The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Bergensdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Northern town of Vardø must fend for themselves. Three years later, a sinister figure arrives. Absalom Cornet comes from Scotland, where he burned witches in the northern isles. He brings with him his young Norwegian wife, Ursa, who is both heady with her husband’s authority and terrified by it. In Vardø, and in Maren… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Period-typical misogyny
  • Anti-indigenous racism
  • Colonialism
  • Religious bigotry and persecution for witchcraft (theme) including the on-page depiction of witch trials and burning women at the stake
  • Graphic martial rape and sexual assault
  • Infidelity*
  • Forced marriage
  • Pregnancy and pregnancy from rape discussed including childbirth
  • Miscarriage
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction including dead bodies
  • Death of a friend, on-page
  • Death of a father, husband and brother mentioned
  • Mass death by boating accident
  • Murder, on-page
  • Torture, implied
  • Imprisonment mentioned
  • Near-drowning incident
  • Animal death

*Context : The protagonist falls in love with a woman but is in a forced arranged marriage with a man.

Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The Woods Are Always Watching by Stephanie Perkins

The Woods Are Always Watching by Stephanie Perkins

Bears aren’t the only predators in these woods. Best friends Neena and Josie spent high school as outsiders, but at least they had each other. Now, with college and a two-thousand-mile separation looming on the horizon, they have one last chance to be together—a three-day hike deep into the woods of the Pisgah National Forest. Simmering tensions lead to a detour off the trail and straight into a waking nightmare; and then into something far worse. Something that will test them in horrifying ways.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Paedophilia
  • Rape of a minor mentioned
  • Necrophilia mentioned
  • Physical injury, including gunshot wounds & broken bones
  • Graphic blood, gore & dead bodies
  • Amputation
  • Death of a parent mentioned
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Car accident mentioned
  • Animal attack (bear)

How the Wallflower was Won by Eva Leigh

How the Wallflower was Won by Eva Leigh

Finn Ransome is an expert on Lady Luck, which is why he refuses to take a chance on love. Experience has taught him that he’s happier at a gaming table than around people he will, inevitably, disappoint. However, the clock is ticking on his father’s matrimonial demands. But the only woman to catch his eye is a bluestocking who would never consider a rogue like him. After a disastrous first Season, Tabitha Seaton decided to focus on books instead of ballrooms. She hopes to join the Sterling Society, a collective of the most brilliant, influential minds in London. Except, they will never admit an unmarried lady. Now… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child abuse recounted
  • Bullying

Cross Fire by Fonda Lee

Cross Fire by Fonda Lee

Earth’s century of peace as a colony of an alien race has been shattered. As the alien-run government navigates peace talks with the human terrorist group Sapience, Donovan tries to put his life back together and return to his duty as a member of the security forces. But a new order comes from the alien home planet: withdraw. Earth has proven too costly and unstable to maintain as a colony, so the aliens, along with a small selection of humans, begin to make plans to leave. As word of the withdrawal spreads through the galaxy, suddenly Earth becomes vulnerable to a takeover from other aliens races. Aliens who do not seek to live in…. Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Medical procedures
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Terrorism

Outcast, Volume One by Robert Kirkman

Outcast, Vol. 1: A Darkness Surrounds Him by Robert Kirkman and illustrated by Paul Azaceta

Kyle Barnes has been plagued by demonic possession all his life and now he needs answers. Unfortunately, what he uncovers along the way could bring about the end of life on Earth as we know it. Collects Outcast #1-6.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape & sexual assault, implied
  • Child abuse
  • Domestic violence
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction

Among the Innocent by Mary Alford

Among the Innocent by Mary Alford

When Leah Miller’s entire Amish family was murdered ten years ago, the person believed responsible took his own life. Since then, Leah left the Amish and joined the police force. Now, after another Amish woman is found murdered with the same MO, it becomes clear that the wrong man may have been blamed for her family’s deaths. As Leah and the new police chief, Dalton Cooper, work long hours struggling to fit the pieces together in order to catch the killer, they can’t help but grow closer. When secrets from both of their pasts begin to surface, an unexpected connection between them is revealed. But this is only the begin… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape, implied
  • Recreational drug use mentioned
  • Blood depiction
  • Murder by cutting their throats with a knife
  • Gun & knife violence

The Theft of Sunlight by Intisar Khanani

The Theft of Sunlight by Intisar Khanani

Children have been disappearing from across Menaiya for longer than Amraeya ni Ansarim can remember. When her friend’s sister is snatched, Rae knows she can’t look away any longer – even if that means seeking answers from the royal court, where her country upbringing and clubfoot will only invite ridicule. Yet the court holds its share of surprises. There she discovers an ally in the foreign princess, who recruits her as an attendant. Armed with the princess’s support, Rae seeks answers in the dark city streets, finding unexpected help in a rough-around-the-edges street thief with secrets of his own. But treachery… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Ableism
  • Human trafficking, off-page
  • Sexual assault
  • Physical & emotional child abuse
  • Blood depiction
  • Emesis
  • Attempted murder
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping

Star Eater by Kerstin Hall

Star Eater by Kerstin Hall

Elfreda Raughn will avoid pregnancy if it kills her, and one way or another, it will kill her. Though she’s able to stomach her gruesome day-to-day duties, the reality of preserving the Sisterhood of Aytrium’s magical bloodline horrifies her. She wants out, whatever the cost. So when a shadowy cabal approaches Elfreda with an offer of escape, she leaps at the opportunity. As their spy, she gains access to the highest reaches of the Sisterhood and enters a glittering world of opulent parties, subtle deceptions, and unexpected bloodshed. A phantasmagorical indictment of hereditary power, Star Eater takes readers deep into a peril… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape, implied
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Cannibalism
  • Death of a parent

Something is Killing the Children, Volume One by James Tynion IV

Something is Killing the Children, Vol. 1 by James Tynion IV and illustrated by Werther Dell’Edera

When the children of Archer’s Peak—a sleepy town in the heart of America—begin to go missing, everything seems hopeless. Most children never return, but the ones that do have terrible stories—impossible details of terrifying creatures that live in the shadows. Their only hope of finding and eliminating the threat is the arrival of a mysterious stranger, one who believes the children and claims to be the only one who sees what they can see. Her name is Erica Slaughter. She kills monsters. That is all she does, and she bears the cost because it must be done.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Body horror
  • Murder
  • Death of a child

The Other Merlin by Robyn Schneider

The Other Merlin by Robyn Schneider

Welcome to the great kingdom of Camelot. Prince Arthur’s a depressed botanist who would rather marry a library than a princess, Lancelot’s been demoted to castle guard after a terrible misunderstanding, and nothing is going according to plan. Then Arthur accidentally pulls the sword from the stone (in his defence, he was drunk and mostly kidding), and now everyone’s convinced he’s some prophesied hero. Emry Merlin is stuck in her small town. Her father, the legendary court wizard, disappeared years ago, and Emry’s been peddling theatre tricks to… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood depiction