Midnight Beauties by Megan Shepherd

Midnight Beauties by Megan Shepherd

Ever since she discovered her affinity for magic, seventeen-year-old Anouk has been desperate to become a witch. It’s the only way to save her friends who, like Anouk, are beasties: animals enchanted into humans. But unlike Anouk, the other beasties didn’t make it out of the battle at Montélimar in one piece.

With her friends now trapped in their animal forms, Anouk is forced into a sinister deal involving a political marriage with her sworn enemy, a wicked plot to overthrow London’s fiercest coven of witches, and a deadly trial of fire to become a witch. The price for power has always been steep in the world of the Haute. Now, it will cost Anouk everything.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Transmisia
  • Animal death
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Grim Lovelies by Megan Shepherd

Grim Lovelies by Megan Shepherd

Seventeen-year-old Anouk envies the human world, where people known as Pretties lavish themselves in fast cars, high fashion, and have the freedom to fall in love. But Anouk can never have those things, because she is not really human. Enchanted from animal to human girl and forbidden to venture beyond her familiar Parisian prison, Anouk is a Beastie: destined for a life surrounded by dust bunnies and cinders serving Mada Vittora, the evil witch who spelled her into existence. That is, until one day she finds her mistress murdered in a pool of blood—and Anouk is accused of the crime.

Now, the world she always dreamed of is rife with danger. Pursued through Paris by the underground magical society known as the Haute, Anouk and her fellow Beasties only have three days to find the real killer before the spell keeping them human fades away. If they fail, they will lose the only lives they’ve ever known…but if they succeed, they could be more powerful than anyone ever bargained for.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slavery
  • Transmisic language, and the Bury Your Gays & Tragic Gay tropes*
  • Sexual harassment
  • Blood & gore depiction, and dead bodies mentioned
  • Murder
  • Imprisonment
  • Disappearance of a loved one
  • Animal death and animal cruelty

*The only queer (cis) character dies as a sacrifice for the straight characters 80% of the way into the book, almost immediately after being revealed to be gay; it is also revealed that he was in love with a straight boy who would never love him back.

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Her Dark Curiosity by Megan Shepherd

Her Dark Curiosity by Megan Shepherd

Months have passed since Juliet Moreau returned to civilization after escaping her father’s island—and the secrets she left behind. Now, back in London once more, she is rebuilding the life she once knew and trying to forget Dr. Moreau’s horrific legacy—though someone, or something, hasn’t forgotten her.

As people close to Juliet fall victim one by one to a murderer who leaves a macabre calling card of three clawlike slashes, Juliet fears one of her father’s creations may have also escaped the island. She is determined to find the killer before Scotland Yard does, though it means awakening sides of herself she had thought long banished, and facing loves from her past she never expected to see again.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Murder
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The Madman’s Daughter by Megan Shepherd

The Madman’s Daughter by Megan Shepherd

Sixteen-year-old Juliet Moreau has built a life for herself in London — working as a maid and trying not to think about the scandal that ruined her life. After all, no one ever proved the rumors about her father’s gruesome experiments. But when she learns he is alive and continuing his work on a remote tropical island, she is determined to find out if the accusations are true.

Accompanied by her father’s handsome young assistant, Montgomery, and an enigmatic castaway, Edward — both of whom she is deeply drawn to—Juliet travels to the island, only to discover the depths of her father’s madness.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexism
  • Attempted sexual assault
  • Murder
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Medical experimentation on humans and animals
  • Animal abuse & torture
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Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews

Magic Burn by Ilona Andrews

Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews book cover

As a mercenary who cleans up after magic gone wrong, Kate Daniels has seen her share of occupational hazards. Normally, waves of paranormal energy ebb and flow across Atlanta like a tide. But once every seven years, a flare comes, a time when magic runs rampant. Now Kate’s going to have to deal with problems on a much bigger scale: a divine one.

When Kate sets out to retrieve a set of stolen maps for the Pack, Atlanta’s paramilitary clan of shapeshifters, she quickly realizes much more at stake. During a flare, gods and goddesses can manifest – and battle for power. The stolen maps are only the opening gambit in an epic tug-of-war between two gods hoping for rebirth. And if Kate can’t stop the cataclysmic showdown, the city may not survive… 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Blood and gore depiction and physical injury
  • Death and loss
  • Violence
  • War themes
  • Animal death
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Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews

Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews

Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews book cover

The world has suffered a magic apocalypse. We pushed the technological progress too far, and now magic returned with a vengeance. It comes in waves, without warning, and vanishes as suddenly as it appears. When magic is up, planes drop out of the sky, cars stall, electricity dies. When magic is down, guns work and spells fail.

Atlanta would be a nice place to live, if it weren’t for magic… One moment magic dominates, and cars stall and guns fail. The next, technology takes over and the defensive spells no longer protect your house from monsters. Here skyscrapers topple under onslaught of magic; werebears and werehyenas prowl through the ruined streets; and the Masters of the Dead, necromancers driven by their thirst of knowledge and wealth, pilot blood-crazed vampires with their minds. In this world lives Kate Daniels. Kate likes her sword a little too much and has a hard time controlling her mouth. The magic in her blood makes her a target, and she spent most of her life hiding in plain sight. But when Kate’s guardian is murdered, she must choose to do nothing and remain safe or to pursue his preternatural killer. Hiding is easy, but the right choice is rarely easy…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racist language
  • Rape, sexual assault and bestiality (mentioned)
  • Abuse
  • Blood and gore depiction
  • Murder
  • Stalking
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Anna by Niccolò Ammaniti

Anna by Niccolò Ammaniti

Anna by Niccolo Ammaniti book cover

When everything is gone, and the future abandoned, what remains for us?

It is four years since the virus came, killing every adult in its path. Not long after that the electricity failed. Food and water started running out. Fires raged uncontrolled across the country.

Now Anna cares for her brother alone in a house hidden in the woods, keeping him safe from ‘the Outside’, scavenging for food amid the packs of wild dogs that roam their ruined, blackened world.

Before their mother died, she told them to love each other and never part. She told them that, when they reach adulthood, the sickness will claim them too. But she also told them that someone, somewhere, will have a cure. When the time comes, Anna knows, they must leave their world and find another.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape (mentioned)
  • Alcohol abuse
  • Blood and gore depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Animal death and animal attack
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MEG by Steve Alten

MEG by Steve Alten

MEG by Steve Alten book cover

On a top-secret dive into the Pacific Ocean’s deepest canyon, Jonas Taylor found himself face-to-face with the largest and most ferocious predator in the history of the animal kingdom. The sole survivor of the mission, Taylor is haunted by what he’s sure he saw but still can’t prove exists – Carcharodon megalodon, the massive mother of the great white shark. The average prehistoric Meg weighs in at twenty tons and could tear apart a Tyrannosaurus rex in seconds. Taylor spends years theorizing, lecturing, and writing about the possibility that Meg still feeds at the deepest levels of the sea. But it takes an old friend in need to get him to return to the water, and a hotshot female submarine pilot to dare him back into a high-tech miniature sub. Diving deeper than he ever has before, Taylor will face terror like he’s never imagined. MEG is about to surface. When she does, nothing and no one is going to be safe, and Jonas must face his greatest fear once again.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cheating
  • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
  • Suicide
  • Blood and gore depiction
  • Death of a loved one
  • Explosions
  • Drowning
  • Graphic animal death
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A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson

A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson

Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta realizes that her beloved is capable of terrible things. Finding comfort in the arms of her rival consorts, she begins to unravel their husband’s dark secrets.

With the lives of everyone she loves on the line, Constanta will have to choose between her own freedom and her love for her husband. But bonds forged by blood can only be broken by death.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Emotional, verbal & physical intimate partner abuse and gaslighting
  • Sexual assault mentioned
  • Depression & mania
  • Self-harm
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use mentioned
  • Blood & gore depiction and body horror
  • Drowning mentioned
  • Murder
  • War themes
  • Famine and plague
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The Sisters Grimm by Menna van Praag

The Sisters Grimm by Menna van Praag

As children, Goldie, Liyana, Scarlet, and Bea dreamed of a strange otherworld: a nightscape of mists and fog, lit by an unwavering moon. Here, in this shadowland of Everwhere, the four half-sisters connected by blood and magic, began to nurture their elemental powers together. But at thirteen, the sisters were ripped from Everwhere and separated. Now, five years later, they search for one another and yearn to rediscover their unique and supernatural strengths. Goldie (earth) manipulates plants and gives life. Liyana (water) controls rivers and rain. Scarlet (fire) has electricity at her fingertips. Bea (air) can fly.

To realize their full potential, the blood sisters must return to the land of their childhood dreams. But Everwhere can only be accessed through certain gates at 3:33 A.M. on the night of a new moon. As Goldie, Liyana, Scarlet, and Bea are beset with the challenges of their earthly lives, they must prepare for a battle that lies ahead. On their eighteenth birthday, they will be subjected to a gladiatorial fight with their father’s soldiers. If they survive, they will face their father who will let them live only if they turn dark. Which would be fair, if only the sisters knew what was coming.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatphobia and body shaming
  • Slut shaming
  • Racism
  • Child abuse
  • Adult-minor relationship*
  • Sexual abuse and sexual assault
  • Incest
  • Depression & suicidal ideation
  • Self harm
  • Blood depiction and physical injuries
  • Dementia

*Relationships between a 17-year-old girl and a 28-year-old man.

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