The Marvels by Brian Selznick

The journey begins at sea in 1766, with a boy named Billy Marvel. After surviving a shipwreck, he finds work in a London theatre. There, his family flourishes for generations as brilliant actors until 1900, when young Leontes Marvel is banished from the stage.

Nearly a century later, runaway Joseph Jervis seeks refuge with an uncle in London. Albert Nightingale’s strange, beautiful house, with its mysterious portraits and ghostly presences, captivates Joseph and leads him on a search for clues about the house, his family, and the past… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Child abuse
  • Parental abandonment
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use
  • HIV & AIDs
  • Terminal illness
  • Attempted murder
  • Drowning
  • Fire (theme)
  • Car accident
  • Shipwreck
  • Poverty
  • Animal death
  • Bullying

The Queens of New York by EL Shen

The Queens of New York by E.L. Shen

Best friends Jia Lee, Ariel Kim, and Everett Hoang are inseparable. But this summer, they won’t be together. Everett, aspiring Broadway star, hopes to nab the lead role in an Ohio theater production, but soon realizes that talent and drive can only get her so far. Brainy Ariel is flying to San Francisco for a prestigious STEM scholarship, even though her heart is in South Korea, where her sister died last year. And stable, solid Jia will be home in Flushing, juggling her parents’ Chinatown restaurant, a cute new neighbor, and dreams for an uncertain future.

GoodreadsThe Story Grap

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use (weed) mentioned
  • Hospitalisation of a grandparent from a fall
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a sister in a boating accident recounted

Legends of Lotus Island by Christina Soontornvat

Legends of Lotus Island by Christina Soontornvat

Young Plum is shocked to discover that she’s been accepted to the Guardian Academy on Lotus Island, an elite school where kids learn how to transform into Guardians, magical creatures who are sworn to protect the natural world. The Guardian masters teach Plum and her friends how to communicate with animals and how to use meditation to strengthen their minds and bodies. All the kids also learn to fight, so they can protect the defenseless if needed. To her dismay, Plum struggles at school. While her classmates begin to transform into amazing creatures, Plum can’t even seem to magic up a single feather! If she…. Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Death of parents in boating accident recounted

Patchwork by Karsten Knight

Patchwork by Karsten Knight

Renata Lake thought her relationship would be the only casualty of prom. Then the bomb went off. It was supposed to be a night to remember—a cruise through Boston Harbor, dancing beneath the stars. But when an explosion tears the ship apart, Renata wakes up in Patchwork, an ethereal world where all her memories have been stitched haphazardly together. In order to catch the assassin who murdered her friends, she’ll have to navigate the twisted landscape of her mind and relive critical moments from her past in search of clues. Can she uncover the killer’s identity and find her way back to the man she once loved before it’s too late?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Near-drowning incident
  • Explosion
  • Boating accident

Wrecked Palace by Catherine Cowles

Wrecked Palace by Catherine Cowles

One night was all it took for everything to change. From college student to guardian in a single breath. My siblings became my world. No time for date nights or romantic dreams. Giving my all to make sure they were cared for. But Griffin had a brokenness that called to me—one that mirrored my own. Gruff and just a little bit reckless. He was the last thing I needed. But everything I wanted. Only someone isn’t happy about this new life I’m building. Deciding to set fire to everything I hold close. And when the smoke clears, there might be only ashes left behind.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child neglect
  • Trauma & nightmares
  • Death of a family in a boating accident
  • Drug use

The Bungalow Mystery by Carolyn Keene

The Bungalow Mystery by Carolyn Keene

While trying to help a friend out of a difficulty, teenage detective Nancy Drew has a perilous experience in and around a deserted bungalow.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Death of a mother mentioned
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Boating accident, on-page
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An Earl, the Girl, and a Toddler by Vanessa Riley

An Earl, the Girl, and a Toddler by Vanessa Riley

Surviving a shipwreck en route to London from Jamaica was just the start of personal maid Jemina St. Maur’s nightmare. Suffering from amnesia, she was separated from anyone who might know her and imprisoned in Bedlam. She was freed only because barrister Daniel Thackery, Lord Ashbrook, was convinced to betray the one thing he holds dear: the law. Desperate to unearth her true identity, Jemina’s only option is to work outside the law–which means staying steps ahead of the formidable Daniel, no matter how strongly she is drawn to him. Married only by proxy, now widow… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Ableism
  • Slavery
  • Nightmares
  • Shipwreck
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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.

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Chosen Champion by Elise Kova

Chosen Champion by Elise Kova

Vi Solaris is on the eve of getting everything she’s ever wanted—her family, her home, her throne—and to save the world she’s going to have to give it all up. The Empire sees her as their Crown Princess, returning at long last. But Vi only sees visions of fate guiding her to the world’s gruesome end. Across the sea is a man who holds the keys to deciphering her premonitions and thwarting the ancient evil ravaging their world. But to get to him, Vi will have to contend with enemies of the crown, romance she didn’t expect, sorcerer pirates, and a betrayal she never saw coming. She will… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Plague
  • Shipwreck

Dark Shores by Danielle Jensen

Dark Shores by Danielle L. Jensen

In a world divided by meddlesome gods and treacherous oceans, only the Maarin possess the knowledge to cross the Endless Seas. But they have one mandate: East must never meet West. Teriana is the second mate of the Quincense and heir to the Maarin Triumvirate. Her people are born of the seas and the keepers of its secrets, but when her closest friend is forced into an unwanted betrothal, Teriana breaks her people’s mandate so her friend might escape—a choice with devastating consequences. Marcus is… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Dismemberment
  • Murder
  • Hanging
  • Torture
  • Shipwreck
  • War themes