Category Archives: Fantasy & Paranormal

The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste

Love potions is a dangerous business. Brewing has painful, debilitating side effects, and getting caught means death or a prison sentence. But what Venus is most afraid of is the dark, sentient magic within her. Then an enemy’s iron bullet kills her mother, Venus’s life implodes. Keeping her reckless little sister Janus safe is now her responsibility. When the powerful Grand Witcher, the ruthless head of her coven, offers Venus the chance to punish her mother’s killer, she has to pay a steep price for revenge. The cost? Brew poisonous potions to enslave D.C.’s most influential politicians. As Venus crawls deeper into the corrupt… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Gun violence

The Forest Grimm by Kathryn Purdie

The Midnight Forest. The Fanged Creature. Two fortune-telling cards that spell an untimely death for 17-year-old Clara. Despite the ever-present warning from her fortune-teller grandmother, Clara embarks on a dangerous journey into the deadly Forest Grimm to procure a magical book – Sortes Fortunae , the Book of Fortunes – with the power to reverse the curse on her village and save her mother. Years ago, when the villagers whispered their deepest desires to the book, its pages revealed how to obtain them. All was well until someone used the book for an evil purpo… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Physical child abuse & parental abandonment
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Murder
  • Poisoning

The Murmur of Bees by Sofía Segovia

From the day that old Nana Reja found a baby abandoned under a bridge, the life of a small Mexican town forever changed. Disfigured and covered in a blanket of bees, little Simonopio is for some locals the stuff of superstition, a child kissed by the devil. But he is welcomed by landowners Francisco and Beatriz Morales, who adopt him and care for him as if he were their own. As he grows up, Simonopio becomes a cause for wonder to the Morales family, because when the uncannily gifted child closes… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Domestic violence & child abuse

So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole

Faron Vincent can channel the power of the gods. Five years ago, she used her divine magic to liberate her island from its enemies, the dragon-riding Langley Empire. But now, at seventeen, Faron is all powered up with no wars to fight. She’s a legend to her people and a nuisance to her neighbors. When she’s forced to attend an international peace summit, Faron expects that she will perform tricks like a trained pet and then go home. She doesn’t expect her older sister, Elara, forming an unprecedented bond with an enemy dragon—or the gods claiming the only way to break that bond is to kill her sister. As Faron’s desperation to find… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Panic attacks
  • War, genocide & colonisation

Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs

For generations, the Kalotay family has guarded a collection of ancient and rare books. Books that let a person walk through walls or manipulate the elements–books of magic that half-sisters Joanna and Esther have been raised to revere and protect. All magic comes with a price, though, and for years the sisters have been separated. Esther has fled to a remote base in Antarctica to escape the fate that killed her own mother, and Joanna’s isolated herself in their family home in Vermont, devoting her life to the study of these cherished volumes. But after their father dies suddenly while reading a book Joanna has never… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism mentioned
  • Self-harm for magic
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction including body horror and dead bodies
  • Emesis
  • Death of parents recounted
  • Kidnapping recounted
  • Torture recounted
  • Gun violence
  • Fire

Shanghai Immortal by A.Y. Chao

Pawned by her mother to the King of Hell as a child, Lady Jing is half-vampire, half-hulijing fox-spirit and all sasshole. As the King’s ward, she has spent the past ninety years running errands, dodging the taunts of the spiteful hulijing courtiers, and trying to control her explosive temper – with varying levels of success. So when Jing overhears the courtiers plotting to steal a priceless dragon pearl from the King, she seizes her chance to expose them, once and for all. With the help of a gentle mortal tasked with setting up the Central Bank of Hell, Jing embarks on a wild chase for intel, first through Hell and then mortal Shanghai… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Panic attacks
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Bullying

Mortal Follies by Alexis Hall

It is the year 1814 and life for a young lady of good breeding has many difficulties. There are balls to attend, fashions to follow, marriages to consider and, of course, the tiny complication of existing in a world swarming with fairy spirits, interfering deities, and actual straight-up sorcerers. Miss Maelys Mitchelmore finds her entry into high society hindered by an irritating curse. It begins innocuously enough with her dress slowly unmaking itself over the course of an evening at a high-profile ball, a scandal she narrowly manages to escape. However, as the curse progresses to more fatal proportions, Miss Mitchel…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Threats of rape
  • Death of a parent & sibling recounted
  • Murder
  • KIdnapping
  • Animal death (sacrifice)

Blood Gift by Vela Roth

Ancient magic is sleeping inside Cassia. Wielding it is her birthright, but her bloodright is to become an immortal Hesperine like Lio, her Grace. Until she masters her dormant magic, it’s too dangerous for him to transform her. To claim both her legacies, she must return to the land that holds the secrets of her power: the mortal kingdom where she was once powerless. Lio is ready to protect her with diplomacy, spells, or even his fists. He knows he’ll need them against the lord who is still betrothed to her under human law. Most dangerous of all, the necromancer known as the Collector lies in wait, planning to use… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Childbirth
  • Blood-drinking
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence
  • Kidnapping & captivity

Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli

On the night Rune’s life changed forever, blood ran in the streets. Now, in the aftermath of a devastating revolution, witches have been diminished from powerful rulers to outcasts ruthlessly hunted due to their waning magic, and Rune must hide what she is. Spending her days pretending to be nothing more than a vapid young socialite, Rune spends her nights as the Crimson Moth, a witch vigilante who rescues her kind from being purged. When a rescue goes wrong, she decides to throw the witch hunters off her scent and gain the intel she desperately needs by courting the handsome Gideon Sharpe, a notorious and unforgive….Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Persecution for witchcraft including mass murder of witches recounted
  • Enslavement recounted
  • Rape recounted (multiple, forced sexual relationship)
  • Substance addiction & alcoholism recovery (laudanum, opium)
  • Murder by gun violence and explosion
  • Torture
  • Gun & knife violence

Ghost Book by Remy Lai

July Chen sees ghosts. But her dad insists ghosts aren’t real. So she pretends they don’t exist. Which is incredibly difficult now as it’s Hungry Ghost month, when the Gates of the Underworld open and dangerous ghosts run amok in the living world. When July saves a boy ghost from being devoured by a Hungry Ghost, he becomes her first ever friend. Except William is not a ghost. He’s a wandering soul wavering between life and death. As the new friends embark on an adventure to return William to his body, they unearth a ghastly truth―for William to live, July must die.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a mother and wife in childbirth recounted
  • Near-death of a friend and child (on-page)
  • Mentions of death of a pet dog.