Category Archives: Mystery & Thriller

A Death at the Party by Amy Stuart

Nadine Walsh’s summer garden party is in full swing. The neighbours all have cocktails, the catered food is exquisite—everything’s going according to plan. But Nadine—devoted wife, loving mother, and doting daughter—finds herself standing over a dead body in her basement while her guests clink glasses upstairs. What happened? How did it come to this? Rewind to that morning, when Nadine is in her kitchen, making last-minute preparations before she welcomes more than a hundred guests to her home to celebrate her mother’s birthday. But her husband is of… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slut-shaming
  • Teacher-student relationship
  • Attempted suicide
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Murder

The Perfect Neighborhood by Liz Alterman

When actress and model Allison Langley leaves her former rockstar husband, Christopher, in the middle of the night, it’s all her Oak Hill neighbours can talk about. The gossip comes to an abrupt halt when five-year-old Billy Barnes goes missing on his walk home from kindergarten. Billy’s mother, Rachel, blames herself for being at work and letting her only child walk alone. Cassidy, Billy’s teenage babysitter, was also late to arrive on the afternoon he disappeared and blames herself for his disappearance. As the clock ticks down, police are unable to find any trace of Billy.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Teacher-student relationship
  • Infertility & miscarriage
  • Kidnapping & drugging of children

The Last Girl To Die by Helen Sarah Fields

In search of a new life, sixteen-year-old Adriana Clark’s family moves to the ancient, ocean-battered Isle of Mull, far off the coast of Scotland. Then she goes missing. Faced with hostile locals and indifferent police, her desperate parents turn to private investigator Sadie Levesque. Sadie is the best at what she does. But when she finds Adriana’s body in a cliffside cave, a seaweed crown carefully arranged on her head, she knows she’s dealing with something she’s never encountered before. The deeper she digs into the island’s secrets, the more urgent her quest to find the killer grows. Because what if Adriana is not the last girl to die?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence mentioned
  • Sexual assault
  • Murder & torture
  • Animal death (off-page)

The Institution by Helen Sarah Fields

On a locked ward in the world’s highest-security prison hospital for the criminally insane, a nurse has been murdered and her newborn baby kidnapped. A ransom must be paid, and the clock is ticking. Forensic profiler Dr Connie Woolwine is renowned for her ability to get inside the mind of a murderer. Now she must go deep undercover among the most deranged and dangerous men on earth, and use her unique skills to find the baby – before it’s too late. She has five days to catch the killer. But with the walls of The Institution closing in on her, will her sanity last that long?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & mentions of homophobia
  • Suicide
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Murder & foetal abduction
  • Physical & child sexual abuse

The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell

Every summer for the past ten years, six awe-struck bakers have descended on the grounds of Grafton, the leafy and imposing Vermont estate that is not only the filming site for “Bake Week” but also the childhood home of the show’s famous host, celebrated baker Betsy Martin. The author of numerous best-selling cookbooks and hailed as “America’s Grandmother,” Betsy Martin isn’t as warm off-screen as on, although no one needs to know that but her. She has always demanded perfection, and gotten it with a smile, but this year something is off. Things go awry… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape & sexual harassment
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder

The Resort by Sara Ochs

Just graduated from high school and waiting to start college at Oxford, Lily lives under the scrutiny of her volatile Singaporean mother, May, and is unable to find kinship with her elusive British father, Charlie. When May suspects that Charlie is having an affair, there’s only one thing that calms May down: a glass of perfectly spoiled orange juice served by Lily, who must always taste it first to make sure it’s just right. As her mother becomes increasingly unhinged, Lily starts to have flashbacks that she knows aren’t her own. Over a sweltering London summer, all semblance of civility and propriety is lost, as Lily begins to unravel… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Suicide mentioned

Bad Fruit by Ella King

Just graduated from high school and waiting to start college at Oxford, Lily lives under the scrutiny of her volatile Singaporean mother, May, and is unable to find kinship with her elusive British father, Charlie. When May suspects that Charlie is having an affair, there’s only one thing that calms May down: a glass of perfectly spoiled orange juice served by Lily, who must always taste it first to make sure it’s just right. As her mother becomes increasingly unhinged, Lily starts to have flashbacks that she knows aren’t her own. Over a sweltering London summer, all semblance of civility and propriety is lost, as Lily begins to unravel… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slut-shaming & victim-blaming
  • Rape
  • Graphic emotional child abuse

Moment in Time by Suzanne Redfearn

It’s been eight years since a tragic accident changed Mo Kaminski’s and Chloe Miller’s lives forever. Now in their midtwenties, they’re sharing an apartment in San Francisco and navigating the normal challenges of early adulthood. Along with their roommate, Hazel, they are making their marks on the world—Mo revolutionizing the news with her media start-up, Hazel using her big brain to anticipate the future, and Chloe rescuing abandoned strays in the city. But when Hazel disappears after being sexually assaulted, Mo’s and Chloe’s lives are again suddenly ripped apart. And when the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape (secondary character)
  • Drugging (secondary character)
  • Physical assault resulting in a coma
  • Disappearance of a friend

Context : The protagonists’ roommate was drugged and raped. The mystery revolves around how her rapist is found beaten and comatose while the roommate remains missing.

Hush Little Baby by Suzanne Redfearn

Jillian Kane appears to have it all – a successful career, a gorgeous home, a loving husband, and two wonderful children. The reality behind closed doors is something else entirely. For nine years, she has hid the bruises and the truth of her abusive marriage in order to protect Addie and Drew, knowing, if she left, Gordon would destroy her-destroy them. When, in an act of desperation, she flees, her worst nightmare is realized, and she finds herself on the run with her two young children, no money, and no plan. With Gordon in hot pursuit, there is only one inescapable… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Domestic violence & abuse

Cherish Farrah by Laura Bethany C. Morrow

Seventeen-year-old Farrah Turner is one of two Black girls in her country club community, and the only one with Black parents. Her best friend, Cherish Whitman, adopted by a white, wealthy family, is something Farrah likes to call WGS–White Girl Spoiled. With Brianne and Jerry Whitman as parents, Cherish is given the kind of adoration and coddling that even upper-class Black parents can’t seem to afford–and it creates a dissonance in her best friend that Farrah can exploit. When her own family is unexpectedly confronted with foreclosure, the calculating Farrah is determined to reassert the control she’s convinced she’s…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Self-harm
  • Emesis