Prepare to cover your eyes in shock and horror, shake your fists in anger, and erupt in roars of laughter at scintillating stories of outlandish revenge! Typically centred on female experience, domestic noir novels take many, many forms. While the genre often explores how women are victimised in domestic settings, many writers also deploy domestic noir to subvert ideas around female victimhood, crafting gripping stories of revenge, and twisted comic takes on domestic darkness.

On screen, we’re talking shows that range from the likes of hard-hitting thrillers like Angela Black, to darkly funny, juicy series set in suburbia — think Why Women Kill and Desperate Housewives.

In fact, many long-standing and top-selling domestic noir novels have been adapted for screen, among them Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, The Girl on the Train, Before I Go To Sleep, and Gone Girl.

If you’ve yet to read the original novels, they come highly recommended, as do all the books laid out below. But, before you browse the full collection, we’d like to highlight a couple of domestic noir dazzlers that have recently had us in their thrall.

First up, Katy Brent’s How to Kill Men and Get Away With It, an outrageously gruesome page-turner that engages with the #MeToo movement in devilishly funny, cutting style. One of our Book Club Recommendations of the Month, this is definitely one for fans of Killing Eve and Why Women Kill. 

Meanwhile, Dirty Laundry has more of a Desperate Housewives vibe. Set in suburban Ireland, it simmers with scandal, murder, and a whole lot of messed-up, curtain-twitching bitchiness before matters come to an explosive climax.

Ranging from chilling page-turners you’ll want to read with the light on, to deliciously twisted tales of turning the tables, read on to discover a host of heartily recommended domestic noir novels.