"I have to admit to struggling with all aspects of this list! For a start, how do you pick just 10 books from the amazing range of stories available to young people today? More importantly, what defines a book as a 'teen' novel or, come to that, a thriller? I read (and try to write) books where the central premise draws me in, the characters (of whatever age) are compelling and the story grips and then propels me through the pages.
As you'll see from the list below, my definition of thriller is pretty broad – covering fantasy, science fiction, historical and paranormal fiction. I've kept my focus mostly on books where the main character may not necessarily be a teen, with all the challenges that period of change brings with it, but certainly feels less than powerful in the world they inhabit. Indeed, the last four books on this list are really adult books. But, however you define them, these are all great reads…"
Sophie McKenzie is the award-winning author of a range of teen thrillers, including the Missing series (Girl, Missing, Sister, Missing and Missing Me), Blood Ties and Blood Ransom and the Medusa Project series. She has also written two romance series: the Luke and Eve books and the Flynn series, which starts with the novel Falling Fast.
Find out more about Sophie at sophiemckenziebooks.com
1. Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld
This trilogy – plus the companion novel Extras – is part sci-fi adventure and part insightful satire on society's obsession with youth and beauty. I love the feisty heroine, the twists and turns of the plot and the fully realised future world in which all young people are operated on at the age of 16 in order to make them blandly, uniformly beautiful.
2. The Kingdom by the Sea by Robert Westall
In complete contrast, The Kingdom by the Sea is set in a very real world, albeit now a historical one. Harry lives in the North East of England during the second world war. As the story starts, the air raid siren is sounding and, by the end of the first chapter Harry has lost everything – his home, his family, even his rabbits. I have rarely read a more compelling opening to a novel but the brilliance of this book is really in the way Harry learns to fend for himself, growing up while trying to find food and shelter on a daily basis. There's a perfect balance in the story between exciting action, when Harry faces terrible dangers, and the periods in between, where we are shown his thoughts and feelings about his situation.
My biggest gripe about modern thrillers is that they all too often end poorly, either in an over-blown, action-heavy bang or with an unsatisfying whimper. The Kingdom by the Sea has a great ending, which manages to be entirely convincing yet - to me, at least – completely unexpected.
3. Unrest by Michelle Harrison
This mysterious tale is both a romance and a ghost story but, for me, it also counts as a paranormal thriller because it's a page-turner with a really strong and exciting story. After a brush with death Elliott finds himself seeing ghosts and enduring horrific out-of-body experiences that leave him terrified. Desperate to understand what is happening to him, he goes to work at a supposedly haunted museum where he meets the intriguing Ophelia – and finds himself in real danger. The plot is full of twists and turns and the characters, especially Elliott and Ophelia, are truly compelling.
4. Dead Time by Anne Cassidy
The first book in Anne Cassidy's new series – The Murder Notebooks – tells the story of Rose and Joshua. One night her mother and his father went out for a meal and never returned. While Joshua is trying to find out what happened to them, Rose is trying to cope with having just witnessed a brutal murder. Dead Time is genuinely suspenseful and the ending left me eager to read the next book in the series.
5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
I was fascinated to read that Suzanne Collins came up with the idea for The Hunger Games series when she was flicking between TV channels – one showing war footage and the other a reality TV talent contest. The Hunger Games has a fantastic premise, brilliantly realised, as teenagers fight each other to the death on live TV. The first chapter of the first book is an absolute masterclass in creating the world of the story (vital and particularly challenging when you're setting your story in a fantasy future), establishing the main character and her core relationships and – most importantly – setting out a massive challenge for that character and making the reader care about her achieving it.
6. Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman
Tightly plotted, this story is a highly original twist on the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet. I found the structure of the book fascinating and used it as a model for my own book: Blood Ties. When I started visiting schools on author visits, Noughts and Crosses was one of those books every 12-year-old girl seemed to have read!
7. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
This is one of my favourite books. It follows the young life of scholarship student Richard who travels across America to attend an exclusive college on the East Coast and finds himself drawn to the other students in his ancient Greek class. As the story unfolds, Richard discovers the others are keeping a truly terrible secret. Suspense, tension and the darkest of cover ups keep the novel dramatic and pacy from start to finish. I have come back to The Secret History over and over again – it's fresh, powerful and compelling every time.
8. Sister by Rosamund Lupton
A sibling relationship is at the heart of this dark, psychological thriller in which older sister Beatrice searches for her missing younger sister. As the story progresses, Beatrice - shocked by what she finds out about Tess's life - refuses to accept that her sister is gone. This is really powerful storytelling with an amazing twist at the end that I didn't see coming.
9. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
I first read Rebecca years ago, when I was much the same age as its young, unnamed, narrator. The book is a great psychological drama, telling the story of a newly married innocent forced to live in the long shadow cast by her husband's first wife. Re-reading Rebecca recently I was struck by how the heroine's biggest handicap is her own lack of self-confidence and her most sympathetic quality is her own quiet, shy courage.
10. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
This contemporary psychological thriller is a really cleverly structured story about a man whose wife disappears on their fifth wedding anniversary. With more twists than a corkscrew, Gone Girl manages to work on two levels: as a fast-paced ride and as a dissection of a marriage in trouble. I loved the way my perceptions of the characters shifted depending on whether Nick or Amy was telling the story.
