The Other Mrs.

Mary Kubica exploded onto the popular literary scene with the 2014 publication of her New York Times bestseller, The Good Girl, and has replicated her winning formula seven times since then. Her repertoire mostly features stories with strong female leads that are told through fragmented and unreliable narrative voices. According to the MasterClass article on psychological thrillers, the genre “often incorporate[s] elements of mystery and include[s] themes of crime, morality, mental illness, substance abuse, multiple realities or a dissolving sense of reality, and unreliable narrators” (“How to Write a Psychological Thriller.” Masterclass, 2021). Thrillers trace their origin to late 18th- and early 19th-century Gothic literature, as well as 20th-century film auteur Alfred Hitchcock. While this type of literature has never gone out of style, it began trending in the early 21st century and remains one of the most popular genres of literature, film, and TV series two decades later.

Mary Kubica is one of several women who dominate today’s scene, and along with writers like Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins has introduced a new subgenre: the domestic noir. This focus on marriage and domestic relationships and interpreting the world through a female lens has hooked readers, who are estimated to be 80% female (Gilbert, Sophie.