Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb

Fitz has survived his first hazardous mission as king’s assassin, but is left little more than a cripple. Battered and bitter, he vows to abandon his oath to King Shrewd, remaining in the distant mountains. But love and events of terrible urgency draw him back to the court at Buckkeep, and into the deadly intrigues of the royal family. Renewing their vicious attacks on the coast, the Red-Ship Raiders leave burned-out villages and demented victims in their wake. The kingdom is also under assault from within, as treachery threatens the throne of the ailing king. In this time of great danger, the fate of the kingdom may rest in Fitz’s hands—and his role in its salvation may require the ultimate sacrifice.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism & classism
  • Elder abuse
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Infidelity mentioned
  • Forced political marriage
  • Depressive episode recounted
  • Suicidal ideation mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Pregnancy & miscarriage discussed
  • Graphic blood & injury depiction, including dead bodies, emesis, seizures, and chronic illness
  • Death of a father from medical complications due to chronic alcoholism recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder and infanticide
  • Poisoning
  • Physical assault
  • Knife, arrow and axe violence
  • Imprisonment
  • Loss of autonomy (mind control & invasion)
  • War themes & battle scenes and naval warfare
  • Regicide
  • Animal abuse (wolf)
  • Animal death mentioned, including the death of a pet dog

Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

Our narrator produces a sound from the piano no one else at the Conservatory can. She employs a technique she learned from her parents—also talented musicians—who fled China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. But when an accident leaves her parents debilitated, she abandons her future for a job at a high-end beauty and wellness store in New York City. Holistik is known for its remarkable products and procedures—from remoras that suck out cheap Botox to eyelash extensions made of spider silk—and her new job affords her entry into a world of privilege and a… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault
  • Drugging
  • Blood & gore depiction

If We Were Villains by ML Rio

Oliver Marks has just served ten years in jail – for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he’s released, he’s greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago. As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Slut-shaming
  • Antiziganism (g slur)
  • Suicide
  • Drug use
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Overdose
  • Blood depiction
  • Murder

Redemptor by Jordan Ifueko

For the first time, an Empress Redemptor sits on Aritsar’s throne. To appease the sinister spirits of the dead, Tarisai must now anoint a council of her own, coming into her full power as a Raybearer. She must then descend into the Underworld, a sacrifice to end all future atrocities. Tarisai is determined to survive. Or at least, that’s what she tells her increasingly distant circle of friends. Months into her shaky reign as empress, child spirits haunt her, demanding that she pay for past sins of the empire. With the lives of her loved ones on the line assassination attempts from unknown… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use
  • Child abuse & neglect recounted
  • Blood depiction
  • Murder

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt’s narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt interweaves a first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case. The story is peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Homomisia
  • Transmisia
  • Blood depiction
  • Murder
  • Gun violence

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

Lyra is rushing to the cold, far North, where witch clans and armored bears rule. North, where the Gobblers take the children they steal–including her friend Roger. North, where her fearsome uncle Asriel is trying to build a bridge to a parallel world. Can one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors? This is Lyra: a savage, a schemer, a liar, and as fierce and true a champion as Roger or Asriel could want–but what Lyra doesn’t know is that to help one of them will be to betray the other.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Smoking mentioned
  • Blood & gore depiction including mentions of a decapitation
  • Involuntary medical experimentation on children
  • Emesis mentioned
  • Kidnapping & captivity of children
  • Gun violence
  • Plane crash (airship explosion)
  • Fire
  • Battle scenes

The Stonekeeper’s Curse by Kazu Kibuishi

Emily and Navin’s mother is still in a coma from the arachnopod’s poison, and there’s only one place to find help: Kanalis, the bustling, beautiful city of waterfalls. But when Em, her brother, and Miskit and the rest of the robotic crew aboard the walking house reach the city, they quickly realize that seeking help is looking for trouble…dangerous trouble.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Blood & physical injury depiction
  • Coma
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Attempted murder
  • Explosion
  • Physical assault
  • Fire

Bestiary by K-Ming Chang

Three generations of Taiwanese American women are haunted by the myths of their homeland in this spellbinding, visceral debut about one family’s queer desires, violent impulses, and buried secrets.

One evening, Mother tells Daughter a story about a tiger spirit who lived in a woman’s body. She was called Hu Gu Po, and she hungered to eat children, especially their toes. Soon afterwards, Daughter awakes with a tiger tail. And more mysterious events follow: Holes in the backyard spit up letters penned by her grandmother; a visiting aunt arrives with snakes in her belly… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Homomisia
  • Domestic violence
  • Child abuse
  • Dementia
  • Suicide & mass suicide mentioned
  • Miscarriage
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Amputation
  • Animal abuse

Phaedra by Laura Shepperson

Phaedra has been cast to the side all her life: daughter of an adulteress, sister of a monster, and now unwilling bride to the much-older, power-hungry Theseus. Young, naïve, and idealistic, she has accepted her lot in life, resigned to existing under the sinister weight of Theseus’s control and the constant watchful eye of her handsome stepson Hippolytus.

When supposedly pious Hippolytus assaults her, Phaedra’s world is darkened in the face of untouchable, prideful power… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Suicide
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Murder

Storms of Paine by Opal Reyne

After the storm that separates them, Captains Rosetta Silver and Alister Paine find themselves sailing side by side together once more. Their passion refuses to fizzle out and burns brighter, hotter, and, frighteningly, deeper every time. Rosetta manages to convince the land hating Alister to port. They need supplies and the Laughing Siren still needs repairs. But land may be dangerous for them and not just because of the bounty on his head. Emotions within Rosetta are stirring and she doesn’t have a compass to navigate these unfamiliar waters. Alister’s behaviour… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence recounted
  • Miscarriage mentioned
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction