This novella was dripping in the gothic tone you expect from classic tales of macabre, which happen to be some of my favorite. I absolutely loved the tone and pace. Dread starts to wind its shadowy fingers around you right from the start as the dance of questioning begins. Is it imagination, paranoia, guilt, or something supernatural?

Evelyn was depicted perfectly, embodying the strong vulnerability of a woman who did what was needed even under the strain of her haunted past. Violetta contrasts her in a lovely clash of personalities that fit together in unexpected, yet natural ways as things begin to unravel.

The atmosphere, like Evelyn herself, serves the story, adding to the dread that gripped me so tightly that I was unable to put book the book down. I highly recommend this hauntingly beautiful horror novella.

trigger warning
<spoiler> grief, drug abuse</spoiler>

Delphinium is under siege, and Lady Evelyn Pardanu's ships belong to the last ways of getting ressources into the city. One day, they see the ship has not only brought what was ordered, but also a strange illness, that needs to be figure out quickly, or they'll all die before their enemies decide to finally attack.

Sadly, I did not get along with this. As things started to get intriguing, I had already lost my interest in it.

This book is guilty of the thing where <spoiler> they are under attack of a strange entity and don't ask what it wants, to busy with running. Yes, it might be instinct, but ever since I saw the Devil's Backbone I just have no patience for that anymore. </spoiler>

I came for lesbian horror, but the queer element was mostly retroactive, and I kept waiting and waiting - again, until I didn't care anymore. Which is sad, because I felt the author could do more, so I guess I'll keep an eye out for other works by them.

I recieved a copy of this book in exchange for a honest review.

I think I would have adored this if it had been a full length novel. There are great shades of characterization and world building that get shunted in name of expedited plot. Otherwise a solid gothic novelette with a dash of Sapphic yearning.

Thank you, Neon Hemlock Press! Also Net Galley as well in which I received a free e-ARC of this novel.

I do have to preface that for a novel being tagged as LGBT, I expected a little more of that woven into the slow burn of the gothic tale. This is my first of reading of Caitlin Starling work and I did very much enjoy it, but it felt like it could of world built a little more. It made me ever so curious. Evelyn's grief and paranoia, her slow spiraling through the book made it hard to put the novel down.

This was a gothic novella with an interesting protagonist. I liked Evelyn's character and how my perception changed once I found out more about her story. I will say that for a story claiming to be LGBT, I wanted more of those elements. Starling proved once again that she can write a story with few characters, claustrophobic settings and tension.

Yellow Jessamine is set in a dying city in a shadow filled world. It is an incredibly engaging read. This book definitely veered closer to horror than I typically like, but, I really enjoyed reading this book. The primary protagonist, Evelyn, is portrayed exceedingly well. Her mounting fear through the book is visceral. The world building is very interesting and made me want to know more about what’s around Delphinium.

Potential ***spoiler*** ahead, in which I discuss my overall feelings on the ending. I think it’s great to have any and all LGBTQ+ representation in books. That being said, I wish there were more happy endings. I would not say this ending is an outright sad ending, in fact it felt a tiny bit hopeful.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Yellow Jessamine was a very creative and fast read that follows a disease with mysterious origins.

If I were to try to explain the ending of this book, I don't think I could do it. It gets very crazy and very confusing, but if I had to explain hopefully I could still outline the main points.

There were two things that made this book such a standout. First is the characters, and I was very pleased to see how developed and interesting they were even in just a span of one hundred pages. I loved Evelyn's character of being a really cutthroat and demanding person but then has to make big sacrifices which completely conflicts what she stands for. Second is the atmosphere, there is a lot of eeriness and the Pirates of the Caribbean vibe, and an old and deadly plague really does so much for this book. I don't see any way how the disease scenario would function well in any different setting.

With that being said, I found the ending a little bit hard to follow. I would've also liked to see the atmosphere being used to its fullest abilities and sometimes I found myself disinterested in reading it even when it was so short of a book.

An author with a lot of creative potential with the settings and characters that were introduced, but the story itself didn't do a lot for me.

An intense short gothic read. I loved sooo many aspects of this book - the ambience, the writing, the botanical terms. This book moved smoothly and although I was a tad confused in the beginning, by the end all the loose threads tied nicely. I was floored by each little twist and turn and I felt the deep despair and desolation of Evelyn. Her obsession with plants, poisons, and her garden were harrowing. Absolutely loved this novella!


*thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sending an arc copy in exchange for an honest review*

Thank you to NetGalley and Neon Hemlock for the ARC of this book.

3.5 stars. This novella was a step outside my comfort zone, since I don't usually read horror, but I'm glad I read it, as it was an interesting read. It started out a bit slow, with some of the descriptions hard to understand. It's hard to keep track of the relationships between the characters at first, and I kept having to reread passages to solidify my understanding. The second half of the novella, in my opinion, is where the story comes to life and seizes you like a vine from a bewitched garden. It gets weird and macabre and fast paced -- good luck putting it down after you've reached the 50 percent mark!

Our protagonist, Evelyn, is strong, ruthless, grieving, conflicted, and morally grey. I love that Caitlin Starling was able to solidify Evelyn's complexity in such a short story. Though I found this book under the "LGBT" category, I don't think that the LGBT themes are obvious enough for it to be marketed as such. I would have loved a few pages exploring the twisted f/f love story more in depth, as I think there was a lot of potential for that.

Overall, this was a good read and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants a unique, creepy story to read during a thunderstorm!

it was all that it promised: creepy, pungent and beautifully described. definitely a good one for thriller/horror fans, but not as much for people expecting an actual lgbt couple

I don't read a lot of horror, but I was really intrigued by the entire premise of this book. If I was more a horror reader, this book may have delivered in a way that it didn't for me. Even within the first few pages I could tell that I was going to have a hard time getting into this short book. I didn't feel invested in the plot, which by itself isn't a deal breaker for me, but I also wasn't interested in the characters. I am a very character first reader. If I love your characters the plot can be a truly crazy ride and I will continue to read. However, if I'm not in love with the characters and I can't be bothered with the plot it leaves very little for me to truly enjoy.

That being said, the world building and the atmosphere was great. I really enjoyed the overall feel of a depressing and rotting overcast that comes with a collapsing empire. The world also felt much larger despite literally only a sliver being used to tell this story. I would read another book set in this world, but this one just didn't work for me. However, at the moment, my opinion is an unpopular one. Basically, that means you should check it out if it sounds interesting because plenty of others enjoyed it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Neon Hemlock Press for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for a review. However, all thoughts and opinions on this piece are my own. Full review to be released closer to publication date.

A creepy and unsettling meditation on guilt. The gruesome and otherworldly happenings are portrayed in evocative but trim prose. I would recommend it for readers who enjoyed "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" and are looking for something a little more supernatural.

I have seen this book tagged "LGBT" on Goodreads and beg to disagree. A few sentences late in the book don't really justify that tag, and it would have been a much different read if the author had written the story with that decision in mind.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in an exchange for a fair and honest review.

4 out of 5 stars! Content warnings for minor body horror, drug use, and arguable death

I had devoured the Luminous Dead in one night, driven to turn the next page, and the one after that. Unfortunately, Yellow Jessamine does not quite live up to her predecessor, though that might be because LD had more space and pages to expand on the slow creeping horror in the way YJ does not.
The horror is certainly slightly paranoia-inducing (who else? what happens? what is it?), though due to the short length, it's forced to move quickly.

Still, a good afternoon read! Highly recommended to do so surrounded by greenery.

A macabre and poisonous tale of a woman at heart of a mysterious plague which has taken over a decaying city. I loved how focused and well crafted this story which ultimately focused on guilt and how it can eat away at you. I can't not mention the stunning cover and the darkly beautiful chapter heading art. Thank you very much to publisher Neon Hemlock for giving me this ARC!

This book was a good surprise! Honestly, I wasn’t sure I was going to like it, and I did almost DNF it early into it. But about 5 chapters in, the story started to pick up and it was really entrancing. I ended up finishing it in one night, and really really enjoying it. My only issue was that it was marked as LGBTQ+, and I genuinely forgot it was until the very end, because of how irrelevant it was. I wanted a wlw horror story damn it! But this was still a genuinely good book. The characters are sympathetic and flawed, and very real feeling. If you like subtle horror like Edgar Allen Poe or We Have Always Lived In The Castle, you’ll definitely enjoy this!

<i>Nobody mistook her for a delicate, damaged flower, but few doubted that such horrid grief could leave a woman untouched. Her veil was armor. Her veil was indispensable.</i>

This is <i>wonderful</i>; creeping, unsettling, very lush horror, very brilliantly done. The story of a rich, grief-ridden shipping magnate, and how her world starts to crumble when a strange plague comes to her already dying city.

Really beautiful, atmospheric prose can make or break a novel like this one, one that relies so heavily on words to build up the specific kind of setting that the story needs. And Starling's writing <i>made</i> this novel; it really was lovely to read, even while being creepy in a lot of ways. It's horror, but it straddles a nice line in that it doesn't seek to be outright scary (which some books try and fail at) but it is quite unsettling and extremely <i>human</i> somehow. I adore reading about complicated women, selfish and somewhat amoral women, women who are perhaps unwisely loyal to one another, and I got varying doses of all of that, and it was so satisfying. I loved Evelyn's character, and all those slow reveals that let us know about her past. Also all of the imagery that this book evokes is so so good, so so vivid.

Some nitpicks:
- I always feel weird saying 'I wish this were longer' about a novella because, I mean, the author chose to write a novella because they thought that's what would work best for the story! But I really do feel like with some more detail and depth would have only benefited the story and plot here. There are some side characters especially that I think we could have spent more time with, and some of the reveals were dropped so very quickly, in an abrupt way that didn't 100% work for me. And also just... the writing was really good! I wanted more of it!
- Relatedly, I do wish we'd gotten some more moments between Evelyn and Violetta, some more backstory to their time working together, maybe a couple flashbacks. It would have made the events in the latter half of the story even more impactful and striking and emotionally dense.
- I'm very glad that there was no huge info-dumping to give us the information on this city and its history and politics but also... I remain pretty confused about what exactly was going on lol. This could just be me; I just don't have a head for politics in books, especially fantasy politics. But I would have appreciated a little more explanation/clarity.

Very minor complaints though. This was thoroughly enjoyable. A departure from my normal reads, but I'm very very glad I made the detour. Wonderful writing and a great, unique story. 4.5 stars.

Succinct, fluid, and masterfully articulated - this was everything I wanted in a novella. This was like investing in a Broadway play - it takes two hours of your time and you are transported to a beautiful, vibrant world with perfectly precisioned stage setup and none of the superfluous filler of larger novels. There is no room for fluff, every scene had a carefully crafted purpose and Starling does a beautiful job attaining this alongside the characterization of the mysterious Evelyn Perdanu, who might be one of my favorite female protagonists of 2020.

This is a very gothic, very Victorian, very plague-infested horror bonanza. Which checks nearly all my boxes for what I want to read on a dark, stormy night. Character driven readers, I implore you to try this out simply for the atmospheric tone, the mystifying characters, and the guaranteed chills. There are no tropes to be found here, so enjoy a wholly unique, terrifying tale.

Please dear author, expand on this universe in another book. The horror genre needs you.

Thank you to netgalley for providing a digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

I loved Luminous Dead and frequently recommend it to anyone looking for a claustrophobic nightmare. So when I saw Yellow Jessamine available, I was thrilled to be approved (bonus points that it came highly recommended by Laurel Hightower).

Evelyn Perdanu is the sole female shipping magnate left in Delphinium. When her ship returns and a mysterious ailment starts plaguing some of her crew, Evelyn is terrified this could be the end of her. As one strange coincidence overlaps with another, it becomes impossible to ignore the implications, and Evelyn must confront her personal demons before it's too late.

What a fun, quiet, yet powerful period horror piece. Without the pomp and circumstance, I found myself comparing this to Shakespeare multiple times: the ambition of Lady Macbeth, the tragedy of Juliet awaking to find Romeo beside her. Starling once again proves she's an expert at character development. Evelyn is grim, troubled, and delightfully cutthroat. In spite of a plague and a nameless, inexplicable horror, this is a character-driven novel, and Evelyn steals the show. From her complex emotions about her childhood and Violetta to her rationale in handling dire straits, she's a force to be reckoned with. I could've read an entire book of her internalized dialogue about potions and poisons and their various uses. Perhaps it's that I've killed every plant I've tried to grow myself, but Evelyn's command of her garden is remarkable, and there's something inherently terrifying about a woman sowing her own poisonous seeds on the cusp of a dying town.

Overall, Yellow Jessamine is a quick, gripping tale with plenty of scares and heartbreak. Big thanks to Neon Hemlock Press and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for honest review consideration.

Thank you Neon Hemlock Press & Netgalley for providing me with an arc for review.

I wanted to love this more than I do. [book:The Luminous Dead|36117102] was a 3 star read as well but it left me with such an unsettling feeling for weeks after. I love what Caitlin Starling has brought to the table with her books. She has the ability to create some truly horrific women that I can't help but want to succeed.

We are dealing with a novella here so I won't give too many details but I hoped for something else with the ending. It almost felt a little lackluster to me. I really liked seeing Starling's take on a gothic premise and am still looking forward to her upcoming releases.

I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher, and author Caitlin Starling for providing me with an ARC of Yellow Jessamine!

This was just an okay read for me. I felt like a lot of world building was lost due to it being a novella. It was creepy and mysterious, but there could have been so much more. Also, falling under the LGBT category doesn’t seem like the correct classification for this. There was the slightest touch on F/F love, but I don’t think enough for it to be classified as such. It was a good read, but I just wanted more.

Thank you again to those named above for the chance to read and review this ARC!