With classes coming to an end, we are all realizing how little we have to do while stuck sitting in our houses. As an avid book lover, I have spent a significant amount of my time during this quarantine trying to make my way through the dozens of unread books on my shelf. I have picked up book after book, weeding out the good from the bad, and have compiled a list of a select few novels that kept my attention until the very end. The following are five books that will keep you intrigued and even have book haters hooked until the end.

“Leaving Time” by Jodi Picoult

“Leaving Time” is by far my favorite book that I have read and it is solely because of the crazy twist of an ending. In this novel, a young girl, Jenna, enlists the help of a psychic, Serenity Jones, and an ex-detective, Virgil Stanhope, to help her find her mother who has been missing for 10 years. Jones made a career out of finding missing persons, only to later doubt her gifts, while Stanhope originally worked the case to find Jenna’s mother. With an unlikely team, this book is full of twists around every page with a shocking end that I guarantee you will not be able to guess no matter how hard you try. Pick up this book and then just try to put it down — I dare you.

“Disclaimer” by Renee Knight

What if you realized that the book you picked up to read was actually about you? This is the premise for “Disclaimer.” When a mysterious novel appears at Catherine Ravenscroft’s house, she picks it up, curious and wanting to read it, only to quickly realize that the book isn’t fiction — but actually a terrifying tale from her past. “Disclaimer” kept me turning pages, unable to put the book down until the very end when it finally revealed the horror of Ravenscroft’s past. With a slightly slow start, “Disclaimer” soon pulls you into it with an intense mystery that will have you finishing the book in a day.

“The Girl Before” by J.P. Delaney

Take a smart house with a bloody history, two women with traumatizing pasts and a control-freak of a man and you get “The Girl Before.” Featuring an interwoven story about the previous tenant, Emma, and the current tenant, Jane, of 1 Folgate Street who share eerie similarities, this book is sure to keep you flipping its pages to get to the truth. With the past tenant having died in the house, will Jane meet the same fate? “The Girl Before” will take you through a page-turning journey to discover the truth about Emma’s death and the fate of Jane and keep you guessing until the end.

“Yesternight” by Cat Winters

“Yesternight” is a historical fiction novel with a gripping mystery at its core. Set in 1925, this novel follows the story of a young, seven-year-old math genius, Janie, who begins to tell eerily realistic stories about how she is a woman named Violet who drowned decades ago. These stories are quickly disregarded until a psychologist named Alice leads an investigation into the odd connection between young Janie and the long-dead Violet. This book will keep you hooked as you try to search for the odd connection between these girls and ask yourself, “Do past lives exist?”

“Cold Cold Heart” by Tami Hoag

Imagine being the one that got away … from a notorious serial killer. After Dana Nolen narrowly escapes an untimely death, she returns home to find that the police have reopened the cold case of her childhood best friend, who disappeared without a trace several years earlier. But what does Dana’s experience have to do with her childhood friend’s case? This novel leads you on a page-turning journey through the lens of Dana’s experience with PTSD to discover a long-buried truth that may prove too terrible to be believed. With an ending that will leave you shocked, this book will have you captivated until its end.