Melissa Larsen Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Melissa Larsen is a published author. She is known for writing her novels, Shutter and The Lost House.

She attended Columbia University where she got her MFA and then New York University, where she got her BA. When Melissa is not busy traveling someplace to do some research for her next novel, she is busy residing in New York City and teaching creative writing. This is always good because for some reason when she goes to research a book and travels she somehow manages to hurt herself in the process.

Shutter is a 2021 novel by Melissa Larsen. If you have been looking for that next great book to pick up, devour, and then set on a shelf or put on pause until your next read, this is a great selection!

A young lady decides that she is going to star in the latest project by a film maker, but doesn’t have any idea really what she is signing onto. She starts to understand that the film is not exactly what she expected in a debut novel that will give you thrills and chills!

Betty Roux’s father passed away, but she has yet to let herself mourn. Instead of doing that, she pushes away from her mother. She also manages to break up with her boyfriend and decides that it’s a good time to leave it all behind so that she can move to NYC. She has no idea what she wants out of life, but she knows that she wants to run.

She is given the chance out of the blue to be the leading role in the new project by the unique indie filmmaker Anthony Marino and thinks that it is a great chance for her. It’s a great set up, too. She’ll live in a cabin for a month on a private island located off the Maine coast along with a cast and crew of five people. Her mother wants to warn against it, but Betty finds herself too pulled to Anthony and his charisma to say no to the project.

While there, Anthony gives her the identity of Lola. Betty is telling herself that this is what she has been looking for all along. It is a new chance to reinvent herself once more. Then they start filming and she gets in touch with Sammy, the caretaker of the island. Betty starts to understand how little it is that she really knows about the director of this film and the film itself. Will she be able to get out before it’s too late? Is she in danger or just overreacting to something that looks worse than it is? Read this thriller to find out what happens!

The Lost House is a 2025 novel by Melissa Larsen. This is the story of a young lady with a past who goes back to the home of her ancestors in Iceland so that she can look into a horrible murder that has gone on in the past that involved her family.

Four decades prior, a young woman and her baby daughter were discovered in the cold snow. They were lying together and making no noise, as though they were sleeping. They looked very peaceful but the evidence reveals that something horrible happened because the mother’s throat was slashed and a closer look at the infant shows that it drowned. The case went unsolved, there were no arrests. There was just a rumor that the husband did it, taking his son and going to California after, which made him seem all the more guilty of it.

It’s been almost half a century more and a year after his passing. His granddaughter Agnes wants to clear the name of her grandfather for good. Recovering from his death and injury, Agnes wants a reason so that she can get away from the mess of things that used to be her life. That is precisely why she takes the invitation extended by Nora Carver, a true crime expert, to be on her podcast and be interviewed.

Agnes puts her bag together and gets on a last second flight that is going to some remote town in Iceland. This is the place where Nora is staying. It’s where Agnes’s father grew up and where it was said that her grandfather killed his wife and baby daughter. But she has no idea whether it is true or not.

It could be coincidence that a local girl vanishes the same weekend that Agnes gets there. But Agnes and Nora see that their investigation gets completely flipped. The people in this small town in Iceland is once more a suspect.

Looking to get to the bottom of all types of truths from the past and present, Agnes discovers that she is getting pulled into a web of secrets that may end up risking the redemption that she wants to deliver. It may also threaten her life, as she finds out how far someone will go in order to protect their family as well as their safety and secrets. Set in Iceland during the winter, this is a suspenseful thriller full of twists that will have you turning the pages to find out what happens! Check out The Lost House to see how it ends!