Category Archives: Fantasy & Paranormal

The Shadow Bride by Shelby Mahurin

Célie’s life is over. She took her final breath trying to save the people she loves—including the powerful and enigmatic vampire king, Michal, who refused to let her go. When Célie wakes, she cannot walk in the sun; she can hear her friends’ heartbeats and she craves their blood. Michal has cursed her to the eternal existence of a vampire. But Célie isn’t the only dead roaming the earth. Her sister, Filippa, has returned as a shadow of her former self, and other revenants are rising from their graves intent on revenge. The fragile… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction including blood-drinking, dead bodies, body horror & decapitation
  • Sword & spear violence
  • Torture

Enchantra by Kaylie Smith

Genevieve Grimm has felt adrift ever since her sister became the head of the family. So when a mysterious friend of their mother’s invites her to Italy, she accepts. She arrives at his grand palace, expecting passion and magic, decadence and luxury… perhaps even a midnight ball. She doesn’t expect the owner’s ruthlessly handsome son to slam the door in her face. Rowin Silver is tall, dark, and exceptionally rude, and invitation or not, he demands Genevieve leave and never come back. But Genevieve follows nobody’s orders, especially those of arrogant rich boys. She slips inside…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slut-shaming recounted
  • Child neglect
  • Self-harm (secondary character)
  • Panic attack
  • Alcohol consumption & drugging (drink spiking)
  • Blood & gore depiction including the depiction of dead bodies, emesis & graphic injuries
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence

Watch Me by Tahereh Mafi

James Anderson had a plan. Or half of one. All that matters is that he managed to do what his older brother, the famous Aaron Warner Anderson, never did: infiltrate Ark Island, the last refuge of The Reestablishment. In the past decade no outsider has breached the stronghold of the authoritarian regime, but James is in. In a prison cell, sure, but as far as James is concerned, a win is a win. It’s been ten years since the fall of The Reestablishment. Ten years since the notorious duo — Juliette Ferrars and… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Graphic murder
  • Blackmail

Love at First Fright by Nadia El-Fassi

Rosemary is a successful horror author with a secret: she can see ghosts. So when the set of her hit novel’s film adaptation turns out to be a haunted countryside manor, she’s unfazed. What she’s less prepared for is the maddeningly handsome, completely miscast actor playing her leading man. Ellis is a Hollywood heartthrob tired of his action-hero persona. Instead, he dreams of being a serious actor, and having free time to spend gardening with his dog. Landing the lead in a historical horror movie is his chance to start fresh… until he discovers the author tried to have him… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Internalised homophobia & biphobia
  • Anxiety
  • Alcohol consumption & mentions of smoking
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother from cancer recounted
  • Death of a pet dog recounted (off-page)
  • Blackmail

Sibylline by Melissa de la Cruz

Raven, Atticus, and Dorian have dreamed of attending Sibylline for as long as they can remember. But when the magical ivy league rejects them, the friends’ plans of a future together studying the arcane begin crashing down. Until they decide to steal an education. Getting jobs on campus, they sneak into lectures and swipe forbidden texts, dodging the administration’s watchful eye. In the quiet of night, in the thrill of secrecy, their magic awakens. And so do long-buried attractions that turn their friendship into something more… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Dubious consent scenario (including borderline necrophilia)
  • Blood & injury depiction

Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson

In 2267, Earth has just begun to recover from worldwide ecological disasters. Minh is part of the generation that first moved back up to the surface of the Earth from the underground hells, to reclaim humanity’s ancestral habitat. She’s spent her entire life restoring river ecosystems, but lately the kind of long-term restoration projects Minh works on have been stalled due to the invention of time travel. When she gets the opportunity take a team to 2000 BC to survey the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, she jumps at the chance to uncover the secrets of the shadowy think tank that controls time travel technology.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Body horror

High Times in the Low Parliament by Kelly Robson

Lana Baker is Aldgate’s finest scribe, with a sharp pen and an even sharper wit. Gregarious, charming, and ever so eager to please, she agrees to deliver a message for another lovely scribe in exchange for kisses and ends up getting sent to Low Parliament by a temperamental fairy as a result. As Lana transcribes the endless circular arguments of Parliament, the debates grow tenser and more desperate. Due to long-standing tradition, a hung vote will cause Parliament to flood and a return to endless war. Lana must rely on an unlikely pair of comrades—Bugbite, the… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Drug use & abuse (on-page)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Gun & knife violence

Crimson Reign by Amélie Wen Zhao

The Red Tigress, Ana Mikhailov, has returned to Cyrilia, but the country she once called home has fallen under a dark rule. Across the land, the Empress Morganya is tightening her grip on Affinites and non-Affinites alike. Ana dealt a blow to the Empress when she and her allies turned back Morganya’s troops in Bregon, but she couldn’t stop Morganya from gaining possession of the last remaining Bregonian siphon: a dangerous new weapon with the power to steal Affinities. Ana’s forces are scattered, and her tenuous alliance with the Cyrilian rebel group, the Red Cloaks, is becoming… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Torture
  • War themes & battle scenes

Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White by Amélie Wen Zhao

Fate brought them together. The gods will tear them apart. The demon gods have risen. Skies’s End has fallen to the colonizers. And Lan and Zen have chosen sides. But they will not fight together. Though Lan inherited the power of the Silver Dragon, she understands the path she must take. She believes the Demon Gods to be the cause of war, conflict, and turmoil. Worse, she knows that if the Elatians manage to bind one of the legendary beings, their army will be unstoppable. To save kingdom and her people, Lan will need to find the only mythical weapon… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sex work mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Minor blood & gore depiction
  • Torture
  • Knife, sword, bow & arrow & weapon violence
  • Physical assault

The Scorpion and the Night Blossom by Amélie Wen Zhao

Nine years ago, the war between the Kingdom of Night and the Kingdom of Rivers tore Àn’yīng’s family apart, leaving her mother barely alive and a baby sister to fend for. Now the mortal realm is falling into eternal night, and mó—beautiful, ravenous demons—roam the land, feasting on the flesh of humans and drinking their souls. Àn’yīng is no longer a helpless child, though. Armed with her crescent blades and trained in the ancient art of practitioning, she has decided to enter the Immortality Trials, which are open to any mortal who can survive the journey to the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction (on-page)
  • Knife, sword, bow & arrow & weapon violence
  • Torture including public whippings & water torture