Category Archives: Genres

Amen Maxine by Faith Gardner

Welcome to Silicon Valley, where the weather is perfect, the income is high … and Rowena Snyder is miserable. A transplant from New York, Rowena moved into her husband Jacob’s idyllic childhood home with their new baby. But suburbia isn’t Rowena’s cup of Starbucks. And she’s got serious anxiety and depression to boot. Jacob, worried about their marriage, scores a new product currently in beta testing from his tech job: Maxine, a “digital friend” that bonds with an individual by continually gathering their personal data. Along with functioning like an upscale digital assist… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Domestic emotional abuse & gaslighting
  • Postpartum anxiety & depression (protagonist, on-page)

The Glass Arrow by Kristen Simmons

In a world where females are scarce and are hunted, then bought and sold at market for their breeding rights, 15-year old Aya has learned how to hide. With a ragtag bunch of other women and girls, she has successfully avoided capture and eked out a nomadic but free existence in the mountains. But when Aya’s luck runs out and she’s caught by a group of businessmen on a hunting expedition, fighting to survive takes on a whole new meaning.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted sexual assault

Us Dark Few by Alexis Patton

Khalani is a Prisoner. Takeshi is a Guard. Both are slaves to the Underground. Khalani Kanes has never stood on the surface of the earth. In the underground city of Apollo, faith and dreams are as absent as the sun. She longed to visit Genesis, the infamous Domed City and the final place where humanity lives aboveground. But when Khalani is given a life sentence and thrown into prison for a theft she didn’t commit, those wishes shatter into oblivion. In Braderhelm Prison, murderers are neighbors, ruthless and cold-blooded guards live to punish, and every second is a battle… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault & attempted rape, thwarted by the perpetrator being beaten to death & having his eyes plucked out
  • Physical child abuse & domestic violence recounted, resulting in the love interest murdering his step-father in revenge for murdering his mother
  • Suicidal ideation (protagonist, on-page)
  • Alcohol consumption & mentions of smoking
  • Decapitation mentioned
  • Murder of a mother & father recounted (protagonist)
  • Physical assault & death in ‘fight pits’
  • Mass shooting mentioned
  • Imprisonment (theme), including inhumane treatment of prisoners through electrocution, starvation, and being worked to death
  • Nuclear fallout & terrorism recounted (post-apocalyptic world, set 300 years after the events)

Us Deadly Few by Alexis Patton

Khalani Kanes never imagined surviving Braderhelm Prison, let alone escaping to the desolate surface they had been told was uninhabitable. Haunted by the Governor of Apollo’s dark secrets, Khalani and her crew of criminals embark on a new perilous journey. Now, the true test begins as Khalani ventures through the treacherous “Death-Zone” toward the nearest underground city, Hermes. Abandoned relics of a once-great nation are not the only threats on the barren road. Violent storms sweep across the Death-Zone, the deadly Takeshi Steele has resumed…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault & attempted rape, thwarted by the perpetrator being beaten to death & having his eyes plucked out
  • Alcohol consumption & mentions of smoking
  • Drugging
  • Physical injury, including mention of secondary character going into septic shot from an arrow wound
  • Graphic fantasy violence including explosions, bombings, weapon violence (bow & arrow), physical assault/fight scenes & murder by gun violence
  • Torture, including electrocution, knife violence & lobotomy-like medical experimentation
  • Nuclear fallout & terrorism recounted (post-apocalyptic world, set 300 years after the events)
  • Kidnapping

Storm Caller by Nisha J Tuli

Poet Graves has only ever wanted to be free. But no matter where she turns, she’s held captive—by a power she doesn’t understand, a truth she no longer believes in, and a love she can’t deny. As Poet is drawn further into Rook’s world, his secrets force her to question who she can trust. But when friends turn into enemies, enemies prove to be allies, and the place that was once a safe harbor is revealed as the eye of the storm, Poet’s only choice is to fight for what she believes in. When New Manhattan’s darkest secrets refuse to stay hidden, the cause Poet and Rook fight for will be…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Classism & related fictional slurs
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Murder, explosion, electrocution & fantasy violence related to magical storms
  • Kidnapping & false imprisonment while drugged

Touch of Red by Laura Griffin

When crime scene investigator Brooke Porter arrives at the home of a murdered woman, the only thing more shocking than the carnage is the evidence that someone escaped the scene. But where is this witness now? A thorough search of the area yields more questions than answers, and before Brooke even packs up her evidence kit, she’s made it her goal to find the witness and get them out of harm’s way. Homicide detective Sean Byrne has seen his share of bloody crime scenes, but this one is particularly disturbing, especially because Brooke Porter is smack in the middle of it. Sean has had his eye on… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Paedophilia & child sexual abuse (off-page)
  • Emotionally abusive relationship & stalking by ex-partner (off-page)
  • Murder (off-page)
  • Kidnapping (on-page)

Beard in Mind by Penny Reid

Beau Winston is the nicest, most accommodating guy in the world. Usually. Handsome as the devil and twice as charismatic, Beau lives a charmed life as everyone’s favorite Winston Brother. But since his twin decided to leave town, and his other brother hired a stunning human-porcupine hybrid as a replacement mechanic for their auto shop, Beau Winston’s charmed life has gone to hell in a handbasket. Shelly Sullivan is not nice and is never accommodating. Ever. She mumbles to herself, but won’t respond when asked a question. She glares at everyone, especially babies. She… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence recounted
  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
  • Depression
  • Self-harm (cutting)

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver’s Row don’t approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it’s still home. Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time. Cash is tight, especially with all those installment… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Police shooting

The Art of Falling in Love by Haleigh Wenger

Seventeen-year-old Claire Haynes always spends summer vacation at her family’s beach house in Florida, sketching and dreaming of art school with her biggest fan-her Opa. But when Opa dies right before summer break, all Claire has left besides her memories is a sand-sculpting contest application with her name on it and the lingering question of why Opa filled it out in the first place. Claire has never even made a decent sandcastle, but she reluctantly turns in the entry forms, hoping the contest will help her navigate the grieving process by honoring one of Opa’s last wishes. When… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a grandfather
  • Homelessness

Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen

In an age of miracles where our greatest heroes from history have magically, unexplainably returned to shake us out of our confusion and hate, Harriet Tubman is back, and she has a lot to say. Harriet Tubman and four of the enslaved persons she led to freedom want to tell their story in a unique way. Harriet wants to create a hip-hop album and live show about her life, and she needs a songwriter to help her. She calls upon Darnell, a once successful hip-hop producer who was topping the charts before being outed on a BET talk show. Darnell has no idea what to expect when he steps… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & slavery discussed
  • Outing & homophobia recounted
  • Smoking
  • Death of a friend from cancer mentioned
  • Kidnapping of a child
  • American Civil War mentioned