8 Books Like The God of the Woods

Cedar Valley is the ideal vacation spot. In the summer, hikers and campers pack the small Colorado town’s meadows and fields, while skiers take over the mountains in the winter. But things changed in 1985 when the bodies of two young boys were found along a hiking trail. 

Almost 40 years later, Detective Gemma Monroe is investigating the ghosts of Cedar Valley's past. Six months pregnant and stuck with a partner she can't trust, she must track down a killer who has been waiting in the shadows for years to strike again.

Harriet wants to spend her days reading classic adventure stories and ignoring her family's problems. That's easier said than done when her mother is heavily medicated and her father has quietly moved to another city. The shadow of her brother Robin's mysterious death 12 years prior looms over them all. 

So, inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson and Harry Houdini, Harriet and her only friend Hely decide to find Robin's murderer and punish him. But what starts out as innocent child's play soon becomes a dark and dangerous journey into the seedy underbelly of her Mississippi hometown.

On the last day of summer, the beautiful young wife of a real estate mogul vanished from the family’s lake house. Charlie, her daughter, has spent a decade struggling with the unexplained loss of her beloved mother. Now an inquisitive teenager, she wants to move on and live her life at Knollwood, the prestigious New England private school she attends. 

She's fallen in with the popular elites who lead the A's, the secret society that rules the school. To become an official member of the A’s, Charlie must play The Game, a semester-long, high-stakes scavenger hunt that could put more than her reputation at risk. But the deeper she sinks into this obsessive game, the more she finds herself confronting the mysteries of her mother's disappearance.

Adair never wanted to return to Culleton, New Jersey, the town where she grew up. Circumstances, however, have forced her to come back and move in to Moye House, the old mansion where her family once lived. 

Being in Culleton forces Adair to remember Rowan, her childhood best friend who disappeared during a town parade when she was only 12 years old. Nobody knows what happened and it seems like even fewer care. But Rowan's brother still wants to find out, and alongside Adair, their investigation will forever change this small town haunted by tragedy.

In the aftermath of the First World War, anti-German sentiment is commonplace across the country. The Hess family is trying to live peacefully on the desolate Iowa plains in the shadow of this hatred when, one night, their two youngest daughters vanish. 

In the weeks after Esther and Myrle’s disappearance, their siblings desperately search for them, roaming from the endless farmlands to the big city of Chicago. As the Hesses grow increasingly isolated, their fears magnify. Were Esther and Myrle abducted? Murdered? Banished? Or did they just want to escape the suffocating world forced upon them by merit of their identity? 

In the summer of 1996, two boys run from a playground into the adjoining woods, but only one comes out. Things get even stranger when two people connected with the missing boy are murdered. Detective Sergeant Tom Thorne is brought on board to investigate, but he's already overwhelmed by his personal problems, including the messy fallout of his divorce. It's a busy summer as London prepares to host a major football championship, and the clock is ticking to find the culprit. 

Celia Lily, a beautiful socialite and wife of prominent art collector Jack Lily, was the unofficial queen of Vanishing Falls, a remote town deep within the rainforests of Tasmania. Now, she's vanished without a trace. 

The police are flabbergasted, but local girl Joelle Smithton thinks she might know the truth. She knows more about Jack and his unsavory business connections than anyone expects, and she can't help but notice how everyone in Vanishing Falls, including her own husband, is acting suspiciously. What happened to Celia, and how deep does this mystery go?

Long Creek is not a happy town. In the aftermath of a late November snowstorm, 5-year-old Jamie Brokow, the son of wealthy divorced parents, is abducted. Despite paying the ransom, the Brokows never see their son again. 

Shortly afterward, Fran Spicer, a local reporter covering the case, dies in a mysterious car crash. The police think it was an accident, but newspaper editor Will Schafer disagrees. He's determined to find out the truth, but strangers aren't welcome in Long Creek and the locals don't want their many secrets to be uncovered.