Yellow Jessamine by Caitlin Starling

Yellow Jessamine by Caitlin Starling

Powerful shipping magnate Evelyn Perdanu lives a tight, contained life, holding herself at a distance from all who would get close to her. Her family is dead, her country is dying, and when something foul comes to the city of Delphinium, the brittle, perilous existence she’s built for herself is strained to breaking.

When one of her ships arrives in dock, she counts herself lucky that it made it through the military blockades slowly strangling her city. But one by one, the crew fall ill with a mysterious sickness: an intense light in their eyes and obsessive behavior, followed by a catatonic stupor… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Body horror
  • Emesis
  • Plague
  • Drug abuse
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)
  • Poisoning
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The Pearl by John Steinbeck

The Pearl by John Steinbeck

Like his father and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the gulf beds that once brought great wealth to the kings of Spain and now provide Kino, Juana, and their infant son with meager subsistence. Then, on a day like any other, Kino emerges from the sea with a pearl as large as a sea gull’s egg, as “perfect as the moon.” With the pearl comes hope, the promise of comfort and of security…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Knife violence & stabbing
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The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California.

Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Domestic & child physical abuse
  • Stillbirth
  • Starvation
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a child mentioned
  • Murder
  • Imprisonment
  • Graphic animal death
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Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck

Clinging to each other in their loneliness and alienation, George and his simple-minded friend Lennie dream, as drifters will, of a place to call their own—a couple of acres and a few pigs, chickens, and rabbits back in Hill Country where land is cheap. But after they come to work on a ranch in the fertile Salinas Valley of California, their hopes, like “the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men,” begin to go awry.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Misogyny
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use (smoking)
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Animal death
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Remain Silent by Susie Steiner

Remain Silent by Susie Steiner

Newly married and navigating life with a toddler as well as her adopted adolescent son, Manon Bradshaw is happy to be working part-time in the cold cases department of the Cambridgeshire police force But beneath the surface Manon is struggling with the day-to-day realities of what she assumed would be domestic bliss: fights about whose turn it is to clean the kitchen, the bewildering fatigue of having a young child in her forties, and the fact that she is going to couple’s counseling alone because her husband feels it would just be her complaining… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Suicide
  • Murder
  • Hanging
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Persons Unknown by Susie Steiner

Persons Unknown by Susie Steiner

Manon has settled back into life in Cambridgeshire with her adopted son Fly. She’s perfectly happy working on cold cases until a man is stabbed to death just yards from the police station, and both the victim and the prime suspect turn out to be much closer to home than she would like. How well does Manon know her loved ones, and are they capable of murder?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racial profiling
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Death of a sex worker
  • Cheating
  • Self-harm
  • Drug overdose
  • Blood depiction
  • Heart attack
  • Murder
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Death Sets Sail by Robin Stevens

Death Sets Sail by Robin Stevens

Also known as Poison is Not Polite.

Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are in Egypt, where they are taking a cruise along the Nile. They are hoping to see some ancient temples and a mummy or two; what they get, instead, is murder.

Also travelling on the SS Hatshepsut is a mysterious society called the Breath of Life: a group of who believe themselves to be reincarnations of the ancient pharaohs. Three days into the cruise their leader, Theodora Miller, is found dead in her cabin. It soon becomes clear to Daisy and Hazel that Theodora’s timid daughter Hephzibah, who is prone to sleepwalking, is being framed. And within the society, everyone has a reason to want Theodora dead…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Blood depiction
  • Murder
  • Drowning
  • Poisoning
  • Knife violence & stabbing
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Arsenic for Tea by Robin Stevens

Arsenic for Tea by Robin Stevens

Also known as Poison is Not Polite.

1934. When Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong set up a secret detective agency at Deepdean School for Girls, they struggle to find a truly exciting mystery to investigate. (Unless you count the case of Lavinia’s missing tie. Which they don’t.)

But then Hazel discovers the body of the Science Mistress, Miss Bell – but when she and Daisy return five minutes later, the body has disappeared. Now the girls have to solve a murder, and prove a murder has happened in the first place before the killer strikes again (and before the police can get there first, naturally), but will they succeed?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Suicide mentioned
  • Murder
  • Poisoning
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Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens

Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens

Also known as Murder is Bad Manners.

1934. When Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong set up a secret detective agency at Deepdean School for Girls, they struggle to find a truly exciting mystery to investigate. (Unless you count the case of Lavinia’s missing tie. Which they don’t.)

But then Hazel discovers the body of the Science Mistress, Miss Bell – but when she and Daisy return five minutes later, the body has disappeared. Now the girls have to solve a murder, and prove a murder has happened in the first place before the killer strikes again (and before the police can get there first, naturally), but will they succeed?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Emesis
  • Blood depiction
  • Graphic dead bodies
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping
  • Drowning mentioned
  • Bullying
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Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

Nimona is an impulsive young shapeshifter with a knack for villainy. Lord Ballister Blackheart is a villain with a vendetta. As sidekick and supervillain, Nimona and Lord Blackheart are about to wreak some serious havoc. Their mission: prove to the kingdom that Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin and his buddies at the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics aren’t the heroes everyone thinks they are.

But as small acts of mischief escalate into a vicious battle, Lord Blackheart realizes that Nimona’s powers are as murky and mysterious as her past. And her unpredictable wild side might be more dangerous than he is willing to admit.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Amputation recounted
  • Emesis
  • Death of a mother & father
  • Murder
  • Explosion
  • Gun violence
  • Electrocution
  • Torture
  • Poisoning
  • Fire
  • Imprisonment
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