Books like Holly Jackson

Sadie’s younger sister has been murdered; then Sadie disappears. A radio journalist retraces her journey through a serialized podcast while Sadie’s own chapters reveal what his investigation cannot.

Like Holly Jackson, Summers turns interviews, recordings, omissions, and contradictory testimony into evidence the reader must interpret. But Sadie is darker and more emotionally raw: its suspense comes not only from uncovering facts, but from the terrible gap between a girl’s lived reality and the story adults construct around her. An Odyssey Award winner with an especially celebrated full-cast audiobook, it is one of YA crime fiction’s defining novels—and its voice is exceptionally hard to shake.

True-crime obsessive Stevie Bell arrives at Ellingham Academy determined to solve the school’s legendary 1930s kidnapping, announced by a mocking riddle signed “Truly, Devious.” Soon, past and present begin pressing against each other.

Stevie offers much of Pip’s appeal: she is methodical, awkward, stubborn, and exhilaratingly good at noticing what other people dismiss. Johnson makes deduction itself pleasurable—coded messages, old statements, timelines, architectural oddities—while surrounding the puzzle with eccentric classmates whose friendships and rivalries give every clue emotional consequences. This beloved series opener is ideal for anyone who wants a mystery large enough to live inside rather than merely race through.

At elite Niveus Academy, Devon and Chiamaka are selected as senior-class prefects—then an anonymous texter called Aces begins broadcasting secrets designed to destroy them.

The kinship lies in the escalation: each revelation changes the meaning of what came before, the polished school environment grows steadily more menacing, and two teenagers must investigate because the authorities cannot be trusted to protect them. Yet Ace of Spades has its own fierce purpose, using thriller mechanics to expose how institutions manufacture innocence for some people and guilt for others. A New York Times bestseller and landmark YA debut, it delivers the addictive turns of a conspiracy mystery with an anger and ambition that make those turns matter.