Verity
Verity is Colleen Hoover's 2018 psychological thriller, marketed alongside her contemporary romances and several shades darker than most of them. Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling New York novelist who, after witnessing a fatal accident on the way to a meeting with her agent, is offered an unexpected lifeline: a contract to ghostwrite the final three books of bestselling thriller author Verity Crawford's hit series. Verity has been left bedridden and largely unresponsive after a car crash, and her grieving husband Jeremy needs the books finished. Lowen travels to the Crawfords' rural Vermont home to read through Verity's notes and outlines. In the office she finds something else, an unpublished autobiography typed in Verity's own voice, in which she confesses to monstrous things, including the deliberate killing of one of her own children. As Lowen reads further, and finds herself drawn to Jeremy, the question of whether the manuscript is fiction or fact becomes the most important question of the book.
Where Verity keeps showing up
Eight of our editors' lists feature this novel.
Also by Colleen Hoover
Books in conversation with Verity
A few of the closest reads from our full list.
What you might want to know about Verity
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Struggling Manhattan novelist Lowen Ashleigh is hired by Jeremy Crawford to finish his wife Verity's bestselling thriller series, since Verity has been bedridden since a car accident. Lowen drives to the Crawford house in Vermont and finds Verity's unfinished autobiography in a desk in the office.
Yes. Verity contains multiple explicit sex scenes alongside its psychological thriller plot. Most readers rate it 3 to 4 out of 5 on the spice scale. The book sits on the steamier end of Colleen Hoover's catalog.
Yes. Verity contains multiple explicit sex scenes alongside its psychological thriller plot. Most readers rate it 3 to 4 out of 5 on the spice scale. The book sits on the steamier end of Colleen Hoover's catalog.
No. Verity is fictional. Colleen Hoover has said the premise came from imagining the worst possible discovery a writer could make about another writer. The events and characters are invented.
Yes. A film adaptation of Verity is in development with Amazon MGM Studios, with Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson attached. The project was announced in 2023 and is in active development.
Verity blends both. The structure is psychological thriller, with an unreliable manuscript at the center, but a dark romance subplot threads through. It is one of Hoover's most cross-genre books and divides readers on whether they read it as romance or thriller.
Verity was written by Colleen Hoover, published in 2018 by TOPSELLER.
Verity is 269 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Verity takes most readers 4 to 6 hours to finish.
Verity is a standalone novel by Colleen Hoover, not part of a series.
Verity is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
