Recs if you like The Silent Patient...

books featured in the cozy video game “tiny bookshop”

Fiction has always been where truth hides. Across horror, thriller, literary fiction, fantasy & mystery every book on this list has something to say about power, who holds it, who destroys it, and how it reproduces itself.

this list spans from self help books that are actually helpful to in depth theories about healing. you would probably find quite a few of these books on your therapist’s bookshelf. maybe you are looking for deeper healing. maybe you are a therapist looking for your next read. welcome :)

| 2026 | verity: october 2 sense & sensibility: october 16 sunrise on the reaping: november 20 dune messiah: december 18

| 2027 | children of blood & bone: january 15 the nightingale: february 12 beach read: may 7

| 2028 | cinder: november 3

Here's every book so far from BOTM's monthly shortlist since February 2015 for anyone who wants to read them all like I do!

This includes book that have either mystery or thrillers as a primary or secondary genre. If you have recommendations to add please comment and I'll happily add them 💕

Featuring morally gray men, unreliable narrators, emotional damage, dragons, serial killers, fake dating, enemies-to-lovers, and at least 47 books someone claimed “changed their life.” Proceed with caution.

If being an unreliable narrator was a crime, these characters would be in trouble

All fiction books that appear in the Tiny Bookshop catalogue! Would sort them by genre as I read along.

Fiction (and some non-fiction) across genres featuring plagues, poisons, palace physicians, healers, and pre-antibiotic chaos. If it involves herbs, plagues, questionable remedies, court intrigue, or a morally complex healer experimenting in the corner, I want it.

books that shayne topp from smosh has read in 2025 (ones that he talked about or posted on social media at the end of the year)

HEAR ME OUT. These books at one point gave me ALL the emotions of a blue shell targeting me while I'm in first place!

Audiobooks that are less than 10 hours long and are safe for work AKA not aiming to get you (too) horned up at your desk (no guarantees that you won't cry or get the creeps though). Recommendations welcome!

Thrillers I read or want to read. Variety of authors.

Books with iconic and crazy twists

If you’re here, like me you might be tired of basically seeing the same plots and storylines over and over. This is a list of ones I’ve enjoyed that are all (mostly) different from each other*. Main thing in common might be the author.

*Can’t guarantee there aren’t similar types of twists/reveals lol.

A curated collection of stories told through cracks, mirrors, and shifting truths. These narrators bend memory, distort reality, and reshape the world to fit their own needs. Some lie with intention, others with fear, and some simply because the truth is too heavy to hold. These are the books that linger. The ones that make you question what you know. The ones you leave and don’t really know what just happened.

Everything from non-linear narratives, puzzle plots, weird realities and existential crises.

Books that made me go “Huh, Christopher Nolan could pull this off”.

Some choices on this list are vibes only so don’t ask me what’s my criteria lol