Dustborn by Erin Bowman

Dustborn by Erin Bowman

Delta of Dead River has always been told to hide her back, where a map is branded on her skin to a rumored paradise called the Verdant. In a wasteland plagued by dust squalls, geomagnetic storms, and solar flares, many would kill for it—even if no one can read it. So when raiders sent by a man known as the General attack her village, Delta suspects he is searching for her. 

Delta sets out to rescue her family but quickly learns that in the Wastes no one can be trusted—perhaps not even her childhood friend, Asher, who has been missing for nearly a decade. If Delta can trust Asher, she just might decode the map and trade evidence of the Verdant to the General for her family. What Delta doesn’t count on is what waits at the Verdant: a long-forgotten secret that will shake the foundation of her entire world.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Addiction
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Nonconsensual drugging
  • Pregnancy
  • Death during childbirth
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Amputation
  • Death of a mother (on-page)
  • Death of a sister
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Knife violence
  • Imprisonment
  • Kidnapping
  • Death of a pet
  • Hunting
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The Woman with the Blue Star by Pam Jenoff

The Woman with the Blue Star by Pam Jenoff

1942. Sadie Gault is eighteen and living with her parents amid the horrors of the Kraków Ghetto during World War II. When the Nazis liquidate the ghetto, Sadie and her pregnant mother are forced to seek refuge in the perilous sewers beneath the city. One day Sadie looks up through a grate and sees a girl about her own age buying flowers.

Ella Stepanek is an affluent Polish girl living a life of relative ease with her stepmother, who has developed close alliances with the occupying Germans. Scorned by her friends and longing for her fiancé, who has gone off to war, Ella wanders Kraków restlessly. While on an errand in the market, she catches a glimpse of something moving beneath a grate in the street. Upon closer inspection, she realizes it’s a girl hiding… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Antisemitism
  • Homomisia
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Pregnancy
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Chronic illness
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Drowning
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The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.. Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Child abuse
  • Cheating
  • Suicide & attempted suicide
  • Psychiatric hospitalisation
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Eyeball trauma
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Death of a husband
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Strangulation
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The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin

Set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Suicide
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
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The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi

The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi

The Ghost Brigades are the Special Forces of the Colonial Defense Forces, elite troops created from the DNA of the dead and turned into the perfect soldiers for the CDF’s toughest operations. They’re young, they’re fast and strong, and they’re totally without normal human qualms. The universe is a dangerous place for humanity—and it’s about to become far more dangerous. Three races that humans have clashed with before have allied to halt our expansion into space. Their linchpin: the turncoat military scientist Charles Boutin, who knows the CDF’s biggest mili… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Forced sterilization
  • Gun violence
  • Death from parachute failure
  • Explosions
  • War themes
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Redshirts by John Scalzi

Redshirts by John Scalzi

Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the ship’s Xenobiology laboratory.

Life couldn’t be better…until Andrew begins to pick up on the fact that: (1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces, (2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations, and (3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.

Not surprisingly, a great deal of energy below decks is expended on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues’ understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is…and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Serious physical injury
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a spouse recounted
  • Explosions
  • Gun violence
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Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

With his wife dead and buried, and life nearly over at 75, John Perry takes the only logical course of action left: he joins the army. Now better known as the Colonial Defense Force (CDF), Perry’s service-of-choice has extended its reach into interstellar space to pave the way for human colonization of other planets while fending off marauding aliens.

The CDF has a trick up its sleeve that makes enlistment especially enticing for seniors: the promise of restoring their youth. After bonding with a group of fellow recruits who dub their clique the Old Farts, Perry finds himself in a new body crafted from his original DNA and upgraded for battle, including a brain-implanted computer. But all too quickly the Old Farts are separated, and Perry must fight for his life on various alien-infested battlegrounds.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Death of a wife recounted
  • War & colonialism themes
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V for Vendetta by Alan Moore

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd

Set in an imagined future England that has given itself over to fascism, this groundbreaking story captures both the suffocating nature of life in an authoritarian police state and the redemptive power of the human spirit which rebels against it.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Antisemitism
  • Paedophilia
  • Attempted sexual assault
  • Domestic violence & abuse
  • Recreational drug use
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Medical experimentation
  • Dead bodies
  • Dismemberment
  • Torture
  • Imprisonment
  • Concentration camps
  • Riots
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Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart

Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart

Iraya has spent her life in a cell, but every day brings her closer to freedom – and vengeance.

Jazmyne is the Queen’s daughter, but unlike her sister before her, she has no intention of dying to strengthen her mother’s power.

Sworn enemies, these two witches enter a precarious alliance to take down a mutual threat. But power is intoxicating, revenge is a bloody pursuit, and nothing is certain – except the lengths they will go to win this game.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Physical abuse
  • Rape mentioned
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a sibling
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Police brutality
  • Imprisonment
  • Stalking
  • Loss of autonomy (mind control)
  • Bullying
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Son of the Storm by Suyi Davis Okungbowa

Son of the Storm by Suyi Davis Okungbowa

In the ancient city of Bassa, Danso is a clever scholar on the cusp of achieving greatness—only he doesn’t want it. Instead, he prefers to chase forbidden stories about what lies outside the city walls. The Bassai elite claim there is nothing of interest. The city’s immigrants are sworn to secrecy.

But when Danso stumbles across a warrior wielding magic that shouldn’t exist, he’s put on a collision course with Bassa’s darkest secrets. Drawn into the city’s hidden history, he sets out on a journey beyond its borders. And the chaos left in the wake of his discovery threatens to destroy the empire.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Immolation
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