10 pacy books to read this Easter
BY Emily Powter-Robinson
26th Mar 2024
With the long Bank Holiday weekend in touching distance, there’s no better time to sit back and relax with a pacy read. These books will have you turning the pages faster than you can eat an entire packet of mini eggs in one sitting. This reading list, featuring novels by some of our talented former students and teaching team, has a book for everyone – whether you're after a historical novel based on a true crime, a gritty police detective series or a chilling courtroom drama.
The Maiden by Kate Foster
Recently longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2024 and inspired by a real-life case, The Maiden gives a voice to women otherwise silenced by history. Described as a seventeenth-century-set whodunit, the novel revolves around a respectable noblewoman accused of the shocking murder of her lover. With a feminist revisionist twist, the tension of this historical crime novel persists until the very last page.
Kate Foster studied on our six-month online Writing Your Novel course in 2020 – she is now represented by Curtis Brown literary agent Viola Hayden.
Read our interview with Kate and Viola
Death of a Lesser God (The Malabar House Series) by Vaseem Khan
In the fourth rip-roaring thriller in the award-winning Malabar House series, Persis and Archie travel to the old colonial capital of Calcutta, where they collide head-on with the prejudices and bloody politics of an era engulfed in flame. Vaseem Khan will transport you to post-partition India in the latest instalment of his much loved series.
Learn more from Vaseem, bestselling crime novelist and chair of The CWA, on our six-week Writing Crime Fiction course. Starts 11 Apr.
The Skeleton Key by Erin Kelly
A Waterstones Thriller of the Month, The Skeleton Key is a truly ingenious thriller about a decades-old literary treasure hunt and the sinister passions and obsessions that are reignited when a cult mystery picture book is reissued. An atmospheric read about art, ambition, toxic families, the perils of success and long-kept secrets...
Join Erin on our six-week Writing a Psychological Thriller course. Write a twisty, suspenseful thriller that readers won’t be able to put down. Next course starts 11 April.
Black Thorn by Sarah Hilary
CBC tutor and Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year winner, Sarah Hilary, is back with a slow-burn psychological mystery set against the abandonment of an exclusive housing development and the devastation of the families that lived there...
With a compelling, diverse cast of characters, and moving back-and-forth between time periods with an increasingly pervasive sense of unease, readers are asked: how much do you really know about the people next door?
Join Sarah on our Writing Crime & Thrillers – Advanced course. Work on your crime novel or psychological thriller with dedicated online teaching across 9 weeks. Apply by 1 April.
The Interpreter by Brooke Robinson
With the tag line 'The most dangerous person in the courtroom isn’t the killer…' you know you're in for a juicy courtroom drama with Brooke Robinson's debut novel! The novel follows a police interpreter and single mum who begins deliberately mistranslating statements to secure convictions, only for someone to discover what she’s doing and seek justice of their own.
Brooke Robinson studied on our Writing a Psychological Thriller course in 2020.
Read our interview with Brooke
The CSI Ally Dymond series by Tina Orr Munro
Fans of Val McDermid, Jane Casey and Cara Hunter will want to pick up the gripping CSI Ally Dymond series. Fast paced and incredibly twisty, both books will have you guessing right until the end. And when you're finished with book one, you can dive straight into the second!
Order your copy of Breakneck Point
Order your copy of Slaughterhouse Farm
The first novel in the series, Breakneck Point, was developed on our six-month online Writing Your Novel course.
Read Tina's advice on how to write a crime series
The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey
If you love a unique voice and a compelling mystery story, then you'll lap up The List of Suspicious Things. This debut novel (which is already a Sunday Times bestseller!) follows 12-year-old Miv in 1970s Yorkshire as she launches her own investigation into the serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper.
Jennie has studied on several of our online courses, including our popular How to Write Your Novel series and our three-month Writing Your Novel course.
Read our interview with Jennie
The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou by Eleni Kyriacou
Eleni's second novel is inspired by the true story of the penultimate woman to be hanged in Britain – a Cypriot grandmother who has been largely forgotten. A compelling historical crime novel set in the Greek diaspora of 1950s London, this is an enthralling and wholly original novel.
Eleni worked on her first novel, She Came To Stay, on our three-month Writing Your Novel course in London.
Read Eleni's blog on how to turn historical fact into compelling fiction
The Things We Do To Our Friends by Heather Darwent
The debut novel from CBC alumna Heather Darwent is perfect for readers who enjoy moody, rainy dark academia: it’s set in Edinburgh amongst a close-knit group of friends who have wicked plans for outsiders (and each other). Toxic friendships, shifting loyalties, and the clever setting combine to make this a thriller which needs no supernatural hook.
Heather Darwent studied on two of our online courses; our six-week Edit & Pitch Your Novel course and our selective three-month Writing Your Novel course.
Read our interview with Heather
The books linked in this blog can be found on our Bookshop.org shop front. Curtis Brown Creative receive 10% whenever someone buys from our bookshop.org page.