The Adventure Zone, Volume 2: Murder on the Rockport Limited! by Carey Pietsch, Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Travis McElroy, and Justin McElroy

In the second Adventure Zone graphic novel (adapted from the McElroy family’s wildly popular D&D podcast), we rejoin hero-adjacent sort-of-comrades-in-arms Taako, Magnus, and Merle on a wild careen through a D&D railroad murder mystery. This installment has a little of everything: a genius child detective, an axe-wielding professional wrestler, a surly wizard, cursed magical artifacts, and a pair of meat monsters. You know, the usual things you find on a train.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Dead bodies & body parts
  • Dismemberment
  • Beheading discussed
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Fire
  • Train crash
  • Loss of autonomy (mind control)
  • Animal attack

Accidentally Amy by Lynn Painter

Isabella Shay is usually a very honest person. But when she’s running late for her first day at a dream job and the barista yells for “Amy” 3x with no answer, she does the unthinkable. Izzy takes that PSL. It’s the exact drink she ordered and paid for, only waaaay further ahead in the line, so she mutters “I’m Amy” and grabs the cup. But when she turns around and runs directly into the most attractive man she’s ever seen, spilling the drink all over his GQ shirt and tie, she ends up having the ultimate meet-cute. Sparks fly and things feel beyond promising until he says the words, “See you tomorrow, Amy.” Uh, oh – she’ll definitely have to… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis

Golden Boys by Phil Stamper

Gabriel, Reese, Sal, and Heath are best friends, bonded in their small rural town by their queerness, their good grades, and their big dreams. They are about to embark on the summer before senior year of high school, where each is going on a new, big adventure. Reese is attending a design school in Paris. Gabriel is going to Boston to volunteer with a environmental nonprofit. Sal is interning on Capitol Hill for a U.S. Senator. And Heath is stuck going to Daytona Beach to help out at his aunt’s beachfront arcade… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Divorce
  • Anxiety
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Poverty

Anna K: A Love Story by Jenny Lee

Meet Anna K. At seventeen, she is at the top of Manhattan and Greenwich society (even if she prefers the company of her horses and Newfoundland dogs); she has the perfect (if perfectly boring) boyfriend, Alexander W.; and she has always made her Korean-American father proud (even if he can be a little controlling). Meanwhile, Anna’s brother, Steven, and his girlfriend, Lolly, are trying to weather a sexting scandal; Lolly’s little sister, Kimmie, is struggling to recalibrate to normal life after an injury derails her ice dancing career; and Steven’s best friend, Dustin, is madly (and one-sidedly) in love with Kimmie… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Fatmisia
  • Homomisia
  • Slut shaming
  • Cheating
  • Revenge porn
  • Depression
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Self harm mentioned
  • Dieting & weight discussed
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use
  • Overdose
  • Miscarriage & abortion mentioned
  • Death of a parent mentioned
  • Fatal train accident
  • Car accident
  • Animal death (horse & dog)

Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body by Rebekah Taussig

Growing up as a paralyzed girl during the 90s and early 2000s, Rebekah Taussig only saw disability depicted as something monstrous (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), inspirational (Helen Keller), or angelic (Forrest Gump). None of this felt right; and as she got older, she longed for more stories that allowed disability to be complex and ordinary, uncomfortable and fine, painful and fulfilling.

Writing about the rhythms and textures of what it means to live in a body that doesn’t fit… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & internalised ableism
  • Workplace discrimination
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Pregnancy & fertility discussed
  • Parent with chronic kidney disease
  • Paralysis
  • Childhood cancer

The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen

Hart is a marshal, tasked with patrolling the strange and magical wilds of Tanria. It’s an unforgiving job, and Hart’s got nothing but time to ponder his loneliness.

Mercy never has a moment to herself. She’s been single-handedly keeping Birdsall & Son Undertakers afloat in defiance of sullen jerks like Hart, who seems to have a gift for showing up right when her patience is thinnest… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Pregnancy & childbirth mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Physical injuries including gunshot wounds
  • Emesis
  • Heart attack recounted*
  • Dead bodies
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Death of a mother from cancer recounted
  • Death of a grandparent from a stroke
  • Attempted murder
  • Animal death recounted & discussed (dog)

*Context: Female protagonist’s father had a heart attack within the past year.

The Unspoken Name by A. K. Larkwood

What if you knew how and when you will die?

Csorwe does. She will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice. On the day of her foretold death, however, a powerful mage offers her a new fate.

Csorwe leaves her home, her destiny, and her god to become the wizard’s loyal sword-hand – stealing, spying, and killing to help him reclaim his seat of power in the homeland from which he was exiled… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Self mutilation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Physical injuries
  • Torture
  • Animal sacrifice

The Electric Heir by Victoria Lee

In the sequel to The Fever King , Noam Álvaro seeks to end tyranny before he becomes a tyrant himself. Six months after Noam Álvaro helped overthrow the despotic government of Carolinia, the Atlantians have gained citizenship, and Lehrer is chancellor. But despite Lehrer’s image as a progressive humanitarian leader, Noam has finally remembered the truth that Lehrer forced him to forget—that Lehrer is responsible for the deadly magic infection that ravaged Carolinia. Now that Noam remembers the full extent of Lehrer’s crimes, he’s determined to use his influence with Lehrer to bring him down for good… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Internalised victim blaming
  • Slut shaming
  • Statutory rape
  • Sexual assault & attempted rape
  • Adult-minor relationship
  • Child abuse
  • Domestic violence
  • Suicide & attempted suicide
  • Alcohol abuse
  • Drug abuse
  • Medical experimentation
  • Emesis
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Torture

The Fever King by Victoria Lee

In the former United States, sixteen-year-old Noam Álvaro wakes up in a hospital bed, the sole survivor of the viral magic that killed his family and made him a technopath. His ability to control technology attracts the attention of the minister of defense and thrusts him into the magical elite of the nation of Carolinia.

The son of undocumented immigrants, Noam has spent his life fighting for the rights of refugees fleeing magical outbreaks—refugees Carolinia routinely deports with vicious efficiency. Sensing a way to make change, Noam accepts the minister’s offer… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slut shaming
  • Child sexual abuse
  • Statutory rape
  • Physical abuse
  • Suicide, off-page
  • Alcohol abuse
  • Drug abuse
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Murder
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a parent

The Cabin by Natasha Preston

There may only be one killer, but no one is innocent.

When Mackenzie treks to a secluded cabin in the woods with six friends, she expects a fun weekend of partying, drinking, and hookups. But when they wake to find two of their own dead and covered in blood, it’s clear there’s a killer among them.

As the police try to unravel the case, Mackenzie launches her own investigation. Before long secrets start to emerge, revealing a sinister web of sins among the original seven friends… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug abuse
  • Abortion
  • Blood depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Stabbing
  • Blackmail
  • Fatal car accident recounted