Synopsis:
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. Even as Evelyn works to exonerate her company of bringing plague into her besieged capital city, more and more cases develop, and the afflicted all share one singular obsession: her.
Panicked and paranoid, she retreats to her estate, which rests on a foundation of secrets: the deaths of her family, the poisons and cures that hasten the dissolution of the remaining upper classes, and a rebel soldier, incapacitated and held hostage in a desperate bid for information. But the afflicted are closing in on her, and bringing the attention of the law with them. Evelyn must unearth her connection to the spreading illness, and fast, before it takes root inside her home and destroys all that she has built.
Edition:
Paperback
My Thoughts:
I let Yellow Jessamine languish on my shelf for way too long. I mean, I got it in September of 2020, and I just got around to reading it a few days ago. What was I thinking?! At just barely over 100 pages, I don’t really have a valid excuse.
Yellow Jessamine is a beautifully written novella about power, control, and…herbalism. With the deaths of her entire family she has come to run their entire shipping empire. But with the return of one of her boats comes something else. Something that not only besets several of the ship’s crewmembers, but eventually others throughout Delphinium. Now it’s up to her and her plants to stop the plague and convince the law that it didn’t arrive on her ship.
I am not sure how much getting into the meat of the story and the particular things that made me love it so much I can really get into without veering off into spoiler territory. It’s always so tough with novellas.
But I’ll just say this – Starling’s writing is wonderful. Evelyn is a wonderfully compelling character. She’s not exactly likeable, but she’s tough to not like at least a little. Evelyn’s tough as hell, smart, loving, and capable. She’s also ruthless, selfish, and occasionally cruel. And that plague…
About the Author:
Caitlin Starling is an award-winning writer of horror-tinged speculative fiction. Her first novel, The Luminous Dead, won the LOHF Best Debut award, and was nominated for several others. She tweets at @see_starling and has been paid to design body parts.
Rating:
I wish that Yellow Jessamine had been a full length novel. That’s how much I loved it. GIMME MOOOORE. More Evelyn. More plague. MOAR PLANTS. Also, kicking myself for still sitting on The Luminous Dead (it’s sitting on my shelf right now, staring at me). Gonna have to fix that! And I preordered her upcoming The Death of Jane Lawrence (out October 19, 2021) the moment it was up.
Yellow Jessamine By Caitlin Starling Neon Hemlock Published: September 5, 2020 ISBN: 9781952086038 Paperback, E-book, Audio 131 Pages Author's Website
