Historical Fiction – Page 36 – Trigger Warning Database

The Tobacco Wives by Adele Myers

The Tobacco Wives by Adele Myers

Maddie Sykes is a burgeoning seamstress who’s just arrived in Bright Leaf, North Carolina—the tobacco capital of the South—where her aunt has a thriving sewing business. After years of war rations and shortages, Bright Leaf is a prosperous wonderland in full technicolour bloom, and Maddie is dazzled by the bustle of the crisply uniformed female factory workers, the palatial homes, and, most of all, her aunt’s glossiest clientele: the wives of the powerful tobacco executives…Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

Homomisia
Sexism
Parental abandonment
Death of a parent on deployment in World War Two
Infertility
Miscarriage

The Hell You Say by Josh Lanyon

The Hell You Say by Josh Lanyon

In the third in the popular Adrien English series, the “ill-starred and bookish” mystery writer has to contend with a Satanic cult, a handsome university professor and his on-again/off-again relationship with the eternally conflicted LAPD Detective Jake Riordan. And, oh, yes, murder…

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Trigger & Content Warnings

Homomisia
Racism
Stalking
Satanic cults

The Secret of Nightingale Wood Lucy Strange

The Secret of Nightingale Wood by Lucy Strange

1919. Mama is ill. Father has taken a job abroad. Nanny Jane is too busy to pay any attention to Henrietta and the things she sees — or thinks she sees — in the shadows of their new home, Hope House. All alone, with only stories for company, Henry discovers that Hope House is full of strange secrets: a forgotten attic, ghostly figures, mysterious firelight that flickers in the trees beyond the garden. One night she ventures into the darkness of Nightingale Wood. What she finds there will change her whole world…

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Trigger & Content Warnings

Prescription drug abuse
Medical experimentation mentioned
Forced institutionalisation
Death of a brother in a fire

The Great Trouble by Deborah Hopkinson

The Great Trouble by Deborah Hopkinson

Eel has troubles of his own: As an orphan and a “mudlark,” he spends his days in the filthy River Thames, searching for bits of things to sell. He’s being hunted by Fisheye Bill Tyler, and a nastier man never walked the streets of London. And he’s got a secret that costs him four precious shillings a week to keep safe. But even for Eel, things aren’t so bad until that fateful August day in 1854—the day the deadly cholera (“blue death”) comes to Broad Street… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

Child abuse
Cholera epidemic
Dead bodies mentioned
Death of a parent mentioned
Physical assault
Kidnapping & captivity
Animal abuse

Pyre at the Eyreholme Trust by Lin Darrow

Pyre at the Eyreholme Trust by Lin Darrow

In Temperance City, the streets are ruled by spelled-up gangsters, whose magic turf wars serve as a constant backdrop to civilian life. With magic strictly regulated, Eli Coello—whip-smart jewelry salesman by day, sultry torch singer by night—has always found it advantageous to hide his magical affinity for ink. All that goes up in smoke the day Eli is forced to use his magic to foil a jewelry heist, and in doing so unwittingly catches the eye of Duke Haven, leader of the fire-flinging Pyre gang. Seeing a useful asset, Duke promptly blackmails Eli into providing unregistered spellwork… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

Non-fatal immolation
Blackmail

The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey

The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey

Thirty-year-old Hetty Cartwright is tasked with the evacuation and safekeeping of the natural history museum’s collection of mammals. Once she and her exhibits arrive at Lockwood Manor, however, where they are to stay for the duration of the war, Hetty soon realizes that she’s taken on more than she’d bargained for. Protecting her charges from the irascible Lord Lockwood and resentful servants is work enough, but when some of the animals go missing, and worse, Hetty begins to suspect someone – or something – is stalking her through the darkened corridors of… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

Paedophilia & child sexual abuse
Child abuse recounted

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

In the middle of the night, a woman wakes to find her beloved city engulfed in flames. Ten seemingly endless years of conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans are over. Troy has fallen. From the Trojan women whose fates now lie in the hands of the Greeks, to the Amazon princess who fought Achilles on their behalf, to Penelope awaiting the return of Odysseus, to the three goddesses whose feud started it all, these are the stories of the women whose lives, loves, and rivalries were forever altered by this long and tragic war.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

Sexism
Slavery
Rape
Adult-minor relationship
Cheating
Suicide & attempted suicide
Blood & gore depiction
Death of a child
Death of a parent
Death of a spouse
Murder
Kidnapping
War themes
Animal death

Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche by Nancy Springer

Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche by Nancy Springer

Enola Holmes is the much younger sister of her more famous brothers, Sherlock and Mycroft. But she has all the wits, skills, and sleuthing inclinations of them both. At fifteen, she’s an independent young woman–after all, her name spelled backwards reads ‘alone’–and living on her own in London. When a young professional woman, Miss Letitia Glover, shows up on Sherlock’s doorstep, desperate to learn more about the fate of her twin sister, it is Enola who steps up. It seems her sister, the former Felicity Glover, married the Earl of Dunhench and per curt note… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

Misogyny
Death of a parent
Murder

The Case of the Goodbye by Nancy Springer

The Case of the G**** Goodbye by Nancy Springer

Please note that the title and cover contain a slur. It will be censored where possible.

As Enola searches for the missing Lady Blanchefleur del Campo, she discovers that her brother Sherlock is just as diligently searching for Enola herself! Sherlock and Enola must solve a triple mystery: What has happened to their mother? And to Lady Blanchefleur? And what does either have to do with their brother, Mycroft?

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Trigger & Content Warnings

Misogyny
Parental abandonment
Death of a parent
Attempted murder
Kidnapping

The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline by Nancy Springer

The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline by Nancy Springer

Enola Holmes’s landlady, Mrs. Tupper, is the closest thing Enola has to family these days, besides her occasional run-ins with her brother Sherlock. Even though Mrs. Tupper is nearly deaf and can barely cook, she’s an endearing presence as Enola longs for her absent mother. So imagine her horror when Enola comes home to find Mrs. Tupper kidnapped! Who would take her, and why? And what does Florence Nightingale have to do with it?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Misogyny
Parental abandonment
Kidnapping