Category Archives: Mystery & Thriller

Tell Me What You Did by Carter Wilson

Poe Webb, host of a popular true crime podcast, invites people to anonymously confess crimes they’ve committed to her audience. She can’t guarantee the police won’t come after her “guests,” but her show grants simultaneous anonymity and instant fame—a potent combination that’s proven difficult to resist. After an episode recording, Poe usually erases both criminal and crime from her mind. But when a strange and oddly familiar man appears on her show, Poe is forced to take a second look. Not only because he claims to be her mother’s murderer from years ago, but because Poe knows something no one… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Alcohol abuse
  • Kidnapping & stalking
  • Knife violence

Never Look Back by Alison Gaylin

When website columnist Robin Diamond is contacted by true crime podcast producer Quentin Garrison, she assumes it’s a business matter. It’s not. Quentin’s podcast, Closure, focuses on a series of murders in the 1970s, committed by teen couple April Cooper and Gabriel LeRoy. It seems that Quentin has reason to believe Robin’s own mother may be intimately connected with the killings. Robin thinks Quentin’s claim is absolutely absurd. But is it? The more she researches the Cooper/LeRoy murders herself, the more disturbed she becomes by what she… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Substance addiction
  • Murder

The Collective by Alison Gaylin

Camille Gardner is a grieving—and angry—mother who, five years after her daughter’s death, is still obsessed with the privileged young man she believes to be responsible. When her rash actions attract the attention of a secret group of women—the collective—Camille is drawn into a dark web where these mothers share their wildly different stories of loss as well as their desire for justice in a world where privilege denies accountability and perpetrators emerge unscathed. Fueled by mutual rage, these women orchestrate their own brand of justice through precise, anonymous, complexly plotted and perfectly executed revenge killings.. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape & sexual assault
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a daughter
  • Murder

We Are Watching by Alison Gaylin

Meg Russo was behind the wheel when it happened. She and her husband Justin were driving their daughter Lily to Ithaca College, the family celebrating the eighteen-year-old music prodigy’s future. Then a car sidled up beside them, the young men inside it behaving erratically. The Russos’ car went off the road, and Justin didn’t survive the accident. Four months later, Meg works to distract herself from her grief, reopening her small local bookstore. But soon after returning to work, bizarre messages and visitors begin to arrive, with strangers threatening Meg and vandalizing the store. They are obsessed… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism
  • Death of a father
  • Knife violence
  • Fatal car accident
  • Kidnapping

I Am Still Alive by Kate Alice Marshall

After: Jess is alone. Her cabin has burned to the ground. She knows if she doesn’t act fast, the cold will kill her before she has time to worry about food. But she is still alive—for now. Before: Jess hadn’t seen her survivalist, off-the-grid dad in over a decade. But after a car crash killed her mother and left her injured, she was forced to move to his cabin in the remote Canadian wilderness. Just as Jess was beginning to get to know him, a secret from his past paid them a visit, leaving her father dead and Jess stranded. After: With only her father’s dog for company, Jess must forage and hunt for food, build shelter, and keep herself warm. Some… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Depersonalization episode (on-page)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Alcoholism & alcohol abuse mentioned
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction and emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother & father
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Gun violence
  • Explosion
  • Car accident
  • Fire
  • Kidnapping & hostage situation
  • Blackmail
  • Drowning
  • Graphic animal death & dead bodies including the on-page death of a pet dog & hunting (theme)
  • Bullying recounted

Our Last Echoes by Kate Alice Marshall

Sophia’s first memory is of drowning. She remembers the darkness of the water and the briny taste as it fills her throat. She remembers the cold shock of going under. She remembers her mother pulling her to safety before disappearing forever. But Sophia has never been in the ocean. And her mother died years ago in a hospital. Or so she has been told her whole life. A series of clues have led Sophia to the island of Bitter Rock, Alaska, where she talked her way into a summer internship at the Landon Avian Research Center, the same center her mother worked at right before she died. There, she meets the disarmingly… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Memory loss
  • Panic attack
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Body horror
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Drowning
  • Animal death

What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall

Naomi Shaw used to believe in magic. Twenty-two years ago, she and her two best friends, Cassidy and Olivia, spent the summer roaming the woods, imagining a world of ceremony and wonder. They called it the Goddess Game. The summer ended suddenly when Naomi was attacked. Miraculously, she survived her seventeen stab wounds and lived to identify the man who had hurt her. The girls’ testimony put away a serial killer, wanted for murdering six women. They were heroes. For decades afterward, the friends have kept a secret worth killing for. But now Olivia wants to tell, and Naomi sets out to find out what really… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted sexual assault of a child
  • Infidelity
  • Hoarding
  • Attempted suicide & suicidal ideation recounted (secondary character)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Attempted murder of a child recounted
  • Gun & knife violence
  • Blackmail

A Killing Cold by Kate Alice Marshall

When Theodora Scott met Connor—wealthy, charming, and a member of the powerful Dalton family—she fell in love in an instant. Six months later, he’s brought her to Idlewood, his family’s isolated winter retreat, to win over his skeptical relatives. Theo has tried to ignore the threatening messages on her phone, but she can’t ignore the footprints in the snow outside the cabin window or the strange sense of familiarity she has about this place. Then, in a disused cabin, Theo finds something impossible: a photo of herself as a child. A photo taken at Idlewood. Theo has almost… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Infidelity
  • Self-harm
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drugging
  • Teen pregnancy & miscarriage mentioned
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Gun violence

Didn’t See That Coming by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Seventeen-year-old Kiki Siregar is a fabulous gamer girl with confidence to boot. She can’t help but be totally herself… except when she’s online. Her secret? She plays anonymously as a guy to avoid harassment from other male players. Even her online best friend—a cinnamon roll of a teen boy who plays under the username Sourdawg—doesn’t know her true identity. Which is fine, because Kiki doesn’t know his real name either, and it’s not like they’re ever going to cross paths IRL. Until she transfers to an elite private school for her senior year and discovers that Sourdawg… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Sexual harassment

Four Aunties and a Wedding by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Meddy Chan has been to countless weddings, but she never imagined how her own would turn out. Now the day has arrived, and she can’t wait to marry her college sweetheart, Nathan. Instead of having Ma and the aunts cater to her wedding, Meddy wants them to enjoy the day as guests. As a compromise, they find the perfect wedding vendors: a Chinese-Indonesian family-run company just like theirs. Meddy is hesitant at first, but she hits it off right away with the wedding photographer, Staphanie, who reminds Meddy of herself, down to the unfortunately… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted sexual assault recounted
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Attempted murder
  • Kidnapping