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As the days get shorter and the nights turn chill, here are five domestic thrillers to warm you up.

What Rose Forgot, Nevada Barr

Here’s a novel that taps into Boomers’ worst nightmare. Rose awakens in a hospital gown with big fat holes in her memory. As the mist lifts, Rose discovers she is living in a memory care unit but is certain she does not have dementia — just drugged to the gills. She sets about executing her escape, a feat that involves poisoning the night nurse with a day’s worth of sedatives. Rose is now on the lam — determined to discover who wants her out of the way, and why.

The Nanny, Gilly MacMillan

Jo, a recent widow, returns to Lake Hall with 10-year-old daughter, Ruby, to stay with her difficult mum. Jo has unhappy childhood memories at Lake Hall, beginning with the unexpected departure of her beloved nanny, Hannah. Soon, Jo and Ruby discover a skull in the lake. Our thoughts immediately turn to Hannah. But then a woman purporting to be Hannah shows up, 30 years later, and is soon entrusted with Ruby. This is MacMillan’s fifth novel, each markedly different from the last, each excellent. If you haven’t read her, “The Nanny” would be a fine place to start.

The Perfect Wife, JP Delaney

JP Delaney’s third novel in three years offers an audacious premise: Abbie wakes up, she assumes in hospital, her beloved husband Tim, a high-tech savant, at her bedside. To her horror, he tells her she is not his wife but a “cobot,” a companion robot he has developed to replace his wife, Abbie, who has mysteriously disappeared — with Tim the prime suspect. Her vivid memories, her appearance, her voice, are all based on his flesh-andblood wife. Soon cobot Annie sets off to discover the whereabouts of human Abbie.

29 Seconds, T.M. Logan

Sarah is a young academic at a London university whose career is stalled by a celebrity historian who demands her sexual favours in return for advancement. Through a fortunate happenstance, she is offered the opportunity to have one person in her life vanish. Will she take advantage of this sketchy offer and disappear her predatory supervisor? Of course she will. Sarah’s scholarly field is Christopher Marlowe, whose “Doctor Faustus” concerns a man who is offered a similar deal with the devil in exchange for his soul. Two young women take turns telling their story. Anna, 18, lives a sheltered life with her pious mom in Florida, near Astroland, a famed theme park. Rosie, 16, lives in Britain with parents who have never recovered from their visit to Astroland 15 years ago when their first child, Emily, vanished. Anna and Rosie embark on separate quests, Anna to find out who she is, Rosie to find her missing older sister. “A Girl Named Anna” won Britain’s Daily Mail’s first-novel competition. An exciting thriller, suitable for teenage readers, with cliffhangers, a plot that clicks along and likable central characters. A Girl Named Anna, Lizzy Barber