The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.

At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.

Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexism (theme)
  • Forced servitude
  • Parental abandonment
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Physical injuries
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother & father
  • Death of a friend
  • Animal death & dead bodies
  • Animal injury
  • Animal attack
  • Hunting
  • Poverty themes, including threat of eviction
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Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff book cover

This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do. This afternoon, her planet was invaded.

The year is 2575, and two rival mega-corporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than a speck at the edge of the universe. Now with enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra — who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to evacuate with a hostile warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A plague has broken out and is mutating with terrifying results; the fleet’s AI may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a web of data to find the truth, it’s clear the only person who can help her is the ex-boyfriend she swore she’d never speak to again.

Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents — including emails, maps, files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more — Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child abuse
  • Blood and gore depiction
  • Dead bodies
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Explosions
  • Disapperance of a loved one
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The Dagger in the Desk by Jonathan Stroud

The Dagger in the Desk by Jonathan Stroud

In London, a mysterious and potentially deadly ghost is stalking the halls of St. Simeon’s Academy for Talented Youngsters. It lurks in the shadows, spreading fear and icy cold—and it carries a sharp and very solid dagger… The headmaster wastes no time in enlisting the help of ghost hunters Anthony Lockwood, Lucy Carlyle, and George Cubbins. Can Lockwood & Co. survive the night and save the day?

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Murder
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The Empty Grave by Jonathan Stroud

The Empty Grave by Jonathan Stroud

Five months later, we join Lockwood, Lucy, George, Holly, and their associate Quill Kipps on a perilous night mission: they have broken into the booby-trapped Fittes Mausoleum, where the body of the legendary psychic heroine Marissa Fittes lies. Or does it? Will Lockwood ever reveal more about his family’s past to Lucy? Will their trip to the Other Side leave Lucy and Lockwood forever changed? Will Penelope Fittes succeed in shutting down their agency forever? The young agents must survive attacks from foes both spectral and human before they can take on their greatest enemy in a climactic and chaotic battle. And to… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Dissociative episode, on-page
  • Suicidal ideation discussed
  • Blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Physical injuries
  • Hospital
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother, father & sister recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Explosions
  • Home invasion
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The Creeping Shadow by Jonathan Stroud

The Creeping Shadow by Jonathan Stroud

After leaving Lockwood & Co., Lucy is a freelance operative, hiring herself out to agencies that value her ever-improving skills. One day she is pleasantly surprised by a visit from Lockwood, who tells her he needs a good Listener for a tough assignment.

Penelope Fittes, the leader of the giant Fittes Agency wants them–and only them–to locate and remove the Source for the legendary Brixton Cannibal. They succeed in their very dangerous task, but tensions remain high between Lucy and the other agents. Even the skull in the jar talks to her like a jilted lover.

What will it take to reunite the team? Black marketeers, an informant ghost, a Spirit Cape that transports the wearer, and mysteries involving Steve Rotwell and Penelope Fittes just may do the trick.  

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Persecution for witchcraft mentioned
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Physical injuries
  • Dismemberment
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a mother, father & sister recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Gun violence
  • Explosions
  • Animal cruelty (minor)
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The Hollow Boy by Jonathan Stroud

The Hollow Boy by Jonathan Stroud

As a massive outbreak of supernatural Visitors baffles Scotland Yard and causes protests throughout London, Lockwood & Co. continue to demonstrate their effectiveness in exterminating spirits. Anthony Lockwood is dashing, George insightful, and Lucy dynamic, while the skull in the jar utters sardonic advice from the sidelines. There is a new spirit of openness in the team now that Lockwood has shared some of his childhood secrets, and Lucy is feeling more and more as if her true home is at Portland Row. It comes as a great shock, then, when Lockwood and George introduce her to an annoyingly perky and hyper-efficient new assistant, Holly Munro.

Meanwhile, there are reports of many new hauntings, including a house where bloody footprints are appearing, and a department store full of strange sounds and shadowy figures… Read More.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Physical injuries
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother, father & sister recounted
  • Death of a child
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Gun violence
  • Explosions
  • Fire
  • Homelessness
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The Whispering Skull by Jonathan Stroud

The Whispering Skull by Jonathan Stroud

In the six months since Anthony, Lucy, and George survived a night in the most haunted house in England, Lockwood & Co. hasn’t made much progress. Quill Kipps and his team of Fittes agents keep swooping in on Lockwood’s investigations. Finally, in a fit of anger, Anthony challenges his rival to a contest: the next time the two agencies compete on a job, the losing side will have to admit defeat in the Times newspaper.

Things look up when a new client, Mr. Saunders, hires Lockwood & Co. to be present at the excavation of Edmund Bickerstaff, a Victorian doctor who reportedly tried to communicate with the dead. Saunders needs the coffin sealed with silver to prevent any supernatural trouble. All goes well-until George’s curiosity attracts a horrible phantom… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Sexism
  • Blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Physical injuries
  • Medical experimentation
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)
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The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud

The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud

For more than fifty years, the country has been affected by a horrifying epidemic of ghosts. A number of Psychic Investigations Agencies have sprung up to destroy the dangerous apparitions.

Lucy Carlyle, a talented young agent, arrives in London hoping for a notable career. Instead she finds herself joining the smallest, most ramshackle agency in the city, run by the charismatic Anthony Lockwood. When one of their cases goes horribly wrong, Lockwood & Co. have one last chance of redemption. Unfortunately this involves spending the night in one of the most haunted houses in England, and trying to escape alive.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Child abuse
  • Domestic abuse
  • Suicide & attempted suicide (on-page)
  • Blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Physical injuries
  • Hospitalisation
  • Death of a mother & father recounted
  • Murder
  • Explosion
  • Fire
  • Drowning
  • Torture
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House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland

House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland

Seventeen-year-old Iris Hollow has always been strange. Something happened to her and her two older sisters when they were children, something they can’t quite remember but that left each of them with an identical half-moon scar at the base of their throats.

Iris has spent most of her teenage years trying to avoid the weirdness that sticks to her like tar. But when her eldest sister, Grey, goes missing under suspicious circumstances, Iris learns just how weird her life can get: horned men start shadowing her, a corpse falls out of her sister’s ceiling, and ugly, impossible memories start to twist their way to the forefront of her mind… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Familial estrangement
  • Sexual assault
  • Hallucinations & delusions
  • Coerced suicide recounted
  • Emesis
  • Body horror
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Dead bodies
  • Physical illness & injury
  • Hospitalisation
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father & husband
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a boyfriend
  • Gun violence
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Disappearance of a sister
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Bone Crier’s Moon by Kathryn Purdie

Bone Crier’s Moon by Kathryn Purdie

Bone Crier's Moon by Kathryn Purdie book cover

Bone ​Criers have a sacred duty. They alone can keep the dead from preying on the living. But their power to ferry the spirits of the dead into goddess Elara’s Night Heavens or Tyrus’s Underworld comes from sacrifice. The gods demand a promise of dedication. And that promise comes at the cost of the Bone Criers’ one true love.

Ailesse has been prepared since birth to become the matriarch of the Bone Criers, a mysterious famille of women who use strengths drawn from animal bones to ferry dead souls. But first she must complete her rite of passage and kill the boy she’s also destined to love.

Bastien’s father was slain by a Bone Crier and he’s been seeking revenge ever since. Yet when he finally captures one, his vengeance will have to wait. Ailesse’s ritual has begun and now their fates are entwined—in life and in death.

Sabine has never had the stomach for the Bone Criers’ work. But when her best friend Ailesse is taken captive, Sabine will do whatever it takes to save her, even if it means defying their traditions—and their matriarch—to break the bond between Ailesse and Bastien. Before they all die.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child abandonment
  • Pregnancy discussed
  • Blood and gore depiction
  • Dead bodies
  • Grief depiction
  • Death themes
  • Death of a father, on-page
  • Death of a mother, on-page
  • Murder
  • Attempted murder
  • Knife violence
  • Torture
  • Strangulation
  • Kidnapping
  • Captivty
  • Near-drowning incident
  • Graphic animal death
  • Graphic animal dead bodies and dismemberment
  • Hunting
  • Poverty themes
  • Child homelessness
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