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Night Watch by Terry Pratchett

Night Watch by Terry Pratchett

Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch had it all. But now he’s back in his own rough, tough past without even the clothes he was standing up in when the lightning struck…

Living in the past is hard. Dying in the past is incredibly easy. But he must survive, because he has a job to do. He must track down a murderer, teach his younger self how to be a good copper and change the outcome of a bloody rebellion.

There’s a problem:if he wins, he’s got no wife, no child, no future…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Police brutality & violence

Kisses and Croissants by Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau

Kisses & Croissants by Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau

Sixteen-year-old Mia, an American girl at an elite summer ballet program, has six weeks to achieve her dreams: to snag an audition with one of the world’s best ballet companies. But there’s more to Paris than ballet—especially when a charming French boy, Louis, wants to be her tour guide—and the pair discover the city has a few mysteries up its sleeve.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Car accident
Alcohol consumption
Minor physical injuries, including broken bones & concussion

Mother May I by Joshilyn Jackson

Mother May I by Joshilyn Jackson

Growing up poor in rural Georgia, Bree Cabbat was warned by her single mother that the world was a dark and scary place. Having married into a family with wealth and connections, Bree now has all a woman could ever dream of: a loving lawyer husband, two talented teenage daughters, a new baby boy, a gorgeous home, and every opportunity in the world.

Until the day she awakens and sees an old gray-haired woman peering into her bedroom window who vanishes as quickly as she appears. She spies the old woman again, in the parking lot of her daughters’ private school . . . just minutes before Bree’s infant son, asleep in his car seat only a few feet away, vanishes. There is a note left in his place, warning her that she is being is being watched; if she wants her baby back, she must not call the police or deviate in any way from the instructions that will follow.

To get her baby back, Bree must complete one small—but critical—task. It seems harmless enough, but her action comes with a devastating price, making her complicit in a tangled web of tragedy and shocking secrets that could destroy everything she loves.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Slut shaming
Rape
Incest
Nonconsensual pornography
Substance addiction
Overdose
Poisoning
Infanticide, attempted and threats of infanticide, central theme
Drugging of infants
Drowning of an infant
Bombs
Gun violence
Kidnapping and child abduction
Blackmail

Alice Payne Arrives by Kate Heartfield

Alice Payne Arrives by Kate Heartfield

It’s 1788 and Alice Payne is the notorious highway robber, the Holy Ghost. Aided by her trusty automaton, Laverna, the Holy Ghost is feared by all who own a heavy purse. It’s 1889 and Major Prudence Zuniga is once again attempting to change history―to save history―but seventy attempts later she’s still no closer to her goal. But in 2020 the Farmers and the Guides are locked in battle; time is their battleground, and the world is their prize. Only something new can change the course of the war. Or someone new. Little did they know, but they’ve all been waiting until Alice Payne arrives.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Period-typical misogyny
Sexual assault of a minor & statutory rape mentioned*
Depression mentioned
Suicide, suicidal ideation & suicide pacts discussed
Minor blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
Gun violence
War themes, including refugee experiences & displacement

*Context : Mentions of sex between a seventeen-year-old girl and an adult man.

World After by Susan Ee

World After by Susan Ee

When a group of people capture Penryn’s sister Paige, thinking she’s a monster, the situation ends in a massacre. Paige disappears. Humans are terrified. Mom is heartbroken. Penryn drives through the streets of San Francisco looking for Paige. Why are the streets so empty? Where is everybody? Her search leads her into the heart of the angels’ secret plans where she catches a glimpse of their motivations, and learns the horrifying extent to which the angels are willing to go. Meanwhile, Raffe hunts for his wings. Without them, he can’t rejoin the angels, can’t take his rightful place as… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Ableism & sexism (on-page)
Parent with paranoid schizophrenia with mentions of hallucinations & delusions
Graphic blood & gore depiction, including body horror, dead bodies, involuntary body modifications, medical experimentations, and cannibalism
Torture & psychological torture (on-page)
Murder & attempted murder
Gun & sword violence
Physical assault
Imprisonment
Kidnapping & captivity
Explosions
Building collapse recounted

Wild Women & the Blues by Denny S. Bryce

Wild Women & the Blues by Denny S. Bryce

1925: Chicago is the jazz capital of the world, and the Dreamland Café is the ritziest black-and-tan club in town. Honoree Dalcour is a sharecropper’s daughter, willing to work hard and dance every night on her way to the top. Dreamland offers a path to the good life, socializing with celebrities like Louis Armstrong and filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. But Chicago is also awash in bootleg whiskey, gambling, and gangsters. And a young woman driven by ambition might risk more than she can stand to lose.

2015: Film student Sawyer Hayes arrives at the bedside of 110-year-old Honoree Dalcour, still reeling from a devastating loss that has taken him right to the brink. Sawyer has rested all his hope on this frail but formidable woman, the only living link to the legendary Oscar Micheaux. If he’s right–if she can fill in the blanks in his research, perhaps he can complete his thesis and begin a new chapter in his life. But the links Honoree makes are not ones he’s expecting . . .

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Rape (ch 43)
Attempted suicide mentioned (chp 15)
Cancer mentioned (briefly in chp 15)
Emesis (chp 13)
Death of a parent & sibling
Car accident

Temeraire by Naomi Novik

Temeraire by Naomi Novik

Also called His Majesty’s Dragon.

Captain Will Laurence has been at sea since he was just twelve years old; finding a warmer berth in Nelson’s navy than any he enjoyed as the youngest, least important son of Lord Allendale. Rising on merit to captain his own vessel, Laurence has earned himself a beautiful fiancée, society’s esteem and a golden future. But the war is not going well. It seems Britain can only wait as Napoleon plans to overrun her shores.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Misogyny
Minor sex work shaming & slurs
Suicide*
Alcohol consumption
Recreational drug use (smoking)
Blood depiction
Death of a colleague (off-page)
Murder
Gun violence
Bombings
War themes (Napoleonic Wars)
Military violence & naval warfare
Animal death (graphic, multiple scenes)
Animal cruelty & abuse
Animal illness & injury
Animal attack
Death of an animal companion

*Note: An enemy air force captain chooses to stay on-board his dying dragon as it falls & plummets into the ocean.

After the Rain by Nnedi Okorafor

After the Rain by Nnedi Okorafor, adapted by John Jennings & illustrated by David Brame

During a furious storm a young woman’s destiny is revealed . . . and her life is changed forever.

In a small Nigerian town during a violent and unexpected storm, a Nigerian-American woman named Chioma answers a knock at her door and is horrified to see a boy with a severe head wound standing at her doorstep. He reaches for her, and his touch burns like fire. Something is very wrong. Haunted and hunted, Chioma must embrace her heritage in order to survive.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Blood & gore depiction, including mutilation
Loss of limb (on-page)

The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor

The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor

In West Africa in 2070, after fifteen-year-old “shadow speaker” Ejii witnesses her father’s beheading, she embarks on a dangerous journey across the Sahara to find Jaa, her father’s killer, and upon finding her, she also discovers a greater purpose to her life and to the mystical powers she possesses.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Fatmisia & body shaming
Beheading
Death of a father
Murder

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

There was no time to flee. No time to turn. No time to shriek. And there was no pain. It was like being thrown into the stars.

When a massive object crashes into the ocean off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria’s most populous and legendary city, three people wandering along Bar Beach (Adaora, the marine biologist- Anthony, the rapper famous throughout Africa- Agu, the troubled soldier) find themselves running a race against time to save the country they love and the world itself… from itself.

Told from multiple points of view and crisscrossing narratives, combining everything from superhero comics to Nigerian mythology to tie together a story about a city consuming itself.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism & ableist language
Outing
Bury Your Gays trope
Death of a sex worker
Gun violence