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17 Highly Anticipated March Thriller Books 2026
If you’re looking for memorable thrillers for your book club, March has some exciting new releases worth adding to your list. These thriller coming in March are perfect if you enjoy reading new books with many new themes. I am also guessing that these going to be really atmospheric thrillers. So, if you enjoy eerie thrillers they are just perfect. I might also add these to my beach reading list.
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Served Him Right by Lisa Unger
A woman’s brunch with friends quickly turns dark in this wickedly clever and deliciously twisty tale of revenge from New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger.
Ana Blacksmith has gathered her closest friends and sister Vera together for a girls’ brunch to celebrate her recent breakup from her boyfriend Paul. But when shocking news about Paul and his new girlfriend arrives, all eyes are on Ana, the angry ex with a bad reputation. Suspicions only intensify when Ana’s best friend falls deathly ill after the brunch.
But Ana is not the only one who had a score to settle with Paul, a business mogul with a whispered history. And the list of people who will not shed a tear over his fate is long. As the investigation unfolds, rumours of a secret network that uses ancient methods to obtain justice begin to emerge. Vengeance is sweet, but it can also be deadly.
Ana and Vera are determined to find the truth before Ana takes the fall and their own long-buried history comes to light. Served Him Right is a riveting thriller that shows you can never underestimate the power of a woman looking for justice.
How to Survive in the Woods by Kat Rosenfeld
Sleeping With the Enemy meets Wild in this page-turning thriller, set in Maine’s Hundred Mile Wilderness—the treacherous final stretch of the storied Appalachian Trail—an addictive and disturbing tale of passion, betrayal, lies, and control that pulsates with erotic and psychological tension.
Emma Sharp knows how to stay alive.
Raised by a doomsday prepper father and hardened by the startup world, she’s learned to survive, adapt, and endure. First as a successful founder, and now as the wife of Logan Grant, a charismatic tyrant who’s kept her under his thumb ever since the breakdown that nearly ended her life. To Emma, the marriage is a necessary cage—the kind that keeps you in, but also keeps you safe.
But when she forms an unexpected bond with Taylor Cognetti, Logan’s former college sweetheart and business partner, a new dream begins to take shape—and with it, a plan to help her escape her controlling husband, once and for all, on the punishing final stretch of the Appalachian Trail known as the Hundred Mile Wilderness.
After all, bad things happen in the woods all the time.
As Emma, Taylor, and Logan venture deeper into Maine’s backcountry, desire and dread curdle into something unpredictable, dark, and deadly. Someone is lying. Someone is watching. And in the remote heart of the forest, someone is about to be lost . . . or found.
How to Survive in the Woods is a heart-stopping knockout of a novel, by turns wryly witty, psychologically sophisticated, and deliciously diabolical. In her masterful hands, Kat Rosenfield asks us to consider what it means to be a survivor—and what, or who, you would sacrifice to stay alive.
Strangers in the Villa by Robyn Harding
From the international bestselling author of The Drowning Woman, a psychological thriller about a couple rocked by infidelity who moves to a villa in Spain’s Costa Brava to rebuild their relationship, only to welcome a pair of visitors who have no intention of leaving.
Sydney Lowe’s life in New York is shattered when her husband, Curtis, admits to a meaningless affair with a client. Begging for forgiveness and vowing to prove his devotion, Curtis suggests the couple retreat to a remote hilltop house in Spain to repair their marriage.
High above the Mediterranean, Sydney and Curtis are working on the isolated property and their relationship when a pair of Australian travelers turns up at their door in dire need of help. Lonely for companionship and desperate for free labor, Sydney and Curtis invite the attractive young couple to stay. But as the days pass, dark secrets come to light, the Lowes’ bond is tested, and not everyone will leave the villa alive.
Primrose Murder Society by Stacy Hackney
Witty, endearing, and wildly entertaining, this Southern cozy mystery is a little bit Gilmore Girls , a little bit Finlay Donovan, with a big helping of Only Murders in the Building .
Lila Shaw stopped trusting anyone the minute her husband went to jail for white-collar crime, taking their country club lifestyle with him. Now Lila is broke, friendless, and losing her house—and to make things worse, her true-crime-obsessed daughter, Bea, was just expelled from fourth grade. Desperate for a fresh start, Lila agrees to temporarily move in and clean out an abandoned junk-filled apartment in Richmond’s palatial Primrose building. The luxurious Virginia landmark is filled with retirees who start their days early drinking bourbon and gossiping, in that order.
Soon after Lila’s arrival, the Primrose is thrown into chaos. The owner of the building’s splendid penthouse has died and in his final days he set up a two-million-dollar reward for any resident who helps to solve the 21-year-old murder of his granddaughter at the Primrose. A fan of all detective stories and true-crime podcasts, Bea is inspired to investigate. They really could use the reward money, so Lila reluctantly agrees, in a questionable attempt at family bonding. She’s certain the killer is long-gone after all these years anyway. That is, until another resident is murdered… and Lila becomes the prime suspect.
Now Lila needs to solve both murders to avoid jail, and even worse, losing her daughter to her snobby in-laws. To catch a killer and clear Lila’s name, she and Bea must rely on their elderly neighbors—Jasper, a shy former detective, and Evelyn, an opinionated socialite—along with Nate, a good-looking reporter who keeps appearing at the most inconvenient moments. As the amateur sleuths expose the truth about the Primrose, Lila hopes she can also unravel the trickiest parts of her own life and start fresh.
Missing Sister by Jocelyn Jackson
Revenge. It’s all relative.
Born three minutes apart, Penny and Nix Albright grew up doing everything together, close as only twins can be. But when Nix dies in a tragic accident soon after college, she leaves behind a cryptic voicemail that has Penny guilt-ridden and desperate for justice.
Five Years Later
Penny has found new purpose as a rookie cop. She’s working to fulfill Nix’s dream of making the world a safer place, but following that dream becomes a nightmare when she’s called to her first murder scene. When she sees the victim, she knows him instantly. It’s Danny Bowery—one of three men she’s long blamed for Nix’s death—splayed in a pool of blood outside a posh Atlanta shopping center, almost as if she’d wished it so.
Stunned, Penny steps away to catch her breath and discovers a blonde in blood-drenched clothes gripping a box cutter. Before Penny can arrest her, the woman reveals that Bowery’s murder is part of a larger story that is far from over. A story about sisters. And with that, the killer disappears.
Now, Penny will stop at nothing to pursue this dangerous woman and learn why she’s avenging Nix’s death. The deeper she dives into the mystery, the less clear it becomes who is hunting whom in this captivating page-turner of hidden motives and deadly consequences.
I Came Back for You by Kate White
A mother begins to challenge everything she’s been told about her daughter’s murder in a shocking novel of suspense by a New York Times bestselling author.
Ten years after her daughter, Melanie, was murdered, Bree Winter is finally moving on with a new love, a new home, and a new beginning. Then a deathbed confession from the convicted killer throws Bree’s life into a tailspin all over again. He readily confesses to murdering four girls. But not Melanie.
At first, Bree and her ex-husband don’t buy a word of it. Until inconsistencies about the crime emerge. So does the dreadful feeling that the monster who shattered Bree’s family isn’t lying. The only way she can get to the truth is to power through the trauma and return to the town in upstate New York where Melanie’s life came to a brutal end.
Bree will do anything to find justice for her daughter and finish this nightmare forever. Instead, it’s just beginning. Not only could the real killer still be in their midst, but as Bree begins to dig through Melanie’s past, what she discovers calls into question everything she has believed—about the crime and about Melanie herself.
The Only One Who Knows by Lisa Matlin
A failed TV news reporter with a talent for shark-fishing returns to her hometown just as bodies begin washing ashore in this nail-biting suspense novel from the author of The Stranger Upstairs.
Minnow Greenwood, previously known for stealing her way into the hearts of viewers as Melbourne’s number one morning show host, is now back in her small hometown of Kangaroo Bay. After a horrifying and unexpected episode, she has no choice but to join her estranged brother in their family business of shark fishing. For an insomniac like Minnow, the work is strangely thrilling—there’s something alluring about the dark water at night. Something exciting, grimy… fitting. And maybe it’s not even so bad reconnecting with her brother, who’s the only person who ever saw her for herself. But the last thing she expects to surface on the beach is a human body.
Kangaroo Bay is a town quietly brimming with rage towards invasive tourists and host to a disquieting number of shark attacks—there’s no sympathy for the wayward swimmer. Except the media soon uncover that the victim was declared missing weeks before, and was long dead before they even entered the water. When the journalist in Minnow kicks back into drive, she discovers something for over forty years, there have been a steady number of missing persons around the area, including her own father’s disappearance ten years ago.
This is her one opportunity to reclaim her career as a journalist, and to learn what really happened to her father, but as Minnow digs deeper into the spate of missing tourists and the mystery of her father, she realizes someone is desperate to keep the secrets buried. . .and then another body washes ashore.
What We Did to Survive by Megan Lally
A vacation in paradise turns deadly when four teens’ sailing charter hits stormy seas in this propulsive new thriller from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Megan Lally!
Hannah is having an incredible spring break. A week at a resort in Mexico with her best friend Emmy and her family is perfect for de-stressing from senior year, even if it’s awkward being around Emmy’s older brother, Jackson, who she’s had a crush on for as long as she can remember.
Still, the beach is gorgeous. So is the guy they meet in the surf. Except Hannah is now the third wheel in Emmy’s vacation romance.
Eager to impress Emmy, her wealthy new boyfriend charters a private sailboat to make the most of their last day in paradise, and Hannah and Jackson are invited along. As the clouds roll in and the skies darken, their boat is the only one leaving the marina. And the further they get into open water, the more unsettled Hannah becomes. A storm is brewing onboard that’s as deadly as the one racing toward them. Forget surviving graduation. Who will make it back to land alive?
Whidbey by T. Kira Madden
A stunning literary achievement and portrait of three women connected through one man in the aftermath of his murder—the explosive and highly anticipated debut novel from beloved and award-winning memoirist, T Kira Madden.
Birdie Chang didn’t know anything about Whidbey Island when she chose it, only that it was about as far away as she could get from her own life. She’s a woman on the run, desperate for an escape from the headlines back home and the look of concern in her girlfriend’s eyes—and from Calvin Boyer, the man who abused her as a child and who’s now resurfaced. On her way, she has an unnerving encounter with a stranger on the ferry who offers her a proposition, a sinister solution, a plan for revenge.
But Birdie isn’t the only girl Calvin harmed back then. There’s also Linzie King, a former reality TV star who recently wrote all about it in her bestselling memoir. Though the two women have never met, their stories intertwine. Once Birdie arrives on Whidbey, she finally cracks the book’s spine, only to find too much she recognizes in its pages. Soon after, on the other side of the country, Calvin’s loving mother, Mary-Beth, receives a shocking phone call from the police: her only son has been murdered.
Calvin’s death sets into motion a series of events that sends each woman on a desperate search for answers. A complex whodunnit told from alternating points of view, Whidbey is searingly perceptive and astonishingly original. Exploring the long reach of violence and our flawed systems of incarceration and rehabilitation, this is a tense and provocative debut that’s sure to incite crucial questions about the pursuit of justice and who has real power over a story: the one who lives it, or the one who tells it?
The Pie and Mash Detectives by J.D. Brinkworth
Who is Nellie Thorne and why does she keep disappearing? Jane Pye and Simon Mash are on the case in this cosy crime mystery novel.
Dev Hooper arrives home from work to find his girlfriend, Nellie Thorne, has vanished.
But she’s not the first Nellie Thorne to disappear. In fact, she’s the fifth in fifty years.
Enter Jane Pye and Simon – a millennial couple who signed up for a private detective night class on a whim. When they’re assigned Dev’s case for their coursework, they quickly realise they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.
Armed with just six weeks of notes, matching trench coats, and a lot of enthusiasm, they set out to solve a case that has baffled Kent’s police for decades.
What connects the missing Nellies? Why do locals whisper about a ghostly presence? Only the Pie & Mash Detective Agency can uncover the truth behind this eerie urban legend.
Is it an open and shut case? Not on your Nellie.
This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum
Benny Abbott and Joy Moore host one of the most beloved podcasts in the world. Each week, they delight listeners with a different “against all odds” survival story, gleefully finding the weird, life-affirming humor in near-death experiences. Since their first episode on Joy’s experience with severe narcolepsy, they’ve been the best friends everyone wants to befriend—and thanks to the meticulous management of Joy’s husband, Xander, they’ve built a lucrative empire.
The problem is, their next survival story may be their own. When Benny arrives at Joy and Xander’s one morning to record, he finds shattered glass and an empty house. The one clue shedding light on the couple’s disappearance is the incomplete, previously unseen first draft of Joy’s memoir. Benny will stop at nothing to find them, even as the police zero in on him as their prime suspect.
Millions of devoted listeners think they know the “real” Benny and Joy. But as the hours tick by, and the odds seem increasingly stacked against Joy and Xander being found alive, not even the most devoted fans could guess the terrible secrets their favorite famous BFFs have hidden from the world—and from each other.
Bloodlust by Sandra Brown
#1 New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown delivers a new signature sexy suspense about a detective seeking justice for his murdered wife with the help of a psychotherapist … while fighting an undeniable attraction to her.
Two years ago, Detective Mitch Haskell lost his wife to a vicious act of retribution, and has since attributed her murder two men: Roland Malone and the unidentified mastermind of the crime known only as Oz. Malone, a ruthless executioner and drug dealer who fronts as a restaurant owner, neutralizes so cleanly that he doesn’t leave a trace. And he performs his handiwork at the biddings of Oz, the faceless kingpin of a drug trafficking operation whose name alone evokes terror.
Obsessively vowing to avenge his late wife’s murder, Mitch has been on a downward spiral, jeopardizing his closest relationships and drinking excessively to numb his pain. After going one step too far, Detective John Bowie, his former best friend and now his boss, has forced Mitch to get therapy to sort himself out.
Dr. Dylan Reede is immediately empathetic to the pain she senses beneath Mitch’s cavalier attitude and wisecracking. She’s determined to make the most of his mandated sessions. But from the moment Mitch breezes into her office, Dylan finds it a struggle to maintain the professional and personal boundaries that keep her own tragic past at a safe distance.
As Mitch begins to close in on Oz and Malone’s operation, they’re prepared to stop him by any means necessary. And when it’s revealed that Dylan might hold the key to bringing them to justice, Mitch and Dylan’s irresistible attraction to each other may not only compromise both of them professionally, but place them in Oz’s bullseye.
Hiding Season by Ava Glass
In this page-turning, atmospheric thriller, a broken woman’s new beginning is upended when she becomes the only witness to a deadly crime . . . making her the next target.
After a painful divorce, Maya Landry is in desperate need of a fresh start, which she finds deep in the Rocky Mountains of Montana. Maya’s relieved when she’s hired as a summer keeper of billionaire-owned ski lodges left empty after snow season ends, and her new life of peace and isolation is going exactly as hoped . . . until she stumbles across a dead body on the living room floor of one of the lodges. There’s no cell service on the resort, and by the time she’s able to find signal and call the police, the body is gone. In fact, there is no evidence that there ever was a body there at all.
The police think Maya is unstable, and she’s not convinced they are wrong. But then a stranger walks up to her later that night and tells her that someone knows she was up on the mountain that day—someone willing to kill to keep their secrets. She’s not sure whether to believe him, until the killers come for her in the dead of night. Maya narrowly escapes, only to find that same mysterious man waiting to rush her away. But can she trust him? Can she trust anyone?
Only one thing is the people who committed the murder are coming for her. Maya is the only person alive who might reveal what happened up on the mountain. And they want her gone.
A Place to Die For by A.M. Strong and Sonya Sargent
A young couple’s dream apartment hides a deadly secret in a terrifying novel of psychological suspense by the authors of Gravewater Lake.
Jordan and her fiancé, Sam, can hardly believe their luck when they are accepted into the Glendale, an exclusive Boston co-op dripping in historic turn-of-the-century splendor. Still reeling from a devastating personal loss, the couple hopes their new digs will let them heal the past and build a brighter future. But Jordan’s joy soon turns to unease.
Spending long hours alone while her fiancé is at work, she starts to suspect that all is not right with the Glendale. There is the empty apartment on the ground floor that nobody wants to talk about, and the unnerving sensation that she is being watched. The haunting cries of a baby—even though there are none in the building—don’t help, either.
As their relationship falters and Sam grows ever more distant, Jordan comes to a terrifying conclusion. The Glendale won’t let her go…at least, not alive.
The Plans I Have For You by Lai Sanders
Feminine rage, cancel culture, and suffocating societal pressure—a cutting and brazen thriller about two Asian American women on a quest for revenge after a public shaming pushes them to the limit, for fans of Yellowface and Counterfeit.
When a conflict with a fellow passenger on the subway spirals into a humiliating breakdown, Shelley Hu’s life is over. The incident goes viral, costing Shelley her prestigious Manhattan law firm internship, her spot at Columbia Law, and her plan to build a better life for herself and her mother.
Months later, Shelley is back in Kissimmee, Florida, working the night shift at a kitschy motel near Disney World—the very same job she held in high school. Shelley’s life is a black hole until, one night, the beautiful, enigmatic Sophia Moon checks in with her husband and young son. But Sophia’s appearance is far from random.
It turns out that, once upon a time, Sophia suffered her own episode of public shaming. Since then, Sophia has rebuilt a new life, and she promises to help Shelley do the same. More importantly, Sophia vows to help Shelley enact revenge on the three people responsible for the worst day of her life with a precise set of plans.
Shelley returns to New York with a new identity and plans that start off well. But when the situation soon spirals out of control, Shelley is forced to reckon with Sophia’s unspeakably dark side—though it may be too late.
Missing by E.A. Jackson
In this unputdownable crime thriller for fans of Tana French, a detective returns to a thirty-year-old case—an infamous disappearance in London—that has haunted her entire career and now may jeopardize her future.
In August 1990, London is suffering through an unprecedented heatwave when baby Bella Carpenter is snatched through the open window of her hotel room. Detective Inspector Martha Allen is assigned the high-profile case and, knowing that it could make or break her career, is determined to find Bella.
When a young woman named Nell Beatty walks into the police station with a baby who appears to be Bella, and whom Nell claims she found on a bench, it seems that the mystery is solved. Her family, the police, and the press are overjoyed at her return. But DI Allen isn’t convinced, something about Nell’s story doesn’t ring true. As much as she wants to continue, however, now that the baby is safe, she’s ordered to close the investigation.
Thirty years later, Nell Beatty is found dead. Now a superintendent, Allen has never really gotten over her doubts about the Carpenter case and can’t resist doing a little digging on her own time, eager to find out what happened to Nell, and her involvement in the baby’s disappearance all those years ago. But will her efforts uncover something darker than she could have ever imagined? And what is she risking as she tries once and for all to reveal the truth?
Stakeouts and Strollers by Rob Phillips
Amateur private investigator and new dad Charlie Shaw gets more than he bargained for when he agrees to track down a young girl’s missing father in Rob Phillips’ award-winning debut.
Charlie Shaw is low on sleep. And cash. Otherwise, life is going pretty well for the ex-crime reporter: He’s happily married to his college sweetheart, he’s a first-time dad to the most adorable baby girl in existence, and he’s making ends meet as a rookie PI. But when Charlie meets Friday Finley, a frightened sixteen-year-old runaway on a stakeout-gone-wrong, his world gets a little more complicated.
Friday is looking for her estranged father Shawn, an unreliable alcoholic who left when she was young—and who also happens to be her only shot at avoiding the foster care system since her mother’s death a few weeks earlier. At first, Charlie believes the man is simply hiding out somewhere, avoiding his responsibilities as usual, but the more he investigates, the more unsettling—and dangerous—Shawn’s disappearance becomes. When his own family is threatened, Charlie realizes he’s in over his head, but can he back out now that he’s begun to care for Friday as his own?
A perfect blend of humor and high stakes, Stakeouts and Strollers is a heartwarming story of fatherhood, family, and what it really means to be a “Girl Dad.”
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Stephy George
