Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sweet Water | 2021 | Cara Reinard | Buy |
| 2 | Into the Sound | 2021 | Cara Reinard | Buy |
| 3 | The Den | 2022 | Cara Reinard | Buy |
| 4 | The Wife at the Window | 2024 | Cara Reinard | Buy |
| 5 | The Clinic | 2024 | Cara Reinard | Buy |
| 6 | Never Come Back | 2025 | Cara Reinard | Buy |
Cara Reinard’s standalone novels are domestic thrillers built around family secrets and morally complicated women. Most are set in western Pennsylvania, where affluent communities provide a backdrop for stories about what people will do when their carefully maintained lives start falling apart.
Sweet Water (2021), her breakthrough bestseller, follows a couple who find their teenage son near his girlfriend’s body and agree to a cover-up managed by the husband’s wealthy family. Into the Sound (2021) sends a woman searching for her missing sister during a hurricane on Long Island, uncovering disturbing secrets about their mother’s psychological experiments on her own children. The Den (2022) brings four siblings home to fight over their father’s estate, with deadly results.
Her more recent novels continue to explore similar ground. The Wife at the Window (2024) tells two women’s conflicting accounts of an infant’s death. The Clinic (2024) places a fertility clinic embryologist in an impossible position when her ex-boyfriend arrives as a patient with his wife. Never Come Back (2025) follows a mother whose son is abducted by a shadowy organization connected to her husband’s past.