Lisa Unger Books in Order
Explore Lisa Unger books in order, with quick summaries, series guides, and where-to-start tips for her standalones, linked thrillers, and short fiction.
Last updated: June 9, 2026
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Publication Order
39 books
Angel Fire
by Lisa Unger
2002
Driven by the murder of her mother, true crime writer Lydia Strong investigates a string of disappearances that nobody else seems to notice. As she digs deeper with former FBI agent Jeffrey Mark, the case turns frighteningly personal.
The Darkness Gathers
by Lisa Unger
2003
Lydia Strong receives an anonymous plea to find missing teenager Tatiana Quinn and cannot look away. What begins as one rescue mission grows into a dangerous hunt across borders, with a powerful enemy pushing back.
Twice
by Lisa Unger
2004
Artist Julian Ross is found standing over her husband's body, and the murder echoes her first husband's death. Lydia Strong and Jeffrey Mark enter a bloody, deeply personal case while Lydia's own past comes stalking back.
Smoke
by Lisa Unger
2005
Lydia and Jeffrey search for a missing former student who had been chasing answers about her brother's supposed suicide. The deeper they go, the more the evidence slips away and the more urgent the danger becomes.
Beautiful Lies
by Lisa Unger
2006
One random act of heroism and a package on her doorstep shatter Ridley Jones's perfect New York life. Suddenly she is questioning her family, her name, and everyone she thought she could trust.
Sliver of Truth
by Lisa Unger
2007
Ridley Jones spots the same unknown man lurking in photo after photo and cannot let it go. Her search pulls her back into the lies around her past and into fresh danger from people who want answers too.
Black Out
by Lisa Unger
2008
Annie Powers's polished Florida life starts cracking when buried memories begin forcing their way back. To protect her daughter and herself, she has to piece together a past her mind has tried hard to erase.
Die for You
by Lisa Unger
2008
Isabel Raine's husband leaves for work and vanishes, and the man police describe does not match the husband she knew. Her search for answers becomes a fast-moving unraveling of identity, betrayal, and fear.
Fragile
by Lisa Unger
2010
In the close-knit town of The Hollows, a teenage girl disappears and suspicion spreads fast. Psychologist Maggie Cooper starts digging on her own, even as the case begins to threaten her family from the inside.
Darkness, My Old Friend
by Lisa Unger
2011
Former police chief Jones Cooper is adrift when a psychic, a man searching for his missing mother, and a troubled teen pull him into a new Hollows mystery. Old wounds and new dangers meet in the same small town.
Heartbroken
by Lisa Unger
2012
A novelist, a waitress, and a hard-edged matriarch converge on remote Heart Island, each carrying private damage. Family secrets, dark memories, and the island's own past make their collision brutal.
Crazy Love You
by Lisa Unger
2014
Graphic novelist Ian has built a new life in New York, but his bond with childhood friend Priss remains toxic and impossible to shake. As old secrets push back, the line between devotion, madness, and menace blurs.
In the Blood
by Lisa Unger
2014
College senior Lana Granger takes a babysitting job with a manipulative boy while hiding a past built on lies. When her closest friend disappears, every falsehood she has told starts closing in.
The Burning Girl
by Lisa Unger
2014
Ten years later, Eloise has accepted her place as a working psychic in The Hollows. As she uncovers dark local history and sees her young granddaughter's gifts awakening, the whispers grow more dangerous.
The Whispers
by Lisa Unger
2014
After a devastating accident leaves Eloise Montgomery widowed and in a coma, she wakes to terrifying psychic visions. Grief and strange new abilities pull her toward the voices of lost women and girls.
The Three Sisters
by Lisa Unger
2015
Nineteen-year-old Finley comes to live with Eloise, and the older woman's powers begin to shift. Together they are drawn into a father's search for justice, and into the buried darkness of The Hollows.
Ink and Bone
by Lisa Unger
2016
Haunted by visions and voices she cannot control, Finley Montgomery turns to her psychic grandmother Eloise for help. Their search for a missing girl reveals yet another dark layer beneath The Hollows.
The Whispering Hollows
by Lisa Unger
2016
This three-part novella follows Eloise Montgomery across decades, from the tragedy that awakens her powers to the growing gifts of her granddaughter Finley. It deepens the eerie history of The Hollows without losing the human grief at its center.
The Red Hunter
by Lisa Unger
2017
Claudia Bishop hopes restoring an old house will help rebuild her shattered life. But the house is tied to Zoey Drake's violent past, and the two women are headed toward the same reckoning.
The Sleep Tight Motel
by Lisa Unger
2018
On the run from a violent man, Eve hides out at a lonely roadside motel that feels safe at first. Then the sounds through the wall and the empty rooms start telling a very different story.
Under My Skin
by Lisa Unger
2018
A year after her husband's unsolved murder, Poppy begins losing time, blacking out, and doubting her own memory. As nightmares sharpen into clues, she is forced back into the mystery she has tried to outlive.
The Stranger Inside
by Lisa Unger
2019
Rain Winter survived a childhood abduction attempt, but the case never really left her. When a vigilante-style killing echoes that old crime, she is pulled back toward memories she has worked hard to bury.
Confessions on the 7:45
by Lisa Unger
2020
A stalled commuter train and a stranger's confession pull Selena Murphy into a web of lies. When her nanny disappears days later, a casual conversation starts to look like the first move in something much darker.
Let Her Be
by Lisa Unger
2020
Will cannot stop reading his ex-girlfriend's polished online life for signs that something is wrong. As his obsession deepens, the question stops being whether he is right and becomes whether he can trust his own view of events.
All My Darkest Impulses
by Lisa Unger
2021
Disgraced professor Matthew Merle returns to his grandfather's mansion, while childhood friend Claire needs sanctuary after a patient turns violent. Their homecoming stirs the old mystery of a girl who vanished in the woods.
Circling the Drain
by Lisa Unger
2021
Mason Brandt, once a suspect in a girl's disappearance, flees new suspicion after a female student is murdered. Merle House promises shelter, but it only drags him deeper into the past.
Fog Descending
by Lisa Unger
2021
Spiritual cleanser Ian Randall comes back to Merle House after grief hollowed out his faith in the unseen. The restless woods and unfinished business offer him answers, and maybe something darker.
Last Girl Ghosted
by Lisa Unger
2021
After a man she met on a dating app vanishes, a woman learns she may not have been the first to fall for him. Her search through his digital trail becomes a hunt through obsession, missing women, and her own blind spots.
Love the Way You Lie
by Lisa Unger
2021
Matthew, Claire, Ian, and Mason are all back at Merle House, forced to face the vanished girl and the secrets that shaped them. In the final installment, the past stops taking no for an answer.
Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six
by Lisa Unger
2022
Three couples head to a luxury cabin for a weekend that is supposed to smooth over old tensions. A storm, too many secrets, and a host who feels too involved turn the getaway into a trap.
The Dark Door
by Lisa Unger
2022
After horror writer Rene Duke dies, his daughter Pip is overwhelmed by voices, guilt, and suspicion. From inside a treatment center, she has to sort inheritance battles and family secrets from the chaos in her own mind.
Christmas Presents
by Lisa Unger
2023
In snowy Little Valley, a true crime podcaster reopens the case that defined Madeline Martin's childhood. Old missing girls, a surviving victim, and a looming blizzard make for a very dark holiday.
Unknown Caller
by Lisa Unger
2023
Crisis-center worker Charlie Kroft is praised for saving lives, but one phone call drags her hidden guilt into the open. A mysterious stranger knows more about her than anyone should.
The Doll's House
by Lisa Unger
2024
Jules moves with her teenage daughter into her fiance's family mansion, hoping for a fresh start after widowhood. When Scout becomes attached to a handmade doll from the house, grief starts to feel dangerous.
The New Couple in 5B
by Lisa Unger
2024
Rosie and Chad inherit a glamorous Manhattan apartment at the historic Windermere and think their luck has changed. But the building's dark past, watchful staff, and a fresh death suggest the place wants something in return.
Close Your Eyes and Count to 10
by Lisa Unger
2025
A billionaire adventurer stages a high-stakes hide-and-seek game on a storm-lashed island. Single mother Adele joins for the prize, only to find herself trapped in a deadly contest.
The Kill Clause
by Lisa Unger
2025
Hit woman Paige walks into a holiday job and finds a child in the crossfire. Refusing the kill puts her at odds with her own organization and sends her racing to survive Christmas.
Served Him Right
by Lisa Unger
2026
Ana Blacksmith's breakup brunch turns toxic when suspicion falls on her after shocking news about her ex. As rumors of an underground justice network spread, old family wounds and fresh vengeance collide.
The Safe Room
by Lisa Unger
2026
PI Rae Donovan arrives too late to speak to her dying father and instead finds signs he may have been poisoned. Searching his isolated home, she uncovers a hidden life that makes grief feel dangerous.
Where should I start?
If you want the breakout identity thriller: Beautiful Lies → Sliver of Truth
If you want the linked small-town books: Fragile → Darkness, My Old Friend → In the Blood → Crazy Love You → Ink and Bone
If you want a recent standalone first: Confessions on the 7:45 → Last Girl Ghosted → Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six → The New Couple in 5B
If you want to start at the very beginning: Angel Fire → The Darkness Gathers → Twice → Smoke
Author bio
Lisa Unger was born in New Haven, Connecticut, but she did not grow up in one place. As a child she lived in the Netherlands and the UK before her family settled in Long Valley, New Jersey. That early pattern of moving, watching, and starting over feels important when you look at her books, which are full of people who think they know where they belong until the ground shifts under them.
She was a story kid early on.
Her mother worked in a New Jersey library, and Unger has said she spent plenty of time there doing homework and soaking up books. At eighteen she moved to New York City for college at the New School, and she stayed in the city for the next thirteen years. After school she went into publishing at Penguin Putnam, starting in publicity and eventually rising to associate director. From the outside it looked like she was already in the book world. Secretly, she was still trying to become the writer she had always imagined she would be.
That second life started when she was nineteen. Sitting in a car under the elevated 1 train in the Bronx, she got the image of a woman running past a church in New Mexico. That woman became Lydia Strong, the damaged, driven investigator at the center of Angel Fire. Unger kept working on that novel through jobs, long hours, and everything else life was throwing at her. She wrote in the margins of her days, on commutes, in borrowed time, and it took her ten years to finish.
The long road mattered.
The first four Lydia Strong novels, Angel Fire, The Darkness Gathers, Twice, and Smoke, were published under her maiden name, Lisa Miscione. After she married and changed publishers, she began publishing as Lisa Unger, and a much wider readership found her with Beautiful Lies, the novel that introduced Ridley Jones and put questions of identity and family secrets right at the center of her work. It is still one of the clearest entry points into what she does best: take an ordinary life, crack it open, and show how much fear, love, memory, and self-invention can fit inside.
A lot of her best-known books work that same territory from different angles. Fragile and the later Hollows books use a small town outside New York to explore what communities hide from themselves. Under My Skin plays with grief, missing time, and the terror of not trusting your own mind. Confessions on the 7:45 starts with a chance conversation on a stalled train and turns it into a knot of betrayal. Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six and The New Couple in 5B show how good she is at taking a familiar thriller setup, a getaway, a dream apartment, and making it feel newly unsafe.
Her books are dark, but they are rarely cold.
Again and again, Unger comes back to women under pressure, families built on half-truths, missing people, old wounds that refuse to stay buried, and places that seem to keep score. Sometimes she leans toward the supernatural, especially in The Hollows books with Eloise and Finley Montgomery. Even then, the emotional core stays grounded. The fear matters, but so do grief, guilt, loyalty, and the need to know the truth, even when the truth makes life harder.
She now lives on the west coast of Florida with her family. She has written dozens of novels, novellas, and short stories, her work has been translated widely, and her books have sold in the millions. She has also drawn major award attention, including two Edgar nominations in the same year in 2019. The real through line, though, is simpler than that. She wanted to be a writer, kept showing up for the work, and built the kind of career that only seems inevitable after it has already happened.
Edited by
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