Historical Fiction – Page 49 – Trigger Warning Database

The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare

The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare

Since his return from war, the Duke of Ashbury’s to-do list has been short and anything but sweet: brooding, glowering, menacing London ne’er-do-wells by night. Now there’s a new item on the list. He needs an heir—which means he needs a wife. When Emma Gladstone, a vicar’s daughter turned seamstress, appears in his library wearing a wedding gown, he decides on the spot that she’ll do.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Ableism
Slut-shaming
Disfigurmisia
Emotional abuse
Scars
Explosion recounted
War themes recounted

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

Seventeen-year-old Molly Gibson worships her widowed father. But when he decides to remarry, Molly’s life is thrown off course by the arrival of her vain, shallow, and selfish stepmother. There is some solace in the shape of her new stepsister Cynthia, who is beautiful, sophisticated, and irresistible to every man she meets. Soon the girls become close, and Molly finds herself cajoled into becoming a go-between in Cynthia’s love affairs. But in doing so, Molly risks ruining her reputation in the gossiping village of Hollingford – and jeopardizing everything with the man she is secretly in love with.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Death of a friend
Blackmail

The Tell Tale by Clare Ashton

The Tell Tale by Clare Ashton

The Tell Tale has been watching and waiting because there’s something queer about the village of Foel. Beth Griffiths has returned home to raise her daughter in the Welsh hills. They arrive to the open arms of the community, but not all is what it seems and Beth isn’t home for the reason she pretends either.

Vicious notes start appearing that reveal harsh truths about the village inhabitants, stirring up ancient past and old loves. Not even local dignitary, the… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Sexism
Hate crime
Outing
Cheating mentioned
Domestic abuse
Alcohol consumption
Drugging
Blood depiction
Gun violence
Homelessness
Hunting

The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher

The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher

Young, bookish Sylvia Beach knows there is no greater city in the world than Paris. But when she opens an English-language bookshop on the bohemian Left Bank, Sylvia can’t yet know she is making history.

Many leading writers of the day, from Ernest Hemingway to Gertrude Stein, consider Shakespeare and Company a second home. Here some of the most profound literary friendships blossom – and none more so than between James Joyce and Sylvia herself… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Suicide

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Child abuse & neglect

The Bones of Ruin by Sarah Raughley

The Bones of Ruin by Sarah Raughley

As an African tightrope dancer in Victorian London, Iris is used to being strange. She is certainly a strange sight for leering British audiences always eager for the spectacle of colonial curiosity. But Iris also has a secret that even “strange” doesn’t capture… She cannot die.

Haunted by her unnatural power and with no memories of her past, Iris is obsessed with discovering… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Sexism
Slavery
Human trafficking
Eugenics mentioned
Sex work mentioned
Sexual harassment
Domestic abuse
Amnesia
Suicide
Drugging
Blood & gore depiction
Involuntary medical experimentation
Hospitalisation
Cannibalism
Murder
Torture
Kidnapping
Police brutality
Fire
Poverty

Blameless by Gail Carriger

Blameless by Gail Carriger

Queen Victoria dismisses her from the Shadow Council, and the only person who can explain anything, Lord Akeldama, unexpectedly leaves town. To top it all off, Alexia is attacked by homicidal mechanical ladybugs, indicating, as only ladybugs can, the fact that all of London’s vampires are now very much interested in seeing Alexia quite thoroughly dead.

While Lord Maccon elects to get progressively more inebriated and Professor Lyall desperately… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Ableism & ableist language
Misogyny
Slut-shaming
Fatmisia & body-shaming
Classism
Racism
Cheating discussed
Disownment
Alcohol consumption & abuse
Drugging
Pregnancy (theme)
Miscarriage discussed in-depth
Forced ‘breeding’ programs discussed
Physical injuries, including graphic eyeball trauma
Blood & gore depiction, including on-page blood-drinking
Emesis
Dead bodies & body parts
Forced human medical experiments recounted
Eugenics discussed
Death of a father mentioned
Death of a girlfriend recounted
Murder & attempted murder
Gun violence
Knife violence
Physical assault
Kidnapping & captivity
Hostage situation

Paradise by Toni Morrison

Paradise by Toni Morrison

They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time.”

Founded by the descendants of freed slaves and survivors in exodus from a hostile world, the patriarchal community of Ruby is built on righteousness, rigidly enforced moral law, and fear. But seventeen miles away, another group of exiles has gathered in a promised land of their own. And it is upon these women in flight from death and despair that nine male citizens of Ruby will lay their pain, their terror, and their murderous rage.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Rape
Abortion
Miscarriage
Gun violence

Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris

Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris

Cilka Klein is 18 years old when Auschwitz-Birkenau is liberated by Soviet soldiers. But Cilka is one of the many women who is sentenced to a labour camp on charges of having helped the Nazis–with no consideration of the circumstances Cilka and women like her found themselves in as they struggled to survive. Once at the Vorkuta gulag in Sibera, where she is to serve her 15-year sentence, Cilka uses her wits, charm, and beauty to survive.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Rape
Paedophilia & sexual assault
Childbirth
Starvation
Physical illness
Torture
Word War Two (theme)
Concentration camps

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Stephen King

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Stephen King

In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.

Imprisoned for over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Antiziganism
Antisemitism
Nazism
Rape
Genital mutilation
Gun violence
Chemical gassing (gas chambers)
World War Two & the Holocaust (theme)
Concentration camps (theme)