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Is there anything more satisfying than a brilliant plot twist? A truly great one can make a work of fiction unforgettable, turning everything that you thought you knew upside down. Sometimes they’re achieved through an unreliable narrator, others by a string of red herrings that trick you into reaching the wrong conclusion.
In crime thrillers, part of the fun is trying to work out how the story will end, with the knowledge that you are likely to be tripped up before the resolution. But the best plot twists in literature are when you least expect them, whether it’s the discovery of Mr Rochester’s lunatic wife in Jane Eyre Atonement .
Click through the gallery to see our 18 favourite literary plot twists. There are, of course, major spoilers – you’ve been warned!
Show all 17 Book plot twists We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver (2003) Lionel Shriver’s dark novel is set in the aftermath of a high-school massacre, told from the perspective of the killer’s mother, Eva. She is coming to terms with her son Kevin’s actions, as told through a series of letters to her husband, Franklin. The twist comes when it is revealed that Franklin and their daughter, Celia, are in fact dead, having been murdered by Kevin before he travelled to the school, in a final act of hatred towards his mother.
Book plot twists The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant (1884) Guy de Maupaussant was known for his signature twist endings, but arguably his best known is in his short story The Necklace. It tells of a lowly Frenchwoman, Madame Mathilde Loisel, who describes her poor fortune as “an accident of fate”. After her husband receives an invitation to a party thrown by the Ministry of Education, she borrows a spectacular diamond necklace from her friend, Madame Forestier, only to lose it. Desperate to find a replacement, she and her husband sell everything they own. It is a decade later, when Mathilde bumps into Madame Forestier, that she learns the original necklace was in fact a fake, and worth a mere 500 francs.
Book plot twists Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (1847) The course of true love never did run smooth, and Charlotte Bronte’s beloved novel is a classic example of that. When the courageous orphan Jane Eyre accepts a job as a governess at Thornfield Hall, she quickly falls in love with her brooding employer Mr Rochester. After she reveals her true feelings, he proposes marriage and, despite consternation from those around them, they head to church. Yet Jane is dealt a crushing blow when it is revealed that Mr Rochester is already married, to a woman named Bertha Mason. He drags her back to Thrornfield Hall and makes the dramatic introduction with yet another twist: Bertha is mad, and has been living in the attic for years. A devastated Jane flees Thornfield, unable to compromise her Christian values and remain with a married man.
Book plot twists Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier (1938) This classic of gothic literature is a masterfully plotted suspense novel about a young and naive woman who becomes the second wife of the cold and aristocratic Maxim de Winter. Its heroine comes to his Cornish mansion, Manderley and finds herself competing with the ghost of her husband's dead wife, Rebecca. The narrative is built upon two unexpected twists. First, we realise that Rebecca, despite all the housekeeper, Mrs Danvers has led us to believe, was in fact evil, and that Maxim never loved her – in fact, he murdered her. In another shocking twist, Rebecca is revealed to have been terminally ill when Maxim killed her, and not pregnant with her cousin and lover, Jack Favell's child, as she had claimed.
Book plot twists Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling (2007) In the seventh and final Harry Potter novel, readers discover that Professor Snape, one of Harry's lead tormentors throughout the series, has been looking out for him all along. After Snape's dramatic death at the hands of the evil Lord Voldemort, he uses magic to share his memories with Harry and reveal the truth. In a heart-wrenching twist, it emerges that Snape not only loved Harry’s mother but agreed to watch over him at Dumbledore’s request, and risk his life as a double agent pretending to serve Voldemort.
Book plot twists The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (1898) An unnamed governess narrates the strange experiences of seeing ghosts at Bly, a country house in Essex, as she cares for two children, Miles and Flora, who are under the guardianship of their uncle. Those ghosts turn out to be Ms Jessel, the children’s last governess and Peter Quint, a former valet. Nobody seems to see the ghosts except the governess – or do they? Just as you expect Miles to be released from a ghost's control, as Flora was before him, he dies in the arms of the governess. More than 100 years after the novel was first published, readers still can't decide whether the ghosts were real, or if the governess was simply mad.
Book plot twists My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult (2004) This 2004 novel is about 13-year-old Anna, who takes her parents to court in order to win the right to refuse to continue donating organs to her sick sister, Kate. While her parents try to paint her as selfish, it emerges that Kate is the one urging Anna to take action. A tragic and cruel twist of fate takes place when, just as the judge has ruled in Anna’s favour, she is injured in a car accident with the lawyer who is given power of attorney. A doctor informs her parents that Anna is brain-dead before asking if they have considered organ donation. Anna's lawyer gives her permission before Anna’s life support machine is switched off.
Book plot twists Shutter Island by Denis Lehane (2003) US Marshal Teddy Daniels and his partner Chuck Aule investigate the disappearance of a murderer from a hospital for the criminally insane. But just as the reader is identifying with Teddy’s noble fight for justice in a corrupt system, everything is turned on its head. Teddy is not a US Marshal after all, but a man named Andrew Laeddis – the most dangerous patient on the island – who murdered his wife after she drowned her three children. His partner, meanwhile, is actually a psychiatrist who has staged the events of the previous days in order to help him confront his past.
Book plot twists Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1893) Fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s popular detective stories were devastated upon reading The Adventure of the Final Problem, in which Sherlock Holmes apparently perishes after falling off a cliff while battling his greatest nemesis Professor Moriarty. Readers were furious, and wrote angry letters to The Strand magazine, which published the stories, threatening to cancel their subscriptions. Such was the uproar that Conan Doyle decided to concede and publish The Adventures of the Empty House in 1903, in which he reveals that Sherlock managed to survive the Reichenbach Falls.
Book plot twists Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding (2013) Bridget Jones fans didn’t see this one coming. In Helen Fielding’s third book, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, set 14 years after the events in the second novel, it is revealed that Bridget is a widow after the death of Mark Darcy. But we all thought they lived happily ever after? The revelation was not received well by fans, to the point where directors of the film adaptation decided to chance the plot completely and write out Darcy's death.
Book plot twists Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (2012) When Amy Dunne disappears on her wedding anniversary, her husband Nick Dunne becomes the prime suspect in her murder. But in one of the most talked-about twists of the year, it emerges that Amy is still alive and is trying to frame her husband after learning he has been unfaithful.
Book plot twists The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (2015) This psychological thriller novel sets up three main suspects in a woman's disappearance: her husband Scott, Dr Kamal Abdic, and Rachel, an alcoholic divorcee who may have killed her in a sudden fit of rage. Of course, it was none of the above: Rachel's gaslighting ex-partner Tom had been having an affair with Megan, his child's nanny and his lover. It emerges that before he left Rachel, he had used her blackouts to trick her into thinking she had been violent or aggressive.
Book plot twists Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (2002) The orphan Sue Trinder is sent to help Richard ‘Gentleman’ Rivers to seduce a rich heiress, Maud Lily. By pretending to be her maid, Sue has to persuade the lady to elope with Gentleman, after which he plans to commit Maud to a mental asylum. Sue and Maud develop a physical attraction towards each other, but Sue, feeling she has no choice, persuades Maud to marry Gentleman. Yet when they arrive at the asylum, it is Sue, rather than Maud, who is admitted. Sue realises she has been conned, and the readers learn that Sue and Maud were switched at birth.
Book plot twists Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (1996) The unnamed narrator, a troubled insomniac, forms an underground fight club with soap salesman Tyler Durden. After a string of misadventures, the narrator realises that Tyler is actually a result of his multiple personality disorder.
Book plot twists And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (1939) It's impossible to read an Agatha Christie whodunit and not be surprised – it’s never who you expect. This 1939 story happens to be the world's best-selling mystery novel, and centres on 10 strangers who are gathered on an island off the coast of Devon by the mysterious Mr and Mrs Owen. As each of the guests is killed off, It appears the killer must surely be the last person standing (in this case Vera, who then kills herself). But it turns out that it was, in fact, Justice Wargrave all along. How did he get away with it? Simple. He faked his own death.
Book plot twists Before I Go to Sleep by SJ Watson (2008) This psychological thriller tells the story of Christine Lucas, who is suffering from anterograde amnesia. She wakes up on a daily basis with no idea who she is and has to reacquaint herself with her husband Ben, who helps her remember her life. On her doctor’s advice, she uses a journal to try and piece her memories together. The clever twist? The man claiming to be Ben is not Christine’s husband but is the man she had an affair with, who attacked her and caused her memory problems. She is reunited with her real husband and son, who she had been told was dead. But will she forget all of this the next day?
Book plot twists Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001) Briony Tallis is a precocious child who stumbles upon her older sister, Cecila, in a compromising position with their housekeeper's son, Robbie. Already believing him to be a maniac, Briony makes a false accusation of rape against him after her cousin, Lola, is attacked. Robbie is sent to prison and then enlisted to serve in World War II, after which the reader informed that he is reunited with Cecilia so they can finally live out their lives together. In a crushing revelation, an older Briony then tells the reader that their reunion is another lie, that Robbie died in the war and Cecila perished during a bomb raid. The novel she has written about the couple is her attempt to make amends for ruining their real-life chance at happiness.
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