrapped in a taut mystery where every red herring doubles as a clue.
The final pages deliver a revelation that’s as emotionally devastating as it is intellectually satisfying.
Our Last Resort by Clémence Michallon
Eco-Thriller | Released March 2025
In this prescient page-turner, a climate scientist discovers her corporate retreat on a private island is actually an audition: the billionaire host wants her to justify geoengineering Earth’s atmosphere.
As tropical storms isolate the group, she uncovers experiments that have already begun—with catastrophic side effects.
Michallon merges Michael Crichton-style science thrills with the paranoia of The Parallax View, asking urgent questions about who gets to play god in a warming world.
The Inheritance by Trisha Sakhlecha
Family Saga Thriller | Released January 2025
Three estranged siblings reunite at their father’s funeral, only to learn his £200 million estate hinges on solving a cryptic riddle about his first wife’s unsolved murder.
Sakhlecha crafts a brilliant hybrid of Knives Out and Succession, where every family secret uncovered deepens the mystery.
The Delhi-set narrative shifts between 1984’s anti-Sikh riots and present-day boardroom betrayals, revealing how generational trauma poisons even the most privileged lives.
For more sweeping stories that transport you to different eras, browse my best historical fiction books to travel through time and place.
The Missing Half by Ashley Flowers
True Crime Thriller | Released May 2025
The Crime Junkie host makes her fiction debut with this ripped-from-the-headlines story of twin influencers.
When one vanishes during a live-streamed hike, her sister races against the algorithm fighting viral conspiracy theories and a police force more interested in clicks than justice.
Flowers’ insider knowledge of true crime’s ethical minefields elevates this beyond standard procedurals, offering a scathing look at how social media distorts reality.
Close Your Eyes and Count to 10 by Lisa Unger
Domestic Thriller | Released March 2025
A pediatric sleep therapist’s life implodes when her signature method-teaching toddlers to self-soothe by ignoring their cries—is linked to a string of infant disappearances.
Unger masterfully explores modern parenting anxieties, gaslighting, and the cult of maternal perfection.
The final twist, involving a secret parenting forum and a decades-old cold case, will leave readers questioning every character’s motives.
The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia
Corporate Thriller | Released February 2025
When an HR manager is sent to fire a factory’s union leader, she uncovers a ledger detailing deaths covered up as "workplace accidents."
Garcia’s claustrophobic thriller plays like Silkwood meets Severance, with a second act that shifts from boardroom drama to a desperate escape through the factory’s subterranean tunnels.
The ending delivers a chilling reminder: capitalism’s greatest monster isn’t any one villain, but the system itself.
Mask of the Deer Woman by Laurie L. Dove
Literary Thriller | Released January 2025
Laurie L. Dove’s intense and atmospheric debut follows Carrie Starr, a former Chicago detective and the new tribal marshal on the Saliquaw reservation in Oklahoma.
Reeling from her own daughter’s murder, Starr is tasked with finding a missing Indigenous college student, Chenoa Cloud, in a community plagued by the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women.
As Starr investigates, she confronts not only local corruption, poverty, and political indifference, but also her own sense of displacement-caught between her Indigenous roots and her outsider status.
The novel weaves in elements of magical realism through the haunting presence of the Deer Woman, a figure from Native folklore who may be a guide or a force of vengeance.
Dove’s writing shines in its exploration of grief, justice, and identity, blending a cleverly plotted mystery with a powerful spotlight on a real-world crisis.
The result is a moving, multilayered thriller that is both urgent and unforgettable
The Summer Guests by Tess Gerritsen
Vacation Thriller | Released March 2025
In the second Martini Club mystery, Tess Gerritsen returns to the quiet coastal town of Purity, Maine, where retired CIA agent Maggie Bird and her close-knit group of ex-operatives are drawn into a chilling new case.
When a teenage summer visitor, Zoe Conover, vanishes from Maiden Pond, suspicion falls on a local neighbor. As Maggie and her friends investigate, a decades-old skeleton is discovered in the lake, and secrets from the past begin to surface.
Gerritsen masterfully blends small-town atmosphere, buried family secrets, and Cold War intrigue.
The novel explores the tensions between year-round residents and wealthy summer families, with the Martini Club racing against time to uncover the truth behind both the missing girl and the long-dead body.
With sharp plotting, vibrant characters, and a suspenseful pace, The Summer Guests cements the Martini Club as one of the most entertaining ensembles in contemporary crime fiction
If you’re drawn to books that stir deep emotions and challenge your perspective, check out my most emotional books and moving reads.
Blood Moon by Alyssa Cole
Political Thriller | Released April 2025
A Black Capitol Hill staffer goes rogue after uncovering a plot to incite race riots during a lunar eclipse.
Cole’s background in political romance shines through in the charged dynamic between the idealistic protagonist and the jaded journalist she reluctantly allies with.
The climactic protest scene, set against the blood moon’s glow, is a masterclass in sustained suspense.
Retreat by Sarah Pearse
Isolation Thriller | Released March 2025
The author of The Sanatorium returns with another chilling closed-circle mystery.
Guests at a digital detox retreat in the Norwegian fjords find their devices reactivated by an anonymous host who threatens to expose their secrets unless they complete a series of deadly challenges.
Pearse’s depiction of tech addiction amplifies the terror, asking: What’s scarier—the killer, or living without your phone?
The Ones We Love by Anna Snoekstra
Psychological Horror | Released February 2025
A couple adopts an orphaned girl who eerily resembles their drowned daughter.
But when the child begins recounting memories she couldn’t possibly know, they’re forced to confront whether she’s a reincarnation—or something far more sinister.
Snoekstra’s slow-burn dread explodes in a finale that redefines "family horror".
Why 2025’s Thrillers Demand Your Attention
This year’s selections refuse to play safe.
They weaponize modern anxieties—climate collapse, AI, the erosion of privacy—to craft stories that feel ripped from tomorrow’s headlines.
Unlike traditional thrillers that wrap mysteries neatly, these books linger in gray areas: Is the algorithm the villain, or the people programming it?
Can you ever truly escape your past, or does trauma rewrite your DNA?
The best entries also showcase diverse voices, with Indigenous, LGBTQ+, and immigrant perspectives reshaping genre conventions.
In Mask of the Deer Woman, the mystery is inseparable from colonial violence; in The Inheritance, generational guilt transcends borders.
These aren’t just thrillers-they’re cultural critiques disguised as page-turners.
How to Choose Your Next Obsession
With so many stellar options, match your mood to these subgenres:
For literary heft: Beautiful Ugly’s exploration of narrative manipulation or The Last Days of Kira Mullan’s feminist indictment of institutional bias.
For pure adrenaline: The Crash’s survival stakes or Retreat’s high-tech game of cat and mouse.
For emotional depth: The Ones We Love’s haunting take on grief or The Inheritance’s intergenerational saga.
You might also appreciate my handpicked life-changing books that will shift your perspective.
For social relevance: Our Last Resort’s climate crisis urgency or The Missing Half’s media satire.
Conclusion: Your 2025 Reading List Starts Here
This year’s thrillers aren’t just books-they’re experiences.
They’ll make you question your relationships, double-check your smart devices, and rethink every "harmless" secret you’ve ever kept. The only wrong choice is not reading one.
Whether you devour these in sunlit parks or under bedcovers with a flashlight, prepare for stories that cling like shadows. Just remember: once you start, there’s no turning back.
For more timeless literary recommendations across every genre, explore my archive of curated reads.