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Bitter Eden by Tatamkhulu Afrika

Bitter Eden by Tatamkhulu Afrika

This frank and beautifully written novel draws heavily on the author’s World War II experiences as a captive in North Africa and a prisoner of war in Italy and Germany. Three men who see themselves as “straight” must negotiate the emotions that are brought to the surface by the physical closeness of survival in the male-only camps. The complex rituals of camp life and the strange loyalties and deep bonds between the men are compellingly depicted in this tender, bitter, powerful tale of lives inexorably changed and a war whose ending does not bring peace.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Homomisia
Child sexual abuse, implied

Songs of a War Boy by Deng Thiak Adut

Songs of a War Boy by Deng Thiak Adut with Ben Mckelvey

Deng Adut was six years old when war came to his village in South Sudan. Taken from his mother, he was conscripted into the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army. He was taught to use an AK-47 and sent into battle.

Shot in the back, plagued by illness and the relentless brutality of war, Deng’s future was bleak. A child soldier must kill or be killed. But, after five years, he was rescued by his brother John and, miraculously, they became the third Sudanese family resettled in Australia.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Serious physical injury
Death of a child
Gun violence
Explosion
War themes, including child soldiers & conscription
Animal death

The Cheat Sheet by Sarah Adams

The Cheat Sheet by Sarah Adams

Hi, my name is Bree Camden, and I’m hopelessly in love with my best friend and star quarterback Nathan Donelson (so is half of America, judging by the tabloids and how much the guy dates). The first step is admitting, right? Except, I can never admit it to him because he clearly doesn’t see me that way, and the last thing I want is for things to get weird between us.

Nothing but good old-fashioned, no-touching-the-sexiest-man-alive, platonic friendship for us! Everything is exactly how I like it! Yes. Good. (I’m not crying, I’m just peeling an onion)… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Anxiety & panic attacks

Isn’t It Bromantic? by Lyssa Kay Adams

Isn’t It Bromantic? by Lyssa Kay Adams

Elena Konnikova has lived her entire adult life in the shadows. As the daughter of a Russian journalist who mysteriously disappeared after speaking out against government corruption, she escaped danger the only way she knew how. She agreed to marry her childhood friend, Vladimir, and move to the United States, where he is a professional hockey player in Nashville.

Vlad, aka The Russian, thought he could be content with his marriage of convenience. But after four years, it’s become too difficult to continue in a one-sided relationship. He joined the Bromance Book Club to learn how to make his wife love him, but all he’s learned is that he deserves more. He’s ready to create his own sweeping romance – both on and off the page… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Human & sex trafficking mentioned
Child neglect recounted
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a parent recounted
Kidnapping
Car accident

Little Gods by Jenny Ackland

Little Gods by Jenny Ackland

Olive Lovelock has just turned twelve. She is smart, fanciful and brave and on the cusp of something darker than the small world she has known her entire life. When she learns that she once had a baby sister who died — a child unacknowledged by her close but challenging family — Olive becomes convinced it was murder. Her obsession with the mystery and relentless quest to find out what happened have seismic repercussions for the rest of her family and their community. As everything starts to change it is Olive herself who has the most to lose as the secrets she unearths multiply and take on complicated lives of their own.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Suicide
Death of a baby sister
Nonconsensual adoption

Radar Girls by Sara Ackerman

Radar Girls by Sara Ackerman

Daisy Wilder prefers the company of horses to people, bare feet and salt water to high heels and society parties. Then, in the dizzying aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Daisy enlists in a top secret program, replacing male soldiers in a war zone for the first time.

Under fear of imminent invasion, the WARDs guide pilots into blacked-out airstrips and track unidentified planes across Pacific skies. But not everyone thinks the women are up to the job, and the new recruits must rise above their differences and work side by side despite the resistance and heartache they meet along the way.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism
Sexism
World War Two

Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa

Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa

As Nahr sits, locked away in solitary confinement, she spends her days reflecting on the dramatic events that landed her in prison in a country she barely knows. Born in Kuwait in the 70s to Palestinian refugees, she dreamed of falling in love with the perfect man, raising children, and possibly opening her own beauty salon. Instead, the man she thinks she loves jilts her after a brief marriage, her family teeters on the brink of poverty, she’s forced to prostitute herself, and the US invasion of Iraq makes her a refugee, as her parents had been. After trekking through another temporary home in Jordan, she lands in Palestine, where she finally makes a home, falls in love, and her destiny unfolds under Israeli occupation.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Rape
Gang rape
Sex work
Abortion
Death of a father
Torture

A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie

A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie

The chimneys of industry rise over Adua and the world seethes with new opportunities. But old scores run deep as ever. On the blood-soaked borders of Angland, Leo dan Brock struggles to win fame on the battlefield, and defeat the marauding armies of Stour Nightfall. He hopes for help from the crown. But King Jezal’s son, the feckless Prince Orso, is a man who specialises in disappointments.

Savine dan Glokta – socialite, investor, and daughter of the most feared man in the Union – plans to claw her way to the top of the slag-heap of society by any means necessary. But the slums boil over with a rage that all the money in the world cannot control… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Incest, implied
Blood & gore depiction
Torture

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught in one feud too many, he’s on the verge of becoming a dead barbarian – leaving nothing behind him but bad songs, dead friends, and a lot of happy enemies.

Nobleman Captain Jezal dan Luthar, dashing officer, and paragon of selfishness, has nothing more dangerous in mind than fleecing his friends at cards and dreaming of glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules.

Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, would like nothing better than to see Jezal come home in a box. But then Glokta hates everyone: cutting treason out of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendship… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Fatmisia
Sexism
Slavery
Suicide
Blood depiction
Chronic pain
Torture

A Fortune for Your Disaster by Hanif Abdurraqib

A Fortune for Your Disaster by Hanif Abdurraqib

In his much-anticipated follow-up to The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, poet, essayist, biographer, and music critic Hanif Abdurraqib has written a book of poems about how one rebuilds oneself after a heartbreak, the kind that renders them a different version of themselves than the one they knew. It’s a book about a mother’s death, and admitting that Michael Jordan pushed off, about forgiveness, and how none of the author’s black friends wanted to listen to “Don’t Stop Believin’.” It’s about wrestling with histories, personal and shared. Abdurraqib uses touchstones from the world outside—from Marvin Gaye to Nikola Tesla to his neighbour’s dogs—to create a mirror, inside of which every angle presents a new possibility.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism & racial slurs