Reviews with content warning for Murder - Yellow Jessamine: secrets empoisonnés

Another book on my list from 2023 that involved some plant horror. In this book we follow Evelyn Perdanu who is the sole heiress to a company in the fictional 1800s. Besides being a rich company owner she sells plant concoctions on the side. Some seem for medical reasons and others. Soon bodies start popping up around her and we later find out why.

This story was definitely not what I expected. I knew it was spooky, set in the Victorian era and there was queer rep. I was shook that there was plant horror, or rather our evil monster was made of plants. The ending was bittersweet and I wish it was more of a happy ending but all in all I still enjoyed it.

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blewballoon's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was a good, quick spooky story. I'd recommend it as a Halloween read. It had elements that reminded me of The Lost Apothecary, but this was a more focused narrative with a supernatural element coming in to dial up the horror. The audiobook was good, but the narrator's intonation was a bit monotone.

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reka111's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Something had come back on her ship, looking for her. And it was spreading

This book was so fucked up, but in the best sense of the word. I wouldn't really say it won me over, but by the end when everything became clear to me, I enjoyed it a lot more, especially after I found out why this book was given that title (imaginary what can I say). This book was very dark and scary, basically it was a bit similar to The Poison Diaries in terms of atmosphere, but not quite.

The characters were relatively okay, but I especially liked Evelyn (the main character) because she was closer to a

villain

than a hero and I could identify with her surprisingly easily, because it is very rare to read from this point of view. Perhaps I simply understood her suffering, I understood the reason for her actions, and looking back, I would do the same now. Unfortunately, the others didn't really get a role, so I can't write about them. The love story was a bit forced for me (there wasn't really a love story), but it was cute.

It was a good book, but the content was equal to zero, we stumbled through all 135 pages, which is exactly why it took me longer than usual to read it. As I said, the plot was boring, but at least it was interesting and most of the chapters ended with cliffhangers, which kept my spirits up.

This wasn't the story of a grieving widow or a witch, it was a woman's story who did bad things in a bad world but did everything she could to keep her soul.

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tansy's review against another edition

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dark mysterious

4.0

Dark fantasy novella. This lost me in the final third, which raises a lot of questions and does seem as if the power of love saves the day. (Sort of. I wouldn't say this has a happy ending.) But if you enjoyed the fucked up relationship between the protagonists in Starling's "The Luminous Dead" then I highly recommend you read this.

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jenny_d's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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typedtruths's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

i love strange books. i love wicked women. i love caitlin starling... but this didn't quite do it for me.

➸ Trigger warnings for

misogyny, attempted arranged marriage recounted, domestic abuse mentioned, alcohol consumption, drug abuse (on-page), smoking, miscarriage mentioned, body horror, emesis, physical injuries including eye trauma (intentional but nonconsensual chemically-induced vision loss), plague, murder of a father and brothers recounted, murder and attempted murder (on-page), physical assault mentioned, whipping, torture, poisoning (theme), kidnapping and captivity, and fire*.

*Context: A boat full of infected sailors is set on fire to prevent a plague outbreak. In the opening scene, the protagonist observes the boat fire from the shore

.

▷ Representation: Evelyn (mc) & Violetta (sc) are sapphic.

Blog • Trigger Warning Database • StoryGraph

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the_vegan_bookworm's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

I found this book to be on the boring side. Maybe there wasn't enough build-up for me but I found it hard to really get into the action or feel compelled to care a lot about the secondary conflicts that were at play. I wanted more clarity from the major conflict, too.

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