Must Read These Amazing Psychological Thrillers in 2025

By Amber Khatri – Published on May 14, 2025

Thrillers are my favorite and they are the reason I got into reading books. I love the suspense, unexpected twists, high-stakes, and fast-paced writing style because they keep me hooked to the stories. After I started my bookstagram, I discovered many new thrillers. I checked some of them and they turned out to be amazing!

Here, I will recommend five dark psychological thrillers that will leave you stunned. They have characters that are disturbing in nature and their stories are very well written. I love when authors pull a clever plot with perfection and portray characters’ personalities in depth with their psychological flaws. Their spine-chilling narrative style is what builds suspense and grabs your attention. 

I’m sure most of these books I am recommending are very hyped. I read them out of curiosity and ended up really enjoying them. From the very first page I was hooked to their stories. You must check them out if you are looking to read dark thrillers that will blow your mind. 

Come With Me by Ronald Malfi

Come With Me takes through the haunting journey of grief-stricken Aaron Decker after his wife, Allison gets killed. Amongst her abandoned belongings, Aaron discovers a motel receipt where Allison stayed for two nights in his absence. Was the receipt an evidence of her infidelity or was she doing research on her article as a journalist? Not only that, he finds other disturbing contents in her secret chest inside the closet. She owned a gun, and kept a list of names, newspaper clippings, and cryptic drawings.

This makes him question what she was hiding from him in all these years of marriage. Who was she behind her facade? If there was a risky murder case she was working on, then why didn’t she involve him? Aaron realizes everything she knew about Allison was far from the truth. He becomes determined to find out what she was up to and the mystery behind the list of names. 

The Good Son by You-Jeong Jeong

Yu-jin wakes up in his bed to find himself drenched in blood, clueless as to what happened. He follows the trail of blood leading from his bedroom to the stairs of his duplex apartment. Downstairs, on the kitchen floor, he discovers the dead body of his mother in a crimson pool. On his phone, he receives a call from his brother who asks him about the missed call from their mother last night. Yu-jin has no idea what happened last night and who murdered his mother. He suspects he had a seizure again because he hadn’t taken the medicine his aunt, a psychiatrist, prescribed him. 

While recalling last nights’ events, he has a distant memory of moments and people he can’t make any connection to. Until he uncovers the truth, he hides the dead body in the back deck of the duplex. He is afraid he will be blamed for murdering his mother when he can’t give any other explanation for it. He hides the death from his brother by saying that their mother was out of town.

But for how long will he be able to hide it? And what will happen when his brother eventually files a missing person’s report when their mother doesn’t come home? Worse, how will he react if he finds the rotting dead body?

Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak

Mallory Quinn takes a babysitting job offered by a couple, Ted and Caroline, for their five-year old son Teddy. Prior to this, Mallory was admitted to a rehab center for drug addiction in response to a past tragedy. When she meets Teddy, he immediately becomes fond of her and shows his drawings to her. But his drawings are not what one can expect from a child. The content depicts a woman being buried alive by a man. When Mallory addresses this to his parents, they claim that he is a gifted child with a wild imagination. 

More time Mallory spends with Teddy, his drawings get progressively troubling and worrisome in content. He begins to draw hyper-realistic sketches that are beyond for someone his age. Mallory notices a narrative in them: a portrayal of murder and hiding that murder. She suspects Teddy is haunted by a ghost who is communicating a message through him. Who is the woman in the drawing? And what happened to her? Why aren’t Teddy’s parents concerned about these drawings? Is there something that’s kept a secret from her? 

The Push by Ashley Audrain 

Blythe Connor wants to be a good mother to her daughter Violet that her own mother wasn’t. When Violet is born, she tries to form a warm bond with her. But somehow her daughter is naturally more attached to her father, Fox, than herself. As she grows older, Violet shows that she trusts her father and is more comfortable with him. This makes Blythe feel that she isn’t a good mother.

With time, Blythe deals with Violent’s silent treatment, emotional detachment, and manipulative attitude. She tells Fox that their daughter’s behavior is not normal. But Fox doesn’t believe her. He says that it is all in her head and she is mistaken. 

Day after day, Violet behaves strangely and even violently, and Blythe doesn’t feel safe and sane around her daughter anymore. No one believes that a child can do this to her own mother. Because of this, her marriage starts to fall apart and she is held responsible for it. Is Blythe really overthinking all this about her daughter? Or is her daughter manipulative? No one seems to have any problem with Violet besides Blythe.

The Break Down by B.A. Paris

Cass drives home from the party by taking a shortcut through the woods that her husband has warned against. There she spots a car parked with a woman sitting inside. Cass wonders if the woman might need help. But she is afraid it could be a dangerous trap. The next morning on the TV, there is news about a murder. It’s the same woman who Cass saw last night. 

Cass wonders, was the woman already dead when she saw her? Or someone murdered her after she left? The worst is, the killer is still on loose. Cass grows apprehensive when she begins receiving mysterious phone calls. Every time she picks the landline, there is that same heavy breathing sound.

Does the killer think she has witnessed the murder and may report him to the police? The paranoia makes her afraid of every doorbell, every person in the neighborhood, and every phone call. She doesn’t feel safe anywhere, even inside her own home.