Mark of Cain by Kate Sherwood

Mark of Cain by Kate Sherwood

Mark of Cain by Kate Sherwood book cover

After a tough day of counseling sessions, Anglican priest Mark Webber is looking forward to a relaxing dinner at a local restaurant. When he sees who’s bellied up to the bar, though, he reaches for his cell phone to call the police.

It’s Lucas Cain, the man who killed Mark’s brother three years ago. Apparently he’s out of jail and hanging out with his old crowd, which has to be a breach of parole, right?

Pulled over upon leaving the bar, Lucas blows a clean breathalyzer and hopes this isn’t a harbinger of things to come…. Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia
  • Fatmisia
  • Hate crimes
  • Parental abuse
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief depiction
  • Murder
  • Physical assault
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The Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen

The Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen

The Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen book cover

Caleb Michaels is a sixteen-year-old champion running back. Other than that his life is pretty normal. But when Caleb starts experiencing mood swings that are out of the ordinary for even a teenager, his life moves beyond “typical.”

Caleb is an Atypical, an individual with enhanced abilities. Which sounds pretty cool except Caleb’s ability is extreme empathy—he feels the emotions of everyone around him. Being an empath in high school would be hard enough, but Caleb’s life becomes even more complicated when he keeps getting pulled into the emotional orbit of one of his classmates, Adam. Adam’s feelings are big and all-consuming, but they fit together with Caleb’s feelings in a way that he can’t quite understand.

Caleb’s therapist, Dr. Bright, encourages Caleb to explore this connection by befriending Adam. As he and Adam grow closer, Caleb learns more about his ability, himself, his therapist—who seems to know a lot more than she lets on—and just how dangerous being an Atypical can be.

“What if the X-Men, instead of becoming superheroes, decided to spend some time in therapy?”

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Fatmisia
  • Misogyny
  • Queermisia
  • Aromisic language
  • Depression and depressive episodes
  • Self-harm recounted, off-page
  • Medical experimentation mentioned
  • Bullying
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Between the Lives by Jessica Shirvington

Between the Lives by Jessica Shirvington

*Also titled One Past Midnight

Between the Lives by Jessica Shirvington book coverx

Sabine isn’t like anyone else. For as long as she can remember, she’s had two lives. Every twenty-four hours she “shifts,” living each day twice. In one life, Sabine has everything: popular friends, perfect grades, expensive clothes, and the guy everyone wants. In the other, Sabine’s family struggles financially, and her friends are considered rebels. But then she meets Ethan. He’s gorgeous and challenging, and he makes her feel like she’s never felt before.

All Sabine really wants is the chance to live only one life. But when this finally becomes possible, is she willing to risk everything – including losing the one person who might actually believe her – to make it happen?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableiest language
  • Self-harm
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Overdose
  • Psychiatric hospital
  • Forced hospitalisation
  • Emesis
  • Cancer
  • Death of a loved one
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Firstlife by Gena Showalter

Firstlife by Gena Showalter

Firstlife by Gena Showalter book cover

Tenley “Ten” Lockwood has spent the past thirteen months locked inside the Prynne Asylum. She’s earned her rep as the craziest of crazies, but that doesn’t stop the torture. Ten can leave, but only if she allows her parents to choose where she’ll live—after she dies.

There is an eternal truth most of the world has come to accept: Firstlife is merely a dress rehearsal, and real life begins after death.

In the Everlife, two realms are in power: Troika and Myriad, longtime enemies and deadly rivals. Both will do anything to recruit Ten, including sending their top Laborers to lure her to their side. Soon, Ten finds herself on the run, caught in a wild tug-of-war between the boy she’s falling for and the realm she wants to support. Who will she choose? Can she stay alive long enough to make a decision?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Attempted rape
  • Psychological abuse
  • Child abuse
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Self-harm
  • Blood depiction
  • Torture
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Dying for a Living by Kory M. Shurm

Dying for a Living by Kory M. Shrum

Dying for a Living by Kory M. Shrum book cover

On the morning before her 67th death, it is business as usual for Jesse Sullivan: meet with the mortician, counsel soon-to-be-dead clients, and have coffee while reading the latest regeneration theory. Jesse dies for a living, literally. As a Necronite, she is one of the population’s rare 2% who can serve as a death replacement agent, dying so others don’t have to. Although each death is different, the result is the same: a life is saved, and Jesse resurrects days later with sore muscles, new scars, and another hole in her memory.

But when Jesse is murdered and becomes the sole suspect in a federal investigation, more than her freedom and sanity are at stake. She must catch the killer herself—or die trying.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child sexual abuse recounted
  • Child abuse recounted
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The Boxer by Niklesh Shukla

The Boxer by Niklesh Shukla

The Boxer by Nikesh Shukla book cover

Told over the course of the ten rounds of his first fight, this is the story of amateur boxer Sunny. A seventeen-year-old feeling isolated and disconnected in the city he’s just moved to, Sunny joins a boxing club to learn to protect himself after a racist attack. He finds the community he’s been desperately seeking at the club, and a mentor in trainer Shona, who helps him find his place in the world. But racial tensions are rising in the city, and when a Far Right march through Bristol turns violent, Sunny is faced with losing his new best friend Keir to radicalisation.

A gripping, life-affirming YA novel about friendship, radicalisation and finding where you belong.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism and racial slurs
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The Rogue of Fifth Avenue by Joanna Shupe

The Rogue of Fifth Avenue by Joanna Shupe

The Rogue of Fifth Avenue by Joanna Shupe book cover

He can solve any problem…

In serving the wealthy power brokers of New York society, Frank Tripp has finally gained the respectability and security his own upbringing lacked. There’s no issue he cannot fix…except for one: the beautiful and reckless daughter of an important client who doesn’t seem to understand the word danger.

She’s not looking for a hero…

Excitement lay just below Forty-Second Street and Mamie Greene is determined to explore all of it—while playing a modern-day Robin Hood along the way. What she doesn’t need is her father’s lawyer dogging her every step and threatening her efforts to help struggling families in the tenements.

However, she doesn’t count on Frank’s persistence…or the sparks that fly between them. When fate upends all her plans, Mamie must decide if she’s willing to risk it all on a rogue…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Attempted sexual assault
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The Devil of Downtown by Joanna Shupe

The Devil of Downtown by Joanna Shupe

Manhattan kingpin. Brilliant mastermind. Gentleman gangster.

Orphaned and abandoned on the Bowery’s mean streets, Jack Mulligan survived on strength, cunning, and ambition. Now he rules his territory better than any politician or copper ever could. He didn’t get here by being soft. But in uptown do-gooder Justine Greene―the very definition of an iron fist in a velvet glove―Jack may have met his match.

Justine is devoted to tracking down deadbeat husbands and fighting for fair working conditions. When her mission brings her face-to-face with Jack, she’s shocked to find the man behind the criminal empire is considerably more charming and honorable than many “gentlemen” she knows.

Forming an unlikely alliance, they discover an unexpected desire. And when Justine’s past catches up with them, Jack may be her only hope of survival. Is she ready to make a deal with the devil…?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Kidnapping
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Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman

Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman

Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman book cover

Rowan has gone rogue, and has taken it upon himself to put the Scythedom through a trial by fire. Literally. In the year since Winter Conclave, he has gone off-grid, and has been striking out against corrupt scythes—not only in MidMerica, but across the entire continent. He is a dark folk hero now—“Scythe Lucifer”—a vigilante taking down corrupt scythes in flames.

Citra, now a junior scythe under Scythe Curie, sees the corruption and wants to help change it from the inside out, but is thwarted at every turn, and threatened by the “new order” scythes. Realizing she cannot do this alone—or even with the help of Scythe Curie and Faraday, she does the unthinkable, and risks being “deadish” so she can communicate with the Thunderhead—the only being on earth wise enough to solve the dire problems of a perfect world. But will it help solve those problems, or simply watch as perfection goes into decline?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia and body shaming
  • Depression
  • Suicide
  • Murder
  • Torture
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