The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

Sage Singer is a baker. She works through the night, preparing the day’s breads and pastries, trying to escape a reality of loneliness, bad memories, and the shadow of her mother’s death. When Josef Weber, an elderly man in Sage’s grief support group, begins stopping by the bakery, they strike up an unlikely friendship. Despite their differences, they see in each other the hidden scars that others can’t, and they become companions. Everything changes on the day that Josef confesses a long-buried and shameful secret—one that nobody else in town would ever… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Nazism
  • Infidelity
  • Facial scar
  • Death of grandparents in a concentration camp during the Holocaust

We Are Not Free by Traci Chee

We Are Not Free by Traci Chee

Fourteen teens who have grown up together in Japantown, San Francisco. Fourteen teens who form a community and a family, as interconnected as they are conflicted. Fourteen teens whose lives are turned upside down when over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry are removed from their homes and forced into desolate incarceration camps. In a world that seems determined to hate them, these young Nisei must rally together as racism and injustice threaten to pull them apart. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Misogyny
  • Hate crimes
  • Death of a friend
  • Fire
  • Imprisonment
  • Internment camps
  • War themes
  • Poverty themes
  • Animal death, on-page
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Wait for Me by Caroline Leech

Wait for Me by Caroline Leech

It’s 1945, and Lorna Anderson’s life on her father’s farm in Scotland consists of endless chores and rationing, knitting Red Cross scarves, and praying for an Allied victory. So when Paul Vogel, a German prisoner of war, is assigned as the new farmhand, Lorna is appalled. How can she possibly work alongside the enemy when her own brothers are risking their lives for their country? But as Lorna reluctantly spends time with Paul, she feels herself changing. The more she learns about him—from his time in the war to his life back home in Germany—the more she sees the boy behind the soldier. Soon Lorna is battling her… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault
  • War camps & prisoners of war
  • World War Two (theme)

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

In 1986, Henry Lee joins a crowd outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle’s Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has discovered the belongings of Japanese families who were sent to internment camps during World War II. As the owner displays and unfurls a Japanese parasol, Henry, a Chinese American, remembers a young Japanese American girl from his childhood in the 1940s—Keiko Okabe, with whom he forged a bond of friendship and innocent love that transcended the prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family were evacuated to the intern… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Internment camp
  • World War Two
  • Bullying
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Temple by Matthew Reilly

Temple by Matthew Reilly

Deep in the jungle of Peru, the hunt for a legendary Incan idol is underway – an idol that in the present day could be used as the basis for a terrifying new weapon. Guiding a US Army team is Professor William Race, a young linguist who must translate an ancient manuscript that contains the location of the idol. What they find is an ominous stone temple, sealed tight. They open it – and soon discover that some doors are meant to remain unopened…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Rape mentioned
  • Cheating
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Decapitation
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Explosions
  • Animal death
  • Nazism & the Holocaust
  • Colonisalism
  • Medical experiments in concentration camps mentioned
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The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon

The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon

Subhi is a refugee. Born in an Australian permanent detention centre after his mother fled the violence of a distant homeland, life behind the fences is all he has ever known. But as he grows, his imagination gets bigger too, until it is bursting at the limits of his world. The night sea brings him gifts, the faraway whales sing to him, and the birds tell their stories. The most vivid story of all, however, is the one that arrives one night in the form of Jimmie, a scruffy, impatient girl who appears from the other side of the wires and brings a notebook written by the mother she lost… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Self-harm
  • Murder
  • Hunger strike
  • Refugee experiences

The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

The Strain by Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan

A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Ephraim “Eph” Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Suicide
  • Death of a child
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Body horror
  • Murder
  • Animal death
  • Holocaust concentration camps mentioned
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Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris

Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris

Cilka Klein is 18 years old when Auschwitz-Birkenau is liberated by Soviet soldiers. But Cilka is one of the many women who is sentenced to a labour camp on charges of having helped the Nazis–with no consideration of the circumstances Cilka and women like her found themselves in as they struggled to survive. Once at the Vorkuta gulag in Sibera, where she is to serve her 15-year sentence, Cilka uses her wits, charm, and beauty to survive. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Paedophilia & sexual assault
  • Childbirth
  • Starvation
  • Physical illness
  • Torture
  • Word War Two (theme)
  • Concentration camps
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The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Stephen King

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Stephen King

In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.

Imprisoned for over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Antiziganism
  • Antisemitism
  • Nazism
  • Rape
  • Genital mutilation
  • Gun violence
  • Chemical gassing (gas chambers)
  • World War Two & the Holocaust (theme)
  • Concentration camps (theme)
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The Light in Hidden Places by Sharon Cameron

The Light in Hidden Places by Sharon Cameron

One knock at the door, and Stefania has a choice to make…

It is 1943, and for four years, sixteen-year-old Stefania has been working for the Diamant family in their grocery store in Przemsyl, Poland, singing her way into their lives and hearts. She has even made a promise to one of their sons, Izio — a betrothal they must keep secret since she is Catholic and the Diamants are Jewish… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism
  • Death of a child
  • Gun violence
  • Labour camps mentioned
  • World War Two & the Holocaust
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