Nancy Drew: The Palace of Wisdom by Kelly Thompson

Nancy Drew: The Palace of Wisdom by Kelly Thompson & illustrated by Jenn St. Onge

Nancy Drew is seventeen and good at everything… ESPECIALLY solving crimes. But her totally-in-control-and-obviously-running-perfectly-smooth-(but-not-really) life hits a snag when a mysterious message drags her back to the hometown she left behind. There she’ll have to find out which of her friends are still her friends, which are enemies, and who exactly is trying to kill her…and (hopefully) stop them before they succeed.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism mentioned
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Recreational drug use
  • Hospital
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping & hostage situation
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The Rosewater Insurrection by Tade Thompson

The Rosewater Insurrection by Tade Thompson

All is quiet in the city of Rosewater as it expands on the back of the gargantuan alien Wormwood. Those who know the truth of the invasion keep the secret.

The government agent Aminat, the lover of the retired sensitive Kaaro, is at the forefront of the cold, silent conflict. She must capture a woman who is the key to the survival of the human race. But Aminat is stymied by the machinations of the Mayor of Rosewater and the emergence of an old enemy of Wormwood…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia
  • Rape & rape camps mentioned
  • Body horror
  • Loss of limb
  • Paedophilia & child sexual assault
  • Mass murder
  • Death by fire (‘necklacing’)

An Affair of Poisons by Addie Thorley

An Affair of Poisons by Addie Thorley

After unwittingly helping her mother poison King Louis XIV, seventeen-year-old alchemist Mirabelle Monvoisin is forced to see her mother’s Shadow Society in a horrifying new light: they’re not heroes of the people, as they’ve always claimed to be, but murderers. Herself included. Mira tries to ease her guilt by brewing helpful curatives, but her hunger tonics and headache remedies cannot right past wrongs or save the dissenters her mother vows to purge.

Royal bastard Josse de Bourbon is more kitchen boy than fils de France. But when the Shadow Society assassinates the Sun King and half of the royal court, he must become the prince he was never meant to be in order to save his injured sisters and the petulant dauphin. Forced to hide in the sewers beneath the city, Josse’s hope of reclaiming Paris seems impossible―until his path collides with Mirabelle’s.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Classism
  • Cheating mentioned
  • Domestic abuse mentioned
  • Parental neglect
  • Panic attacks
  • Blood depiction
  • Emesis
  • Needles
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father (on-page & recounted)
  • Death of a husband recounted
  • Torture
  • Death from hanging recounted
  • Explosions recounted
  • Gun violence
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Poisoning (theme)
  • Fire
  • Incarceration
  • Political coup, rebellion & military violence
  • Regicide
  • Animal death

The Mermaid, the Witch and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

The Mermaid, the Witch & the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Aboard the pirate ship Dove, Flora the girl takes on the identity of Florian the man to earn the respect and protection of the crew. For Flora, former starving urchin, the brutal life of a pirate is about survival: don’t trust, don’t stick out, and don’t feel. But on this voyage, as the pirates prepare to sell their unsuspecting passengers into slavery, Flora is drawn to the Lady Evelyn Hasegawa, who is en route to a dreaded arranged marriage with her own casket in tow. Flora doesn’t expect to be taken under Evelyn’s wing, and Evelyn doesn’t expect to find such a deep bond with the pirate Florian.

Soon the unlikely pair set in motion a wild escape that will free a captured mermaid (coveted for her blood, which causes men to have visions and lose memories) and involve the mysterious Pirate Supreme, an opportunistic witch, and the all-encompassing Sea itself.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia
  • Slavery & human trafficking
  • Misogyny
  • Rape & sexual assault mentioned
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Forced arranged marriage
  • Alcoholism & alcohol abuse
  • Starvation
  • Blood depiction & physical injury
  • Emesis
  • Murder
  • Graphic torture (on-page)
  • Whipping
  • Hanging mentioned
  • Imprisonment
  • Poverty themes
  • Homelessness
  • War & colonialism themes
  • Animal abuse & death

Song of the Current by Sarah Tolcser

Song of the Current by Sarah Tolcser

Caroline Oresteia is destined for the river. For generations, her family has been called by the river god, who has guided their wherries on countless voyages throughout the Riverlands. At seventeen, Caro has spent years listening to the water, ready to meet her fate. But the river god hasn’t spoken her name yet—and if he hasn’t by now, there’s a chance he never will.

Caro decides to take her future into her own hands when her father is arrested for refusing to transport a mysterious crate. By agreeing to deliver it in exchange for his release, Caro finds herself caught in a web of politics and lies, with dangerous pirates after the cargo—an arrogant courier with a secret—and without the river god to help her. With so much at stake, Caro must choose between the life she always wanted and the one she never could have imagined for herself.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Classism
  • Slut-shaming
  • Attempted sexual assault (nonconsensual kiss, on-page & discussed)
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Arranged & nonconsensual marriages discussed
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Graphic physical injuries
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a brother
  • Death of a mother & father (off-page)
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Torture (off-page)
  • Gun violence
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Fire
  • Drowning
  • Shipwreck
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • War themes, including regicide, rebellion, coup & colonialism

Liberté by Gita Trelease

Liberté by Gita Trelease

Also known as Everything That Burns.

Camille Durbonne gambled everything she had to keep herself and her sister safe. But as the people of Paris starve and mobs riot, safety may no longer be possible…

Not when Camille lives for the rebellion. In the pamphlets she prints, she tells the stories of girls living at society’s margins. But as her writings captivate the public, she begins to suspect a dark magic she can’t control lies at the heart of her success. Then Louis XVI declares magic a crime and all magicians traitors to France. As bonfires incinerate enchanted books and special police prowl the city, the time for magic—and those who work it—is running out.

In this new Paris where allegiances shift and violence erupts, the answers Camille seeks set her on a perilous path, one that may cost her the boy she loves―even her life. If she can discover who she truly is before vengeful forces unmask her, she may still win this deadly game of revolution.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexism
  • Classism
  • Attempted sexual assault

Enchantée by Gita Trelease

Enchantée by Gita Trelease

Also known as All That Glitters.

Paris in 1789 is a labyrinth of twisted streets, filled with beggars, thieves, revolutionaries—and magicians…

When smallpox kills her parents, Camille Durbonne must find a way to provide for her frail, naive sister while managing her volatile brother. Relying on petty magic—la magie ordinaire—Camille painstakingly transforms scraps of metal into money to buy the food and medicine they need. But when the coins won’t hold their shape and her brother disappears with the family’s savings, Camille must pursue a richer, more dangerous mark: the glittering court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Slut-shaming
  • Sex work shaming
  • Racism
  • Physical, emotional & verbal abuse
  • Domestic violence
  • Alcohol abuse & alcoholism
  • Gambling addiction
  • Death of a parent recounted

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

Seven-year-old Wen and her parents, Eric and Andrew, are vacationing at a remote cabin on a quiet New Hampshire lake. Their closest neighbors are more than two miles in either direction along a rutted dirt road.

One afternoon, as Wen catches grasshoppers in the front yard, a stranger unexpectedly appears in the driveway. Leonard is the largest man Wen has ever seen but he is young, friendly, and he wins her over almost instantly. Leonard and Wen talk and play until Leonard abruptly apologizes and tells Wen, “None of what’s going to happen is your fault”. Three more strangers then arrive at the cabin carrying unidentifiable, menacing objects. As Wen sprints inside to warn her parents, Leonard calls out: “Your dads won’t want to let us in, Wen. But they have to. We need your help to save the world.”

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisic & homomisic slurs
  • Hate crimes recounted
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Plague
  • Home invasion
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Floods & tsunami
  • Earthquake
  • Plane crash
  • Death of a child

The Simple Wild by K.A. Tucker

The Simple Wild by K.A. Tucker

Calla Fletcher wasn’t even two when her mother took her and fled the Alaskan wild, unable to handle the isolation of the extreme, rural lifestyle, leaving behind Calla’s father, Wren Fletcher, in the process. Calla never looked back, and at twenty-six, a busy life in Toronto is all she knows. But when Calla learns that Wren’s days may be numbered, she knows that it’s time to make the long trip back to the remote frontier town where she was born.

She braves the roaming wildlife, the odd daylight hours, the exorbitant prices, and even the occasional—dear God—outhouse, all for the chance to connect with her father: a man who, despite his many faults, she can’t help but care for. While she struggles to adjust to this rugged environment, Jonah—the unkempt, obnoxious, and proud Alaskan pilot … Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Body shaming
  • Parental abandonment
  • Parent with terminal cancer
  • Death of a parent
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The Burning Girls by CJ Tudor

The Burning Girls by C.J. Tudor

Welcome to Chapel Croft. Five hundred years ago, eight protestant martyrs were burned at the stake here. Thirty years ago, two teenage girls disappeared without a trace. And two months ago, the vicar of the local parish killed himself.

Reverend Jack Brooks, a single parent with a fourteen-year-old daughter and a heavy conscience, arrives in the village hoping to make a fresh start and find some peace. Instead, Jack finds a town mired in secrecy and a strange welcome package: an old exorcism kit and a note quoting scripture. “But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed and hidden that will not be known.” … Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist slurs (r slur)
  • Homomisia
  • Attempted rape
  • Paedophilia & child sexual abuse
  • Child abuse
  • Suicide
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Animal death (bird)
  • Bullying
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