8 Influencer Thrillers That Show Not All Glitters is Gold

This is Piazza’s send up of the whole tradwife genre. Bex and Lizzie were inseparable in college until one day, Bex just ghosts Lizzie. She has no idea why. She goes on to lead her own life as a magazine writer who is doing okay. Lizzie can’t help but watch the Instagram videos of her former friend, now Rebecca Sommers, who has five children and lives on a farm. Then one day, Rebecca calls her with a promise of an exclusive interview for a big announcement at MomBomb, an influencing conference of mothers at an exclusive resort. Intrigued, nervous, and keen to jump start her career, she decides to go and find out more about her ex-BFF. But when Rebecca goes missing and her husband is murdered, Lizzie has to find out who her former friend really is.

Jealousy abounds in Sutanto’s influencer world. They say some people remember the ones who help them get ahead and there are those who don’t. Aspen Palmer is one of the latter. Meredith Lee taught her everything she knew about being an influencer, but Aspen has left her behind. Feeling spiteful, Meredith begins to follow Aspen everywhere, even stealing one of Aspen’s kid’s iPads that had access to everything…and Aspen has no idea why her influencer empire is suddenly falling. But Aspen isn’t going to lose her hard won fame without a fight.

Lucy Foley’s latest does not disappoint. Like The Guest List and The Paris Apartment, this one is told from the points of views of several characters and shifting timelines. Influencer and founder Francesca Woodland has built the most exclusive retreat, known as the Manor, and it was designed by her architect husband Owen. It’s located at her family’s coastal retreat and she’s thought of everything from crystals in the rooms and cabins and the purist food and drink. In its inaugural weekend, she has a special event planned for the summer solstice: The Midnight Feast, complete with a dress code and ceremony. But when a mysterious guest appears from Francesca’s past and ominous birds seem to appear everywhere, this grand opening may be more than Francesca bargained for.

Ronnie Khan has taken a big leap. Fleeing her life with the abusive aunt who raised her, she decides to move across the country to Sedona, Arizona, with a woman she just met: Marley Dewhurst. Marley wants nothing more than to be the next wellness influencer and will do anything to achieve it. In the land of Sedona, they find a like minded community focused on wellness. But they soon learn that someone is more than just unhappy about the wellness community there; they are murdering influencers in terrible ways. Will Marley and Ronnie find themselves in the crosshairs of this killer?

If you could change your life in an instant, would you? That’s what Julie Chan decides. Her twin sister Chloe vanHussen has it all as an influencer. She even bought Julie a home. But when Julie finds her sister dead, she decides to leave her retail job behind forever and simply become her dead sister. At first it’s everything she could have wanted, but she realizes that someone really did want Chloe dead. So there’s no reason they wouldn’t try again.

Sharing the lives of our children has become commonplace in this day and age. But there are some influencers who take it too far with consequences. This incredible sendup of influencer culture focuses on Mélanie, who has made it big in the mom influencer world with her YouTube channel focusing on her children. She will stop at nothing to remain on top. But life begins to unravel when her six year old daughter Kimmy goes missing. Who would take the young girl? Or did her mother find a terrible way to keep her popularity?

Emlyn Anthony has rebuilt her life after her boyfriend left her at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. She’s living a simpler life now in an Airstream in rural Idaho. The last person she expected to ever see again is her ex-boyfriend Tyler. But he has not come to make amends. Instead, he asks for help to find Emlyn’s ex-best friend, a #vanlife influencer, who went off road with her boyfriend and has gone missing. Emlyn decides to help Tyler find her former BFF but realizes that there might have been more in their pasts than she realizes. 

True crime podcaster Rachel Krall has been brought back to try to find a missing influencer, Maddison Logan. Hours before her disappearance, Maddison had visited Terence Bailey, a man who is incarcerated for breaking and entering. The police suspect he may have killed several women, but they don’t have proof. They all fear Maddison’s disappearance may be connected to his release. Krall has to go undercover to find out more about this enigmatic influencer including going to BuzzCon. Will she be able to find out what happened to Maddison or will she be left with an unsolved crime?