Category Archives: Mystery & Thriller

An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena

It’s winter in the Catskills and Mitchell’s Inn, nestled deep in the woods, is the perfect setting for a relaxing–maybe even romantic–weekend away. It boasts spacious old rooms with huge wood-burning fireplaces, a well-stocked wine cellar, and opportunities for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, or just curling up with a good murder mystery. So when the weather takes a turn for the worse, and a blizzard cuts off the electricity–and all contact with the outside world–the guests settle in and try to make the best of it… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Bury Your Gays trope
  • Gang rape recounted
  • Infidelity
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Attempted suicide
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction including dead bodies
  • Death of a wife, fiancée & husband
  • Death of a brother
  • Death of a son
  • Murder & attempted murder by strangulation and poisoning
  • Physical assault
  • Death from a fall
  • Death from exposure to the cold
  • Drowning
  • Military service recounted

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Bury Your Gays trope
  • Gang rape recounted
  • Cheating
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Attempted suicide
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood depiction
  • Dead bodies
  • Death of a wife & husband
  • Death of a fiance
  • Death of a brother
  • Death of a son
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Strangulation
  • Poisoning
  • Physical assault
  • Death from a fall
  • Death from exposure to the cold
  • Drowning
  • Military service recounted

A Stranger in the House by Shari Lapena

A Stranger in the House by Shari Lapena

Karen and Tom Krupp are happy—they’ve got a lovely home in upstate New York, they’re practically newlyweds, and they have no kids to interrupt their comfortable life together. But one day, Tom returns home to find Karen has vanished—her car’s gone and it seems she left in a rush. She even left her purse—complete with phone and ID—behind. There’s a knock on the door—the police are there to take Tom to the hospital where his wife has been admitted. She had a car accident, and lost control as she sped through the worst part of town… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape by coercion*
  • Cheating recounted
  • Domestic abuse recounted
  • Amnesia & memory loss (theme)
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug abuse discussed
  • Infertility
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction including dead bodies and hospitalisation
  • Death of an ex-husband
  • Murder (off-page)
  • Gun violence (off-page)
  • Car accident
  • Disappearance of a spouse
  • Incarceration
  • Home invasion
  • Blackmail
  • Stalking

Strange Girls: Women in Horror Anthology edited by Azzurra Nox

Strange Girls: Women in Horror Anthology edited by Azzurra Nox

Strange Girls: Women in Horror Anthology by Azzurra Nox

You know them. Those girls that aren’t quite like everyone else. Those girls who stand out in the crowd. Those girls that dare to be different. Those girls are dangerous.

In Strange Girls, twenty-one authors dare to tackle what makes the girls in this collection different. Vampires, selkies, murderous mermaids, succubus, and possessed dolls take center stage in these short stories that are sure to invoke feelings of quiet terror and uneasiness in the reader. Following the successful debut of Women in Horror anthology with My American Nightmare, Strange Girls is the sophomore effort to showcase these talented women in a genre that is often dominated by the male gaze.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault
  • Toxic relationship
  • Rape
  • Death
  • Murder
  • Stalking
  • Forced outing
  • Bullying
  • Necrophilia

All These Bodies by Kendare Blake 

All These Bodies by Kendare Blake

Summer 1958—a string of murders plagues the Midwest. The victims are found in their cars and in their homes—even in their beds—their bodies drained, but with no blood anywhere.

September 19- the Carlson family is slaughtered in their Minnesota farmhouse, and the case gets its first lead: 15-year-old Marie Catherine Hale is found at the scene. She is covered in blood from head to toe, and at first she’s mistaken for a survivor. But not a drop of the blood is hers.

Michael Jensen, son of the local sheriff, yearns to become a journalist and escape his small-town… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Abandonment
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Animal death

Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins

Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins

When Lux McAllister and her boyfriend, Nico, are hired to sail two women to a remote island in the South Pacific, it seems like the opportunity of a lifetime. Stuck in a dead-end job in Hawaii, and longing to travel the world after a family tragedy, Lux is eager to climb on board The Susannah and set out on an adventure. She’s also quick to bond with their passengers, college best friends Brittany and Amma. The two women say they want to travel off the beaten path. But like Lux, they may have other reasons to be seeking an escape.

Shimmering on the horizon after days at sea, Meroe Island is every bit the paradise the foursome expects, despite a mysterious history of shipwrecks, cannibalism, and even rumours of murder. But what they don’t… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Recreational drug use
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Overdose
  • Blood depiction
  • Murder, on- & off-page
  • Gun violence

The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins

The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins

Meet Jane. Newly arrived to Birmingham, Alabama, Jane is a broke dog-walker in Thornfield Estates—a gated community full of McMansions, shiny SUVs, and bored housewives. The kind of place where no one will notice if Jane lifts the discarded tchotchkes and jewellery off the side tables of her well-heeled clients. Where no one will think to ask if Jane is her real name.

But her luck changes when she meets Eddie­ Rochester. Recently widowed, Eddie is Thornfield Estates’ most mysterious resident. His wife, Bea, drowned in a boating accident with her best friend, their bodies lost to the deep. Jane can’t help but see an opportunity in Eddie—not only is he rich, brooding, and handsome, he could also offer her the kind of protection she’s always yearned for… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexual harassment
  • Domestic abuse
  • Cheating
  • Child neglect mentioned
  • Alcohol abuse
  • Murder
  • Fire
  • Confinement

Never Tell by Selena Montgomery

Never Tell by Stacey Abrams writing as Selena Montgomery

Criminal psychologist Dr. Erin Abbott wants nothing more than to live a quiet life. That means no danger, no intrigue—and absolutely no romance. But when Erin suspects a serial killer is roaming New Orleans, her investigation throws her straight into the arms of the only man who can help her.

Journalist Gabriel Moss is hot to find his next huge story—and he knows Erin is on to something big. From the moment they meet, Gabriel senses that Erin is hiding something. One thing is certain: Erin’s boxy suits and sensible shoes hide a delicate beauty waiting to emerge…and Gabriel is just the man to reveal the woman inside… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault

The Sixth Extinction by James Rollins 

The Sixth Extinction by James Rollins

A remote military research station broadcasts a frantic distress call that ends with a chilling message: Kill us all. When soldiers arrive to investigate, they discover everyone in the lab is dead—not just the scientists, but every living thing for fifty square miles is annihilated: every animal, plant, and insect, even bacteria. The land is completely sterile—and the blight is spreading.

To prevent the inevitable, Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma must decipher a threat that rises out of the distant past, a time when Antarctica was green and Earth’s life balanced on a knife-edge. Following clues from an ancient map rescued from the lost Library of Alexandria, Sigma will make a shocking discovery involving a prehistoric continent, and a new form of death buried under miles of ice. But is it already too late?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Amputation
  • Murder
  • Fire
  • Animal death
  • Medical crisis of a pet

Excavation by James Rollins 

Excavation by James Rollins

High in the Andes, Dr. Henry Conklin discovers a 500-year-old mummy that should not be there. While deep in the South American jungle, Conklin’s nephew, Sam, stumbles upon a remarkable site nestled between two towering peaks, a place hidden from human eyes for thousands of years. Ingenious traps have been laid to ensnare the careless and unsuspecting, and wealth beyond imagining could be the reward for those with the courage to face the terrible unknown. But where the perilous journey inward ends—in the cold, shrouded heart of a breathtaking necropolis—something else is waiting for Sam Conklin and his exploratory party. A thing created by Man, yet not humanly possible. Something wondrous . . . something terrifying.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Explosions

Thicker Than Water by Brigid Kemmerer

Thicker Than Water by Brigid Kemmerer

Thomas Bellweather hasn’t been in town long. Just long enough for his newlywed mother to be murdered, and for his new stepdad’s cop colleagues to decide Thomas is the primary suspect. Not that there’s any evidence. But before Thomas got to Garretts Mill there had just been one other murder in twenty years.

The only person who believes him is Charlotte Rooker, little sister to three cops and, with her soft hands and sweet curves, straight-up dangerous to Thomas. Her best friend was the other murder vic. And she’d like a couple answers. Answers that could get them both killed, and reveal a truth Thomas would die to keep hidden…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Death of a mother by murder