Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

For more than a decade, Jenna Metcalf has never stopped thinking about her mother, Alice, who mysteriously disappeared in the wake of a tragic accident. Refusing to believe she was abandoned, Jenna searches for her mother regularly online and pores over the pages of Alice’s old journals. A scientist who studied grief among elephants, Alice wrote mostly of her research among the animals she loved, yet Jenna hopes the entries will provide a clue to her mother’s whereabouts. As Jenna’s memories dovetail with the events in her mother’s journals, the story… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Alcoholism
  • Animal death & injury (elephant)

Larger Than Life by Jodi Picoult

Larger Than Life by Jodi Picoult

A researcher studying memory in elephants, Alice is fascinated by the bonds between mother and calf—the mother’s powerful protective instincts and her newborn’s unwavering loyalty. Living on a game reserve in Botswana, Alice is able to view the animals in their natural habitat—while following an important rule: She must only observe and never interfere. Then she finds an orphaned young elephant in the bush and cannot bear to leave the helpless baby behind. Thinking back on her own childhood, and on her shifting relationship with her mother, Alice risks her career to… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Animal death & injury (elephant)

In the Middle of Somewhere by Roan Parrish

In the Middle of Somewhere by Roan Parrish

Daniel Mulligan is tough, snarky, and tattooed, hiding his self-consciousness behind sarcasm. Daniel has never fit in—not at home in Philadelphia with his auto mechanic father and brothers, and not at school where his Ivy League classmates looked down on him. Now, Daniel’s relieved to have a job at a small college in Holiday, Northern Michigan, but he’s a city boy through and through, and it’s clear that this small town is one more place he won’t fit in. Rex Vale clings to routine to keep loneliness at bay: honing his muscular body, perfecting his recipes, and making custom furniture. Rex has lived in Holiday for years, but his… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & outing
  • Hate crime (‘gay bashing’) leading to the death of the protagonist’s ex-partner and his hospitalisation for injuries
  • Nightmares
  • Protagonists with a speech impediment & chronic migraines
  • Attempted suicide recounted
  • Death of a father from a heart attack
  • Death of a mother from pancreatic cancer
  • Death of a brother from suicide mentioned (secondary character)
  • Car accident resulting an injured dog (no death)

Restless Slumber by KJ Sutton

Restless Slumber by K.J. Sutton

Fortuna’s entire life has changed. She has no idea how to balance her new responsibilities and who she used to be. There are hundreds of faeries in her head, her brother seems to have lost touch with reality, and a werewolf won’t leave her side. Maybe the utter lack of control is why her abilities seem to be changing, as well. Then there’s Collith. Enigmatic, beautiful, and infuriating. Not only a king of the faeries she despises so much, but also her mate. His gentle pursuit causes confusion in her normally unwavering relationship with Oliver. As a result of it all, Fortuna now finds herself surrounded by new enemies and ones… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Sexual assault
  • Sexual harassment
  • Intimate partner abuse
  • Forced marriage
  • Panic attack
  • Nightmares
  • Dead bodies & body parents
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Bpdy horror
  • Scars
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence
  • Poisoning
  • Whipping
  • Disappearance of a loved one
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Imprisonment
  • Loss of autonomy (mind control)
  • Drowning
  • Animal attack
  • Animal cruelty & abuse
  • Animal injury
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In a Badger Way by Shelly Laurenston

In a Badger Way by Shelly Laurenston

Petite, kind, brilliant, and young, Stevie is nothing like the usual women bodyguard Shen Li is interested in. Even more surprising, the youngest of the lethal, ball-busting, and beautiful MacKilligan sisters is terrified of bears. But she’s not terrified of pandas. She loves pandas. Which means that whether Shen wants her to or not, she simply won’t stop cuddling him. He isn’t some stuffed Giant Panda, ya know! He is a Giant Panda shifter. He deserves respect and personal space. Something that little hybrid is completely ignoring. But Stevie has a way of finding trouble. Like… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Ableism
  • Sexual harassment
  • Panic attacks
  • Discussions of weight
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Physical injury, including broken bones
  • Emesis
  • Needles & syringes
  • Medical human experimentation
  • Kidnapping of a child
  • Explosion
  • Physical assault
  • Car accident
  • Injury of a dog
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Alliana, Girl of Dragons by Julie Abe

Alliana, Girl of Dragons by Julie Abe

Once upon a time, Alliana believed in dreams and fairy tales as sweet as spun-sugar clouds. Alliana wished on shooting stars, sure that someday she and her grandmother would be able to travel to the capital city to see the queen. Then her grandmother passed away—and those dreams disappeared in a disenchanted puff. Now Alliana’s forced to attend to the whims of her wicked stepmother—with long days of cleaning her stepfamily’s inn as her skin burns raw or staying up until the crack of dawn to embroider her stepsister’s ball gowns. Until she meets two beings who change her life forever—the first is a young nightdragon… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of parents
  • Animal injury? (dragon)
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What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania. What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves. Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Suicide
  • Body horror
  • Fire
  • Animal death
  • Animal cruelty
  • Animal injury & illness
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Minor Mage by T. Kingfisher

Minor Mage by T. Kingfisher

Oliver was a very minor mage. His familiar reminded him of this several times a day. He only knew three spells, and one of them was to control his allergy to armadillo dander. His attempts to summon elementals resulted in nosebleeds, and there is nothing more embarrassing than having your elemental leave the circle to get you a tissue, pat you comfortingly, and then disappear in a puff of magic. The armadillo had about wet himself laughing. He was a very minor mage. Unfortunately, he was all they had.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Body & eye horror
  • Murder of a child
  • Animal injury
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Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley

Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley

When you sit down with Lily and the Octopus, you will be taken on an unforgettable ride. The magic of this novel is in the read, and we don’t want to spoil it by giving away too many details. We can tell you that this is a story about that special someone: the one you trust, the one you can’t live without. For Ted Flask, that someone special is his aging companion Lily, who happens to be a dog. Lily and the Octopus reminds us how it feels to love fiercely, how difficult it can be to let go, and how the fight for those we love is the greatest fight of all.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Animal illness

Among the Beasts and Briars by Ashley Poston

Among the Beasts & Briars by Ashley Poston

Cerys is safe in the kingdom of Aloriya. Here there are no droughts, disease, or famine, and peace is everlasting. It has been this way for hundreds of years since the first king made a bargain with the Lady who ruled the forest that borders the kingdom. But as Aloriya prospered, the woods grew dark, cursed, and forbidden. Cerys knows this all too well: when she was young, she barely escaped as the woods killed her friends and her mother. Now Cerys carries a small bit of the curse—the magic—in her blood, a reminder of the day she lost everything. The most danger… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Animal injury
  • Self-inflicted injuries
  • Blood depiction
  • Body horror