Dawn of the Jaguar by J.C. Cervantes

Too bad death wasn’t the answer to her problems. Ren soon realizes she must return to the land of the living to make things right. Unfortunately, that means negotiating with Ixtab, queen of the underworld. Ixtab offers her ten days aboveground in exchange for the discarded crown of jade and shadow. If Ren fails, she will return to the darkness for eternity. Ren agrees, knowing full well that she also has to save her friends Marco, Monty, and Edison and, while she’s at it, put those pesky Lords of Night back to sleep forever. The only problem is, Ren lost her shadow magic and time… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Torture
  • Captivity
  • Animal attack (spider)

Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison

Rory Morris isn’t thrilled to be moving back to her hometown, even if it is temporary. There are bad memories there. But her twin sister, Scarlett, is pregnant, estranged from the baby’s father, and needs support, so Rory returns to the place she thought she’d put in her rearview. After a night out at a bar where she runs into an old almost-flame, she hits a large animal with her car. And when she gets out to investigate, she’s attacked. Rory survives, miraculously, but life begins to look and feel different. She’s unnaturally strong, with an aversion to silver–and suddenly the moon has her in its thrall. She’s changing into someone else… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault mentioned
  • Physical child abuse & neglect recounted
  • Infidelity recounted
  • Smoking
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Pregnancy & childbirth mentioned (secondary character)
  • Emesis
  • Hospitalisation
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction
  • Animal death & attack

Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon

I went up the hill, the hill was muddy, stomped my toe and made it bloody, should I wash it? Justin knows that something is wrong with his best friend. Zee went missing for a year. And when he came back, he was . . . different. Nobody knows what happened to him. At Zee’s welcome home party, Justin and the neighborhood crew play Hide and Seek. But it goes wrong. Very wrong. One by one, everyone who plays the game disappears, pulled into a world of nightmares come to life. Justin and his friends realize this horrible place is where Zee had been trapped. All they can do now is hide from the Seeker.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Phobias
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Disappearance of a friend
  • Animal attack
  • Poverty

Full Moon Over Freedom by Angelina M. Lopez

Gillian Armstead-Bancroft—Pride of the East Side and once-perfect bruja, wife, and mother—is going to spend her summer getting good at being bad. The first time she left Freedom, Kansas, behind, she did it by doing everything right. This time, she’ll hide from the large Mexican American family welcoming her home and work in secret to break the curse that’s erased her magical life. Only by doing it all wrong can Gillian get herself and her two children away from the ghosts of her hometown by summer’s end. Nicky Mendoza is an answer to her prayers. He was the practical solution to the problem of her virginity when they… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism and internalised racism
  • Emotional, verbal and financial intimate partner abuse, on- & off-page
  • Divorce
  • Parent with alcoholism discussed
  • Death of a relative from an overdose recounted
  • Animal attack recounted

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

Pax by Sara Pennypacker and Jon Klassen

Pax was only a kit when his family was killed, and “his boy” Peter rescued him from abandonment and certain death. Now the war front approaches, and when Peter’s father enlists, Peter has to move in with his grandpa. Far worse than being forced to leave home is the fact that Pax can’t go. Peter listens to his stern father—as he usually does—and throws Pax’s favorite toy soldier into the woods. When the fox runs to retrieve it, Peter and his dad get back in the car and leave him there—alone. But before Peter makes it through even one night under his grandfather’s roof… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a mother
  • Animal attack
  • Animal injury
  • Animal death

Mirage by Somaiya Daud

In a star system dominated by the brutal Vathek empire, eighteen-year-old Amani is a dreamer. She dreams of what life was like before the occupation; she dreams of writing poetry like the old-world poems she adores; she dreams of receiving a sign from Dihya that one day, she, too, will have adventure, and travel beyond her isolated moon.
But when adventure comes for Amani, it is not what she expects: she is kidnapped by the regime and taken in secret to the royal palace, where she discovers that she is nearly identical to the cruel half-Vathek Princess Maram… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Cheating
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Nightmares
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Physical injury & illness
  • Medical procedures
  • Needles
  • Death of a grandfather & grandmother
  • Death of a mother
  • Death of a sister
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Torture
  • Gun violence
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Hostage situation
  • Fire
  • Colonialism (theme)
  • Poverty
  • Animal attack

The Boneless Mercies by April Genevieve Tucholke

Frey, Ovie, Juniper, and Runa are Boneless Mercies – death-traders, hired to kill quickly, quietly and mercifully. It is a job for women, and women only. Men will not do this sad, dark work.
Frey has no family, no home, no fortune, and yet her blood sings a song of glory. So when she hears of a monster slaughtering men, women, and children in a northern jarldom, she decides this the Mercies’ one chance to change their fate… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Child abuse
  • Attempted forced child sex work mentioned
  • Suicide & assisted voluntary euthanasia, on-page
  • Suicidal ideation & attempted suicide recounted
  • Self-flagellation, on-page
  • Dead bodies & body parts
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Eyeball trauma
  • Serious physical injury & illness
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child, on-page
  • Death of a sister recounted
  • Death of a girlfriend recounted
  • Death of a mentor recounted
  • Death of a parent from illness recounted
  • Death of a friend, on-page
  • Graphic murder & attempted murder (theme)
  • Knife, axe & attempted murder
  • Hanging, off-page
  • Poisoning
  • Graphic drowning
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • War themes & battle scenes
  • Animal attack
  • Graphic animal death
  • Animal abuse

Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas

As the daughter of a rancher in 1840s Mexico, Nena knows a thing or two about monsters—her home has long been threatened by tensions with Anglo settlers from the north. But something more sinister lurks near the ranch at night, something that drains men of their blood and leaves them for dead.
Something that once attacked Nena nine years ago.
Believing Nena dead, Néstor has been on the run from his grief ever since. But no amount of drink can dispel the night terrors of sharp teeth… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Classism
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Gun violence
  • War themes
  • Animal attack (fantastical)
  • Animal death

Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber

Evangeline Fox was raised in her beloved father’s curiosity shop, where she grew up on legends about immortals, like the tragic Prince of Hearts. She knows his powers are mythic, his kiss is worth dying for, and that bargains with him rarely end well.

But when Evangeline learns that the love of her life is about to marry another, she becomes desperate enough to offer the Prince of Hearts whatever he wants in exchange for his help to stop the wedding. The prince only asks for three kisses… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Blood depiction & mentions of blood-drinking
  • Death of a parents mentioned (off-page)
  • Murder
  • Blackmail
  • Forced starvation (magical, vampires caged without blood)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Animal attack (wolf)