Historical Fiction – Page 51 – Trigger Warning Database

Big Lies in a Small Town by Diane Chamberlain

Big Lies in a Small Town by Diane Chamberlain

Kacey Cleary’s whole life imploded four years ago in a drunk-driving accident. Now she’s working hard to bury the pieces left behind—all but one. Her little sister, Livie. Kacey can swallow the constant disapproval from her born-again aunt Darla over her self-destructive lifestyle; she can stop herself from going kick-boxer crazy on Uncle Raymond when he loses the girls’ college funds at a blackjack table. She just needs to keep it together until Livie is no longer a minor, and then they can get the hell out of Grand Rapids, Michigan… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Sexism
Rape
Alcoholism
Manic-depressive episode
Murder

Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

On a dark midwinter night in an ancient inn on the river Thames, an extraordinary event takes place. The regulars are telling stories to while away the dark hours when the door bursts open on a grievously wounded stranger. In his arms is the lifeless body of a small child. Hours later, the girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life. Is it a miracle? Is it magic? Or can science provide an explanation? These questions have many answers, some of them quite dark indeed… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Rape
Domestic violence
Suicide
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a child
Kidnapping

The Summer Garden by Paullina Simons

The Summer Garden by Paullina Simons

Through years of war and devastation, Tatiana and Alexander suffered the worst the twentieth century had to offer. Miraculously reunited in America, they now have a beautiful son, Anthony, the gift of a love strong enough to survive the most terrible upheavals. Though they are still young, the ordeals they endured have changed them–and after living apart in a world laid waste, they must now find a way to live together in postwar America. With the Cold War rising, dark forces at work in their adopted country threaten… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Cheating
Physical assault
War themes

Tatiana and Alexander by Paullina Simons

Tatiana and Alexander by Paullina Simons

Tatiana is eighteen years old, pregnant, and widowed when she escapes war-torn Leningrad to find a new life in America. But the ghosts of her past do not rest easily. She becomes consumed by the belief that her husband, Red Army officer Alexander Belov, is still alive and needs her desperately. Meanwhile, oceans and continents away in the Soviet Union, Alexander barely escapes execution and is forced to lead a battalion of soldiers considered expendable by the Soviet high command. Yet Alexander is determined… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Domestic abuse
Child abuse
Alcoholism
Pregnancy
Torture
War themes

The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons

The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons

The golden skies, the translucent twilight, the white nights, all hold the promise of youth, of love, of eternal renewal. The war has not yet touched this city of fallen grandeur, or the lives of two sisters, Tatiana and Dasha Metanova, who share a single room in a cramped apartment with their brother and parents. Their world is turned upside down when Hitler’s armies attack Russia and begin their unstoppable blitz to Leningrad. Yet there is light in the darkness. Tatiana meets Alexander, a brave young officer in the Red Army… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Alcoholism
Pregnancy
Miscarriage & abortion mentioned
Starvation
Blackmail
Explosion & bombings
War themes

The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis

The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis

When she is sent to an orphanage at the age of eight, Beth Harmon soon discovers two ways to escape her surroundings, albeit fleetingly: playing chess and taking the little green pills given to her and the other children to keep them subdued. Before long, it becomes apparent that hers is a prodigious talent, and as she progresses to the top of the US chess rankings she is able to forge a new life for herself. But she can never quite overcome her urge to self-destruct. For Beth, there’s more at stake than merely winning and losing.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Misogyny
Substance addiction
Death of a parent

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

Among the most celebrated and beloved novels of 2021, Anthony Doerr’s gorgeous third novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, and hope–and a book. In Cloud Cuckoo Land, Doerr has created a magnificent tapestry of times and places that reflect our vast interconnectedness–with other species, with each other, with those who lived before us, and with those who will be here after we’re gone… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Homomisia
Ableism
Suicide, off-page
Death of a sister
Animal death
Terrorism
Poverty

Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian

Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian

Boston, 1662. Mary Deerfield is twenty-four years old. Her skin is porcelain, her eyes delft blue, and in England, she might have had many suitors. But here in the New World, amid this community of saints, Mary is the second wife of Thomas Deerfield, a man as cruel as he is powerful. When Thomas, prone to drunken rage, drives a three-tined fork into the back of Mary’s hand, she resolves that she must divorce him to save her life. But in a world where every neighbour is watching for signs of the devil, a woman like Mary–a woman who harbours secret desires and finds it diffic… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Physical & verbal domestic abuse
Suicidal ideation
Infertility

Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau

Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau

In 1970s Baltimore, fourteen-year-old Mary Jane loves cooking with her mother, singing in her church choir, and enjoying her family’s subscription to the Broadway Show Tunes of the Month record club. Shy, quiet, and bookish, she’s glad when she lands a summer job as a nanny for the daughter of a local doctor. A respectable job, Mary Jane’s mother says. In a respectable house. The house may look respectable on the outside but inside it’s a literal and figurative mess: clutter on every surface,… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Antisemitism
Racism
Drug use & abuse

The Girl in His Shadow by Audrey Blake

The Girl in His Shadow by Audrey Blake

Raised by the eccentric surgeon Dr Horace Croft after losing her parents to a deadly pandemic, the orphan Nora Beady knows little about conventional life. While other young ladies were raised to busy themselves with needlework and watercolours, Nora was trained to perfect her suturing and anatomical illustrations of dissections. Women face dire consequences if caught practising medicine but in Croft’s private clinic… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Sexism
Death of parents from illness during a pandemic