Category Archives: Fantasy & Paranormal

A Grim and Sunken Vow by Ashley Shuttleworth

The die is cast. The era of Spring is over. Riadne’s bloody coup on the Summer Solstice changed Arlo’s life forever. In one fell swoop and a fool’s bargain, she lost both her family and free will to the newly crowned High Queen. Now, with Arlo forced to use her powers as Luck’s Hollow Star to help summon the rest of the seven deadly sins, Riadne stands closer than ever to achieving her dark goals. And Arlo isn’t the only one trapped in a frightening new role. Her ex-Fury girlfriend, Nausicaä, is determined to do whatever it takes to stay by Arlo’s side, even if that means becoming… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child trafficking
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Depression
  • Suicide recounted (off-page) & suicidal ideation mentioned
  • Self-harm
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a sister, mother & father
  • Murder & torture
  • Arson

Dear Mothman by Robin Gow

Halfway through sixth grade, Noah’s best friend and the only other trans boy in his school, Lewis, passed away in a car accident. Adventurous and curious, Lewis was always bringing a new paranormal story to share with Noah. Together they daydreamed about cryptids and shared discovering their genders and names. After Lewis’s death, lonely and yearning for someone who could understand him like Lewis once did, Noah starts writing letters to Mothman, wondering if he would understand how Noah feels and also looking for evidence of Mothman’s existence in the… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transphobia mentioned, including accidental deadnaming and misgendering
  • Grief & loss depiction (theme)
  • Death of a friend in a car accident (off-page)
  • Bullying

Queen of Faces by Petra Lord

Anabelle Gage is trapped in a male body, and it’s rotting from the inside out. In Caimor, where the magical elite buy and swap designer bodies like clothes, Ana can’t afford to escape her tattered form. When she fails the entrance exam to the prestigious Paragon Academy, her last hope of earning a new body implodes. As the clock ticks down to her last breath, she’s forced to use her illusion magic to steal a healthy chassis—before her own kills her. But Ana is caught by none other than the headmaster of Paragon Academy, who poses a brutal ultimatum: face execution for her crime… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Suicide by overdose
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & illness depiction
  • Murder
  • Gun & knife violence
  • Explosion
  • Imprisonment

Son of the Morning by Akwaeke Emezi

Tenderhearted Galilee was raised by the Kincaids, a formidable clan of Black women sequestered deep in the weeping willows and dark rushing creeks of their land. Galilee has always known that she’s different—that there is an old and unknowable secret around her very existence. It has been a hollow ache inside her since her childhood, something she assumes she will always have to live with. Until she meets Lucifer Helel. He’s fronting as the head of security for her wealthy friend Oriaku’s family, protecting a mysterious, ancient artifact, but from the moment she lays eyes on him… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slut-shaming
  • Improper BDSM practice recounted (not respecting safe words)
  • Intimate partner violence (on-page, protagonist slaps her love interest)
  • Parental infertility & miscarriage mentioned
  • Alochol consumption
  • Physical injury, including temporary loss of vision and gunshot wounds
  • Murder of a father by a mother mentioned (protagonist)
  • Attempted murder & physical assailt
  • Torture
  • Kidnapping & stalking
  • Fire
  • Loss of autonomy (memory manipulation, angelic possession with the intent to impregnate another)
  • Battle scene

Our Rogue Fates by Sarah Glenn Marsh

When he isn’t training as a Warden to become half the hero his father was, Griff Sayer is in the business of breaking hearts all across the town of Mayfair, although that slows down after settling in with his current boyfriend. Griff’s ex–best friend, Mal Pryce, meanwhile, is in business with whatever or whoever puts good money in his hands. Now in their mid-twenties, Griff and Mal have only exchanged scathing looks and carefully barbed jabs since the fight that sent them their separate ways years ago. But all that begins to change when an attack Mal plotted for his shady… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcoholism (protagonist) & alcohol consumption (on-page)

Strange Familiars by Keshe Chow

Gwendolynne Chan just needs to get through her final year. At Seamere College of Magical Veterinary Sciences, she spends her days using her powers to heal companion animals while her nights are spent studying for exams. As the top student in the magical familiars stream, she is on track to be awarded Dux of the entire school – as long as the pretentious twat Harrisford Briggs doesn’t beat her to it. Harrisford Briggs was born into privilege. His father, the Chief Financial Officer of Magecorp, a major global distributor of magic, expects him to come top of the year. Harrisford… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & classism
  • Self-harm
  • Animal death

Waiting on a Friend by Natalie Adler

East Village, summer of 1984. Renata is a young dyke-about-town who happens to have the ability to see ghosts, which has been happening more and more frequently as her friends have started dying of what has recently been named AIDS. So, when her best friend Mark dies, she assumes she’ll see him again. There’s no way Mark wouldn’t give her a chance to say goodbye, would he? But to her disappointment – and increasingly, her concern – Mark doesn’t appear. Renata has other problems, too. There’s something strange happening in her advertisements for paranormal ‘exte… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a best friend from AIDS (theme)

Camp Sylvania by Julie Murphy

Magnolia “Maggie” Hagen is determined to be in the spotlight…if she can just get over her stage fright. This summer, though, she has big plans to finally attend Camp Rising Star, the famous performing arts camp she’s been dying to go to for three whole summers. But on the last day of school, her parents break the news: Maggie isn’t going to Camp Rising Star. She’s being shipped off to fat camp—and not just any fat camp. She’s going to Camp Sylvania, run by world-famous wellness influencer Sylvia Sylvania, who is known for her soon-to-be patented Scarlet Diet…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Fatphobia & body-shaming
  • Dieting & weight discussed
  • Blood depiction

A Taste Of Magic by J. Elle

Twelve-year-old Kyana has just discovered she’s a witch! This means classes every Saturday at Park Row Magic Academy, a learning center hidden in the back of the local beauty shop, and Kyana can’t wait to learn spells to help out at home. The only downside is having to keep her magic a secret from her BFF, Nae. But when the magic school loses funding, the students must pay huge fees at the fancy school across town or lose their magic! Determined to help, Kyana enters a baking contest with a big cash prize. Will she be able to keep up her grades while preparing for the competition and without revealing her magic? What about… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grandparent with Alzheimer’s Disease

Ashes of Gold by J. Elle

Rue has no memory of how she ended up locked in a basement prison without her magic or her allies. But she’s a girl from the East Row. And girls from the East Row don’t give up. Girls from the East Row pick themselves back up when they fall. Girls from the East Row break themselves out. But reuniting with her friends is only half the battle. When she finds them again, Rue makes a vow: she will find a way to return the magic that the Chancellor has stolen from her father’s people. Yet even on Yiyo Peak, Rue is a misfit—with half a foot back in Houston and half a heart… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Self-harm for ritual
  • Blood depiction
  • Poisoning
  • Torture
  • Battle scenes with physical assault & stabbings