Winter Be My Shield by Jo Spurrier

Winter Be My Shield by Jo Spurrier

Sierra has a despised and forbidden gift — she raises power from the suffering of others. Enslaved by the King’s Torturer, Sierra escapes, barely keeping ahead of Rasten, the man sent to hunt her down. Then she falls in with dangerous company: the fugitive Prince Cammarian and his crippled foster-brother, Isidro.

But Rasten is not the only enemy hunting them in the frozen north and as Sierra’s new allies struggle to identify friend from foe, Rasten approaches her with a plan to kill the master they both abhor. Sierra is forced to decide what price she is willing to pay for her freedom and her life …

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Slavery
  • Graphic rape
  • Paedophilia
  • Dismemberment
  • Chronic pain
  • Graphic torture
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

My Heart Goes Bang by Keris Stainton

My Heart Goes Bang by Keris Stainton

Ella, Lou, Issey, Liane and Paige are determined to make the most of this second year at uni. They want to have fun, but they want to focus on work. There’s no time for relationships. Except with each other. And even that’s not guaranteed. Gemma and Lou have always been close, but there’s tension between Issey and Liane, and none of them even knows Paige all that well.

But when Ella finds a magazine article with a list of men they should date before they’re 21 (someone who’s been on telly? Check; someone who’s got tattoos? Check;) they vow to complete the list before finishing university and set about it with a lot more enthusiasm than they do their studies … but will any of them end up with a full house? And when a secret from their first year comes out, it looks as if some of them might not be completing university, never mind the list …

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Fatphobia & body shaming
  • Misogyny
  • Slut-shaming
  • Lesbomisia
  • Sexual harassment
  • Revenge porn
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Cancer
  • Asthma attack
  • Stalking
  • Blackmail
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

When My Heart Joins the Thousand by AJ Steiger

When My Heart Joins the Thousand by A.J. Steiger

Alvie Fitz doesn’t fit in, and she doesn’t care. She’s spent years swallowing meds and bad advice from doctors and social workers. Adjust, adapt. Pretend to be normal. It sounds so easy. If she can make it to her eighteenth birthday without any major mishaps, she’ll be legally emancipated. Free. But if she fails, she’ll become a ward of the state and be sent back to the group home.

All she wants is to be left alone to spend time with her friend, Chance, the one-winged hawk at the zoo where she works. She can bide her time with him until her emancipation. Humans are overrated anyway… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist slurs
  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Parental abuse
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Depression
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Suicide mentioned & recounted
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood depiction & physical injuries
  • Surgery
  • Emesis
  • Hospitalisation
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Death of a parent mentioned
  • Police brutality
  • Drowning recounted
  • Bullying
  • Attempted murder of an autistic child by a parent
  • Poverty themes & homelessness
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck

Clinging to each other in their loneliness and alienation, George and his simple-minded friend Lennie dream, as drifters will, of a place to call their own—a couple of acres and a few pigs, chickens, and rabbits back in Hill Country where land is cheap. But after they come to work on a ranch in the fertile Salinas Valley of California, their hopes, like “the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men,” begin to go awry.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Misogyny
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use (smoking)
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Animal death
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

Nimona is an impulsive young shapeshifter with a knack for villainy. Lord Ballister Blackheart is a villain with a vendetta. As sidekick and supervillain, Nimona and Lord Blackheart are about to wreak some serious havoc. Their mission: prove to the kingdom that Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin and his buddies at the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics aren’t the heroes everyone thinks they are.

But as small acts of mischief escalate into a vicious battle, Lord Blackheart realizes that Nimona’s powers are as murky and mysterious as her past. And her unpredictable wild side might be more dangerous than he is willing to admit.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Amputation recounted
  • Emesis
  • Death of a mother & father
  • Murder
  • Explosion
  • Gun violence
  • Electrocution
  • Torture
  • Poisoning
  • Fire
  • Imprisonment
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The Sacrifice Box by Martin Stewart

The Sacrifice Box by Martin Stewart

Sep, Arkle, Mack, Lamb and Hadley: five friends thrown together one hot, sultry summer. When they discover an ancient stone box hidden in the forest, they decide to each make a sacrifice: something special to them, committed to the box for ever. And they make a pact: they will never return to the box at night; they’ll never visit it alone; and they’ll never take back their offerings.

Four years later, the gang have drifted apart. Then a series of strange and terrifying events take place, and Sep and his friends understand that one of them has broken the pact.

As their sacrifices haunt them with increased violence and hunger, they realise that they are not the first children to have found the box in their town’s history. And ultimately, the box may want the greatest sacrifice of all: one of them.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Homomisia
  • Death of an animal
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Lament by Maggie Stiefvater

Lament: The Faerie Queen’s Deception by Maggie Stiefvater

Sixteen-year-old Deirdre Monaghan is a painfully shy but prodigiously gifted musician. She’s about to find out she’s also a cloverhand―one who can see faeries. Deirdre finds herself infatuated with a mysterious boy who enters her ordinary suburban life, seemingly out of thin air. Trouble is, the enigmatic and gorgeous Luke turns out to be a gallowglass―a soulless faerie assassin. An equally hunky―and equally dangerous―dark faerie soldier named Aodhan is also stalking Deirdre.

Sworn enemies, Luke and Aodhan each have a deadly assignment from the Faerie Queen. Namely, kill Deirdre before her music captures the attention of the Fae and threatens the Queen’s sovereignty. Caught in the crossfire with Deirdre is James, her wisecracking but loyal best friend. Deirdre had been wishing her life weren’t so dull, but getting trapped in the middle of a centuries-old faerie war isn’t exactly what she had in mind . . .

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableist & fatmisic language
  • Graphic animal torture
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same. Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life. Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Classism
  • Ableist language
  • Homomisia
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Attempted suicide mentioned
  • Blood depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Gun & knife violence
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she’s struggling to conceal her power, and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.

Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town’s oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Attempted coerced suicide
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Fire recounted
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him stuck with the dregs nobody else in the Academy would touch…

A cocky diplomat with a black belt in sarcasm
A sociopath scientist with a fondness for shooting her bunkmates
A smart-ass techwiz with the galaxy’s biggest chip on his shoulder
An alien warrior with anger management issues
A tomboy pilot who’s totally not into him, in case you were wondering

And Ty’s squad isn’t even his biggest problem—that’d be Aurora Jie-Lin O’Malley, the girl he’s just rescued from interdimensional space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a war millions of years in the making, and Tyler’s squad of losers, discipline-cases and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire galaxy.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism and ableist language
  • Racial discrimination
  • Sexual assault, specifically nonconsensual kissing and unwanted touching
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Body horror
  • Blood and gore depiction
  • Physical injuries
  • Coma-like state
  • Grief depiction
  • Death of a father
  • Death of a stepmother
  • Death of parents
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a partner
  • Murder and attempted murder
  • Mass murder
  • Physical assault
  • Explosions
  • Gun violence
  • Imprisonment
  • War themes
  • Bullying
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com