Category Archives: Mystery & Thriller

The Wife Upstairs by Freida McFadden

Victoria Barnett has it all. A great career. A handsome and loving husband. A beautiful home in the suburbs and a plan to fill it with children. Life is perfect—or so it seems. Then she’s in a terrible accident… and everything falls apart. Now Victoria is unable to walk. She can’t feed or dress herself. She can’t even speak. She is confined to the top floor of her house with twenty-four-hour care. Sylvia Robinson is hired by Victoria’s husband to help care for her. But it turns out Victoria isn’t as impaired as Sylvia was led to believe. There’s a story Victoria desperately wants to tell… if only she could get out the words. Then…. Read more,

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Emotional abuse & gaslighting
  • Abusive relationship
  • Infidelity
  • Murder
  • Stalking

Do Not Disturb by Freida McFadden

Quinn Alexander has committed an unthinkable crime. To avoid spending her life in prison, Quinn makes a run for it. She leaves behind her home, her job, and her family. She grabs her passport and heads for the northern border before the police can discover what she’s done. But when an unexpected snowstorm forces her off the road, Quinn must take refuge at the broken-down, isolated Baxter Motel. The handsome and kindly owner, Nick Baxter, is only too happy to offer her a cheap room for the night. Unfortunately, the Baxter Motel isn’t the quiet, safe haven it seemed to be. The motel has a dark and disturbing past…. Read more,

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic abuse
  • Infidelity
  • Depression & Bipolar Disorder
  • Pregnancy loss
  • Murder

One by One by Freida McFadden

A night spent sleeping on dirt and leaves is not how Claire Matchett expected to spend her vacation. She thought this would be a break from the stresses of work and raising her young children. A chance to repair her damaged marriage. A week of hiking and hot tubs with friends. It sounded like heaven. Then Claire’s minivan breaks down on a lonely dirt road. With no cell reception, the group has no choice but to hike the rest of the way to their hotel. But it turns out the woods aren’t as easy to navigate as they thought. Hours later, they are lost. Hopelessly lost. And as they navigate deeper into the woods, the members of…Read more,

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Murder

Ward D by Freida McFadden

Medical student Amy Brenner is spending the night on a locked psychiatric ward. Amy has been dreading her evening working on Ward D, the hospital’s inpatient mental health unit. There are very specific reasons why she never wanted to do this required overnight rotation. Reasons nobody can ever find out. And as the hours tick by, Amy grows increasingly convinced something terrible is happening within these tightly secured walls. When patients and staff start to vanish without a trace, it becomes clear that everyone on the unit is in grave danger. Amy’s worst nightmare was spending the night on Ward D. And now she might never escape...

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child Abuse
  • Infidelity mentioned
  • Toxic friendship
  • Hallucinations
  • Drug use & abuse mentioned
  • Drugging
  • Murder

The Crash by Freida McFadden

Tegan is eight months pregnant, alone, and desperately wants to put her crumbling life in the rearview mirror. So she hits the road, planning to stay with her brother until she can figure out her next move. But she doesn’t realize she’s heading straight into a blizzard. She never arrives at her destination. Stranded in rural Maine with a dead car and broken ankle, Tegan worries she’s made a terrible mistake. Then a miracle she is rescued by a couple who offers her a room in their warm cabin until the snow clears. But something isn’t right. Tegan believed she was waiting out the storm, but as time ticks by, she comes to realize she is.… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault
  • Child abuse
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Drugging
  • Pregnancy (protagonist)
  • Infertility & miscarriage mentioned
  • Blood & injury depiction and hospitalisation
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping
  • Car accident

You Let Me In by Lucy Clarke

Nothing has felt right since Elle rented out her house . . . There’s a new coldness. A shift in the atmosphere. The prickling feeling that someone is watching her every move from the shadows. Maybe it’s all in Elle’s mind? She’s a writer – her imagination, after all, is her strength. And yet every threat seems personal. As if someone has discovered the secrets that keep her awake at night. As fear and paranoia close in, Elle’s own home becomes a prison. Someone is unlocking her past – and she’s given them the key…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape recounted
  • Abortion recounted
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Stalking
  • Fire

You Love Me by Caroline Kepnes

Joe is done with the cities. He’s done with the muck and the posers, done with Love. Now, he’s saying hello to nature, to simple pleasures on a cozy island in the Pacific Northwest. For the first time in a long time, he can just breathe. He gets a job at the local library—he does know a thing or two about books—and that’s where he meets her: Mary Kay DiMarco. Librarian. Joe won’t meddle; he will not obsess. He’ll win her the old-fashioned way: by providing a shoulder to cry on, a helping hand. Over time, they’ll both heal their wounds and begin their happily ever after in this… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Suicide
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Stalking

An Honest Lie by Tarryn Fisher

Lorraine—“Rainy”—lives at the top of Tiger Mountain. Remote, moody, cloistered in pine trees and fog, it’s a sanctuary, a new life. She can hide from the disturbing past she wants to forget. If she’s allowed to. When Rainy reluctantly agrees to a girls’ weekend in Vegas, she’s prepared for an exhausting parade of shots and slot machines. But after a wild night, her friend Braithe doesn’t come back to the hotel room. And then Rainy gets the text message, sent from Braithe’s phone: someone has her. But Rainy is who they really want, and Rainy knows why.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child-trafficking
  • Sexual assault & sexual assault of a minor
  • Infidelity
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Drugging
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping
  • Cult

The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter

Meet Maggie Chase and Ethan Wyatt: She’s the new Queen of the Cozy Mystery. He’s Mr. Big-Time Thriller Guy. She hates his guts. He thinks her name is Marcie (no matter how many times she’s told him otherwise.) But when they both accept a cryptic invitation to attend a Christmas house party at the English estate of a reclusive fan, neither is expecting their host to be the most powerful author in the world: Eleanor Ashley, the Duchess of Death herself. That night, the weather turns, and the next morning Eleanor is gone. She vanished from a locked room, and Maggie has… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Anxiety & anxiety attacks
  • Infidelity recounted (protagonist’s ex-partner cheated with her best friend)
  • Emotional intimate partner abuse & gaslighting recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of parents in a car accident recounted
  • Attempted murder by an intimate partner by beating (secondary character)
  • Near-death experience from falling off a cliff & long-term recovery from a serious shoulder injury recounted (protagonist
  • Poisoning
  • Arson
  • Kidnapping

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the colour yellow. This improbable story of Christopher’s quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighbourhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental infidelity
  • Presumed death of a mother discussed
  • Murder of a pet dog by stabbing with a garden fork
  • Physical assault & police violence*

Context : The autistic protagonist is grabbed on the arm by a police officer and hits him back in a panic. He is arrested for assaulting police but released. The protagonist believes his mother is dead but his father lied.