Category Archives: Mystery & Thriller

The Housemaid Is Watching by Freida McFadden

I used to clean other people’s houses—now, I can’t believe this home is actually mine. The charming kitchen, the quiet cul-de-sac, the huge yard where my kids can play. My husband and I saved for years to give our children the life they deserve. Even though I’m wary of our new neighbour Mrs. Lowell, when she invites us over for dinner it’s our chance to make friends. Her maid opens the door wearing a white apron, her hair in a tight bun. I know exactly what it’s like to be in her shoes. But her cold stare gives me chill. the Lowells’ maid isn’t the only strange thing on our… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Paedophilia
  • Physical child abuse & domestic violence
  • Death of a child
  • Murder

Midnight Ruin by Katee Robert

Eurydice Dimitriou has always been the innocent sister, but she’s finally ready to step out of the long shadow cast by her powerful family…and the ex who shattered her heart. Perhaps rough hands on soft skin are exactly what she needs to forget her heartbreak once and for all? Charon Ariti has been Hades’s right-hand man for years. He’s given everything to the lower city, but now he’s ready to take something for himself. He’s only too happy to give Eurydice a special kind of education…but is her heart really free enough to be claimed? Orpheus Makos will do whatever it takes to make… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Pregnancy & abortion, off-page (secondary character)
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Gun violence

Where You End by Abbott Kahler

When 22-year-old Kat Bird wakes up from a coma, she sees her mirror image: Jude, her twin sister. Jude’s face and name are the only memories Kat has from before her accident. As Kat tries to relearn her history and identity, she trusts Jude will provide all the answers. But as the months progress, Kat begins to fear that, maybe, Jude has been lying to her. Recruit. Hunt. Perform or Perish. Growing up in a sophisticated New Age cult, isolated from society, the girls studied poetry and literature—but also played dangerous games of cunning and savagery, games with dark lessons that followed them into adulthood. Now, with Kat’s… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Suicide
  • Coma resulting in memory loss
  • Blackmail

No One Can Know by Kate Alice Marshall

Emma hasn’t told her husband much about her past. He knows her parents are dead and she hasn’t spoken to her sisters in years. Then they lose their apartment, her husband gets laid off, and Emma discovers she’s pregnant―right as the bank account slips into the red. That’s when Emma confesses that she has one more asset: her parents’ house, which she owns jointly with her estranged sisters. They can’t sell it, but they can live in it. But returning home means that Emma is forced to reveal her secrets to her husband: that the house is not a run-down farmhouse but a stately mansion, and that her parents died there. Were murdered… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Physical & verbal child abuse
  • Pregnancy
  • Murder of parents recounted

Since She’s Been Gone by Sagit Schwartz

Losing her mother to a hit-and-run at age 15 threw Beatrice “Beans” Bennett’s life into turmoil. Bereft, she developed a life-threatening eating disorder, and went through a challenging recovery process which paved the way for her work as a clinical psychologist decades later. When a new patient arrives at her office and insists that Beans’s mother is still alive—and in danger—Beans is forced to revisit her past in order to uncover the truth. She learns the “patient” is a member of a notorious family that owns a drug company largely responsible for the national opioid… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Eating disorder
  • Self-harm
  • Miscarriage
  • Cancer
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a child mentioned
  • Stalking

Tender Beasts by Liselle Sambury

With the death of Sunny’s mother, matriarch of the wealthy Behre family, Sunny’s once picture-perfect life is thrown into turmoil. Her mother had groomed her to be the family’s next leader, so Sunny is confused when the only instructions her mother leaves is a mysterious note: “Take care of Dom.” The problem is, her youngest brother, Dom, has always been a near-stranger to Sunny…and seemingly a dangerous one, if found guilty of his second-degree murder charge. Still, Sunny is determined to fulfil her mother’s dying wish. But when a classmate is gruesomely murdered, and Sunny finds her brother with blood on his hands, her… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Terminal cancer mentioned
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Fire
  • Car accident
  • Stalking

A Friend in the Dark by Samantha M. Bailey

Eden Miller’s world is crumbling. Her husband blindsided her with divorce, and her daughter barely speaks to her. In an impulsive decision to escape her present and revisit the past, she sends a friend request to her college crush, Justin Ward. One night twenty-three years ago changed the course of her life. It closed the door on Justin and opened the door to her husband, Dave. But what if Eden could have a do-over? .Eden begins an online relationship with Justin that awakens her in ways she never thought possible, and his voice and words make her take bold risks. But something’s off. He knows too much about her and… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Domestic abuse
  • Divorce
  • Catfishing

Bye, Baby by Carola Lovering

On a brisk fall night in a New York apartment, 35-year-old Billie West hears terrified screams. It’s her lifelong best friend Cassie Barnwell, one floor above, and she’s just realized her infant daughter has gone missing. Billie is shaken as she looks down into her own arms to see the baby, remembering—with a jolt of fear—that she is responsible for the kidnapping that has instantly shattered Cassie’s world. So begins the story of Billie and Cassie’s friendship–both in recent weeks, and since they met twenty-three years ago, in their small Hudson Valley hometown the summer before seventh grade. Once fiercely bonded by their…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Classism
  • Paedophilia & sexual assault, on-page
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Toxic friendship
  • Alzheimer’s Disease

Six Truths and a Lie by Ream Shukairy

As fireworks pop off at a rowdy Fourth of July bonfire party, an explosion off the California coast levels an oil rig—resulting in chaos and worse, murder. At the center are six Muslim teens – six patriots, six strangers, and six suspects. An old soul caught in the wrong place. An aspiring doctor. An influencer with a reputation to protect. A perfect daughter with secrets to hide. A soccer star headed for Stanford. An immigrant in love. Each with something to hide and everything to lose. Faced with accusations of terrorism, The Six are caught in a political game that will pit them against each other in exchange for exoneration…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & Islamophobia (theme)

Rainbow Black by Maggie Thrash

Lacey Bond is a thirteen-year-old girl in New Hampshire growing up in the tranquility of her hippie parents’ rural daycare center. Then the Satanic Panic hits. It’s the summer of 1990 when Lacey’s parents are handcuffed, flung into the county jail, and faced with a torrent of jaw-dropping accusations as part of a mass hysteria sweeping the nation. When a horrific murder brings Lacey to the breaking point, she makes a ruthless choice that will haunt her for decades.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & slurs
  • Sexual assault & paedophilia discussed