Category Archives: Horror

Forget This Ever Happened by Cassandra Rose Clarke

Forget This Ever Happened by Cassandra Rose Clarke

Sometimes there’s a town called Indianola. And sometimes there isn’t. Summer, 1993. Claire has been dumped in rural Indianola, Texas, to spend her whole vacation taking care of mean, sickly Grammy. There’s nothing too remarkable about Indianola: it’s run-down, shabby, and stifling hot, a pin-dot on the Gulf Coast. Well, there is one remarkable thing, she discovers. Something otherworldly. Well, there is one remarkable thing, she discovers. Something otherworldly. Because there’s a confluence of energies at Indianola, a fissure in time and space, a gap in reality… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia & internalised homomisia
  • Emotional abuse & gaslighting
  • Gun violence

A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic by Lisa Papademetriou

A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic by Lisa Papademetriou

Kai and Leila are both finally having an adventure. For Leila, that means a globe-crossing journey to visit family in Pakistan for the summer; for Kai, it means being stuck with her crazy great-aunt in Texas while her mom looks for a job. In each of their bedrooms, they discover a copy of a blank, old book called The Exquisite Corpse. Kai writes three words on the first page—and suddenly, they magically appear in Leila’s copy on the other side of the planet. Kai’s words are soon followed by line after line of the long-ago, romantic tale of Ralph T. Flabbergast and his forever-love… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Death of a father recounted

An Indecent Invitation by Laura Trentham

An Indecent Invitation by Laura Trentham

Lady Lily Drummond understands only too well the danger of spy work. Her father, a preeminent master spy, has been missing for months, and her brother barely survived his final mission for the Crown. Lily is still determined to help find her father, no matter how hard her brother and his best friend try to keep her in the dark. Busy trying to untangle the web of deceit surrounding the Earl of Windor’s disappearance, Crown spy Gray Masterson also has to ensure Lily Drummond, the gangly, awkward child who was his constant shadow growing up, doesn’t get herself ruined… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Disappearance of a parent

Blood and Marriage by Megan Derr

Blood and Marriage by Megan Derr

Morrin has waited a long time to claim his throne, and even longer to have a real family. It may not be a conventional family, consisting of his closest friends, his brother Istari, and Istari’s spouse and children, but it’s one he loves and is proud of. No odious brothers, no abusive father, no cowardly mother. The very last thing he wants is to upset the balance by taking a wife, but his friends are right in that seeing him married will go a long way toward repairing the damage caused by his war-mongering, tyrant father. He just didn’t expect them to suggest the blandest princess… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Slut shaming mentioned
  • Human trafficking
  • Child abuse
  • Suicide

Spell Sweeper by Lee Edward Födi

Spell Sweeper by Lee Edward Födi

Most students at Dragonsong Academy spend their days practising spells and wielding wands, but after flunking her sixth-grade standardized tests, Cara Moone is on the fast track to becoming a MOP (a.k.a. Magical Occurrence Purger). See, when a real wizard casts a spell, it leaves behind a residue called spell dust—which can be dangerous if not disposed of properly. It’s a MOP’s job to clean up the mess. And no one makes more of a mess than Dragonsong Academy’s star student, Harlee. Widely believed to be… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent in a car accident recounted
  • Bullying

Oxygen by Carol Cassella

Oxygen by Carol Cassella

Dr Marie Heaton is an anesthesiologist at the height of her profession. She has worked, lived, and breathed her career since medical school, and she now practices at a top Seattle hospital. Marie has carefully constructed and constricted her life according to empirical truths, to the science and art of medicine. But when her tried-and-true formula suddenly deserts her during a routine surgery, she must explain the nightmarish operating room disaster and face the resulting malpractice suit. Marie’s best friend, colleague, and former lover, Dr Joe Hillary, becomes her closest confidante… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Prescription drug abuse
  • Death of a child

When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller

When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller

When Lily and her family move in with her sick grandmother, a magical tiger straight out of her halmoni’s Korean folktales arrives, prompting Lily to unravel a secret family history. Long, long ago, Halmoni stole something from the tigers. Now they want it back. And when one of the tigers approaches Lily with a deal–return what her grandmother stole in exchange for Halmoni’s health–Lily is tempted to agree. But deals with tigers are never what they seem! With the help of her sister and her new friend Ricky, Lily must find her voice…and the courage to face a tiger.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Death of a father in a car accident mentioned

My Whole Truth by Mischa Thrace

My Whole Truth by Mischa Thrace

Seventeen-year-old Seelie Stanton never wanted to kill someone. She never wanted to be invisible in her own family, never wanted to crush on her best friend Alyssa, and she definitely never wanted to know how effectively a mallet could destroy someone’s head. But the universe doesn’t care what she wants. Shane Mayfield doesn’t care what Seelie wants either. When the former high school basketball star attacks her, she has no choice but to defend herself. She saved her own life, but she can’t bring herself to talk about what happened that night. Not all of it. Not even when she’s arrested for murder.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Victim blaming
  • Rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Abortion
  • Bullying

The Knockout by Sajni Patel

The Knockout by Sajni Patel

If seventeen-year-old Kareena Thakkar is going to alienate herself from the entire Indian community, she might as well do it gloriously. She’s landed the chance of a lifetime, an invitation to the US Muay Thai Open, which could lead to a spot on the first-ever Olympic team. If only her sport wasn’t seen as something too rough for girls, something she’s afraid to share with anyone outside of her family. Despite pleasing her parents, exceling at school, and making plans to get her family out of debt, Kareena’s never felt quite Indian enough, and her training is only making… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Hospitalisation
  • Blood depiction
  • Bullying

House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin Craig

House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

Annaleigh lives a sheltered life at Highmoor, a manor by the sea, with her sisters, their father, and stepmother. Once they were twelve, but loneliness fills the grand halls now that four of the girls’ lives have been cut short. Each death was more tragic than the last—the plague, a plummeting fall, a drowning, a slippery plunge—and there are whispers throughout the surrounding villages that the family is cursed by the gods. Disturbed by a series of ghostly visions, Annaleigh becomes increasingly suspicious that the deaths were no accidents. Her sisters have been sneaking… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sex worker slur
  • Hallucinations
  • Suicide
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Drugging
  • Stillbirth
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a sibling
  • Murder
  • Drowning
  • Fire
  • Death from exposure to the cold
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)