Unfortunately, psychological thrillers are in vogue and selling well, so it must be tempting to add the psychological tag on even the slimest connection to the genre. In my mind it is authors or publishers behaving badly and ruining the genre by adding the tag erroniously. However, on this occasion, the blurb does suggest a psychological thriller in its premise, even if the narrative and storyline doesn't live up to your expectations as a "dark" psychological thriller writer.
Not sure I can put it into words, but there are various components that cover all thriller elements of suspense, mystery, a crime, horror, misdirection, twists, etc.
I say horror, but what sets them apart is the the degree of descriptive violence in horror, whereas psychological thrillers are more about attacking a persons psyche rather than using violence. It used to be that the story line involved an antagonist using manipulative psychological tricks to control a hapless protagonist victim to steer events on a certain direction that would lead to the protagonists downfall, usually but not always, by bad decisions made by the victim in following the protagonists path set for them.
Usually, the antagonist has some grudge as motivation and has psychological problems as well as the victim being in, or manipulated to be in a dysfunctional and vulnerable period of their life that they need to get a grip of to overcome the antagonists efforts to destroy them mentally, professionally, or whatever, and to overcome the antagonists efforts for the victim to win the day.
I don't know the book in question, but it could be that the police or accusers are the antagonists and she is the victim who is mabye led to believe she has done what they say, along with the reader, when in fact she could be innocent. I'm thinking here in terms of the story of the police insisting that a child found and reunited with a mother who lost her child, is her child, when it isn't. This woman was put in a mental hospital because she wouldn't accept the child.
If you have noticed, many psychological thrillers are now dubbed as "dark psychological thrillers" which is used as the sub title so they can be found in searches,(sometimes against Amazon TOC as some don't have it on the cover as part of the title.) Dark psychological thrillers are really selling well, but it is not listed as a genre, hence the reason for the sub title saying it is so, or in the blurb. It is just that they are at the dark disturbing traits end of the psychological thriller spectrum, one step away from being considered as horror.
In search of Jessica - The Girl at the Window and- Deadly Journey in my signature are all examples of the dark psychological thriller, but they are all different in crafting yet still stick closely to the traits of the sub genre.
Girl at the Window is my best seller just now, but they have all had their day in the charts.
Anyway, you asked for a definition, which I have given as best I can, so I'd appreciate a response.
