The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

What if? Why not? Could it be? When a fortuneteller’s tent appears in the market square of the city of Baltese, orphan Peter Augustus Duchene knows the questions that he needs to ask: Does his sister still live? And if so, how can he find her? The fortuneteller’s mysterious answer (an elephant! An elephant will lead him there!) sets off a chain of events so remarkable, so impossible, that you will hardly dare to believe it’s true.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Physical injury
  • Death of a mother in childbirth recounted
  • Death of a father during military service recounted
  • Explosion mentioned
  • Animal illness & injury
  • Animal attack

The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson

The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson

Andie had it all planned out. When you are a politician’s daughter who’s pretty much raised yourself, you learn everything can be planned or spun, or both. Especially your future. Important internship? Check. Amazing friends? Check. Guys? Check (as long as we’re talking no more than three weeks). But that was before the scandal. Before having to be in the same house with her dad. Before walking an insane number of dogs. That was before Clark and those few months that might change her whole life. Because here’s the thing—if everything’s planned out, you can never find the unexpected. And where’s the fun in that?

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Cancer recounted
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Animal illness

Goldie Vance, Volume Two by Hope Larson

Goldie Vance Vol. 2 by Hope Larson and illustrated by Brittney Williams

Sixteen-year-old Marigold “Goldie” Vance lives at a Florida resort with her dad, who manages the place. Her mom, who divorced her dad years ago, works as a live mermaid at a club downtown. Goldie has an insatiable curiosity, which explains her dream to one day become the hotel’s in-house detective. When Charles, the current detective, encounters a case he can’t crack, he agrees to mentor Goldie in exchange for her help solving the mystery.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Amnesia
  • Blood depiction
  • Hospital
  • Disappearance
  • Physical assault

Goldie Vance, Volume One by Hope Larson

Goldie Vance, Vol. 1 by Hope Larson and illustrated by Brittney Williams

Sixteen-year-old Marigold “Goldie” Vance has an insatiable curiosity. She lives at a Florida resort with her dad, who manages the place, and it’s her dream to one day be the hotel’s in-house detective. When Walter, the current detective, encounters a case he can’t crack, together they utilize her smarts, skills, and connections to solve the mystery…even if it means getting into a drag race, solving puzzles, or chasing a helicopter to do it!

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Nazism, implied
  • Kidnapping

Promised In Blood by Lilith Vincent

Promised In Blood by Lilith Vincent

Four ruthless men. A virgin mafia princess to unite them. But first, there will be blood. On my seventeenth birthday, I learn a terrible secret about my family. My future is in the hands of four brutal men, and what awaits me at their hands is too terrible to imagine. Four men who desire me. Four men who vow to possess me. Four men who think they can destroy me. Four men who desire me. Four men who vow to possess me. Four men who think they can destroy me. A promise in blood. They take. I bleed. Happy birthday to me.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Statutory rape, on-page
  • Dubious consent scenarios
  • Knife & gunplay

The Make-Up Test by Jenny Howe

The Make-Up Test by Jenny L. Howe

Allison Avery loves to win. After acing every academic challenge she’s come up against, she’s finally been accepted into her dream Ph.D. program at Claymore University, studying medieval literature under a professor she’s admired for years. Sure, grad school isn’t easy—the classes are intense, her best friend is drifting away, and her students would rather pull all-nighters than discuss The Knight’s Tale—but she’s got this. Until she discovers her ex-boyfriend has also been accepted. Colin Benjamin might be the only person who loves winning more than Allison does, and when they’re both assigned to TA for the same profess… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Anxiety
  • Death of a parent

Maybe He Just Likes You by Barbara Dee

Maybe He Just Likes You by Barbara Dee

For seventh-grader Mila, it starts with some boys giving her an unwanted hug on the school blacktop. A few days later, at recess, one of the boys (and fellow trumpet player) Callum tells Mila it’s his birthday, and asks her for a “birthday hug.” He’s just being friendly, isn’t he? And how can she say no? But Callum’s hug lasts a few seconds too long, and feels…weird. According to her friend, Zara, Mila is being immature and overreacting. Doesn’t she know what flirting looks like? But the boys don’t leave Mila alone. On the bus. In the halls. During band practice-the one place Mila always… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual harassment (theme), including unwanted touching & pinching
  • Bullying & physical assault

And a Happy New Year by Holly Bourne

…And a Happy New Year? by Holly Bourne

The cover of a And a Happy New Year? by Holly Bourne, showing a purple

Evie, Amber and Lottie are having a new year party to remember. For the first time since leaving college, all three girls are back together. It’s time for fun and flirting, snogs and shots. (And not tears or tantrums or terrible secrets) Because everything’s going great for these girls – Spinster Club for ever! Right?

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis

Runebreaker by Alex Kahler

Runebreaker by Alex R. Kahler

Aidan desires only one thing: to rule. Arrogant, headstrong and driven by the element of Fire, he will stop at nothing to bring the evil Howls that destroyed Scotland to their knees. But Fire is a treacherous element, and the very magic that brought him to power could burn his world to ash. Especially with the blood of his fellow Hunters on his hands. Driven by a bloodlust he can’t control and dark whispers that may not be entirely in his head, he and his magic-eschewing friend Kianna will do whatever it takes to liberate their broken world. Even at the risk of confronting the… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Body horror
  • Torture
  • Mass murder
  • Gun violence

Runebinder by Alex Kahler

Runebinder by Alex R. Kahler

When magic returned to the world, it could have saved humanity, but greed and thirst for power caused mankind’s downfall instead. Now once-human monsters called Howls prowl abandoned streets, their hunger guided by corrupt necromancers and the all-powerful Kin. Only Hunters have the power to fight back in the unending war, using the same magic that ended civilization in the first place. But they are losing. Tenn is a Hunter, resigned to fight even though hope is nearly lost. When he is singled out by a seductive Kin named Tomás and the enigmatic Hunter Jarrett…. Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Homomisia
  • Dubious consent scenarios
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a friend
  • Graphic murder
  • Torture
  • Animal death & hunting