Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

Probationary Constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London’s Metropolitan Police. Too bad his superior plans to assign him to the Case Progression Unit, where the biggest threat he’ll face is a paper cut. But Peter’s prospects change in the aftermath of a puzzling murder, when he gains exclusive information from an eyewitness who happens to be a ghost.

Peter’s ability to speak with the lingering dead brings him to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, who investigates crimes involving magic and other manifestations of the uncanny. Now, as a wave of brutal and bizarre murders engulfs the city, Peter is plunged into a world where goddesses mingle with mortals and a long-dead evil is making a comeback on a rising tide of magic.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racist language
  • Sexism
  • Ableism
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Graphic dead bodies
  • Body horror
  • Hospitalisation
  • Decapitation, on-page
  • Murder (theme)
  • Gun violence
  • Infanticide by defenestration, on-page
  • Physical assault
  • Fire
  • Riots
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church’s double standards and their own needs and passions

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia
  • Body shaming
  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Infidelity
  • Domestic abuse
  • Child abuse mentioned
  • Paedophilia mentioned
  • Emotional and physical abuse
  • Adult-minor relationship
  • Dementia
  • Abortion
  • Religious bigotry
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a parent

Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson

Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson

Pip is not a detective anymore. With the help of Ravi Singh, she released a true-crime podcast about the murder case they solved together last year. The podcast has gone viral, yet Pip insists her investigating days are behind her.

But she will have to break that promise when someone she knows goes missing. Jamie Reynolds has disappeared, on the very same night the town hosted a memorial for the sixth-year anniversary of the deaths of Andie Bell and Sal Singh.

The police won’t do anything about it. And if they won’t look for Jamie then Pip will, uncovering more of her town’s dark secrets along the way… and this time everyone is listening. But will she find him before it’s too late?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape recounted
  • Nonconsensual drugging
  • Death of a sibling recounted
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Disappearance of a sibling
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Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.” Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returned to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy’s body… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Racism
  • Rape
  • Death of a child
  • Kidnapping

The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr

The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr

June 1897. A year has passed since Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a pioneer in forensic psychiatry, tracked down the brutal serial killer John Beecham with the help of a team of trusted companions and a revolutionary application of the principles of his discipline. Kreizler and his friends—high-living crime reporter John Schuyler Moore; indomitable, derringer-toting Sara Howard; the brilliant (and bickering) detective brothers Marcus and Lucius Isaacson; powerful and compassionate Cyrus Montrose; and Stevie Taggert, the boy Kreizler saved from a life of street crime—have returned to their former pursuits and tried to forget the horror of the Beecham case.

But when the distraught wife of a Spanish diplomat begs Sara’s aid, the team reunites to help find her kidnapped infant daughter. It is a case fraught with danger, since Spain and the United States are on the verge of war. Their investigation leads the team to a shocking suspect… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Domestic abuse
  • Suicide
  • Infanticide
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Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

When a benevolent landowner decides to sell two slaves—Uncle Tom and Eliza—in order to raise funds, the lives of the two slaves follow divergent paths. While Eliza escapes to eventual freedom, Uncle Tom is repeatedly sold until he ends up working on the prosperous Legree plantation, where his very life becomes forfeit to his violent master.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slavery
  • Racism
  • Suicide
  • Death of a child
  • Whipping
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Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Dexter Morgan appears to be the perfect gentleman. He leads a normal, quiet life working as a forensic officer for the Miami Police. He has a nice, shy girlfriend and is liked by her young children. But Dexter has a secret hobby. He’s an accomplished serial killer.

So far he’s killed dozens of people and has never been caught, because he knows exactly how to dispose of the evidence. And there are those who would rather he wasn’t caught at all, because Dexter is a serial killer with a difference. He only kills the city’s bad guys.

Then Dexter’s well-organised life is thrown into chaos. Another serial killer is invading his territory – and he wants Dexter to come out and play…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child abuse
  • Domestic abuse
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
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The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

1947. In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She’s also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive. So when Charlie’s parents banish her to Europe to have her “little problem” taken care of, Charlie breaks free and heads to London, determined to find out what happened to the cousin she loves like a sister.

1915. A year into the Great War, Eve Gardiner burns to join the fight against the Germans and unexpectedly gets her chance when she’s recruited to work as a spy. Sent into enemy-occupied France, she’s trained by the mesmerizing Lili, code name Alice, the “queen of spies”, who manages a vast network of secret agents right under the enemy’s nose… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Antisemitism & Nazism
  • Sexual assault
  • Suicide
  • Pregnancy
  • Abortion
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Hospitalisation
  • Emesis
  • Death of a child
  • Torture
  • Stalking
  • World War One & Two
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A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

It’s 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma’s reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she’s been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence’s most powerful girls—and their foray into the spiritual world—lead to?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexism
  • Antiziganism
  • Parent with substance addiction
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Suicide
  • Self-harm
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Dead body
  • Death of a mother from suicide by knife violence
  • Death of a child by suffocation
  • Murder
  • Fire
  • Animal death & cruelty
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Sing Me Forgotten by Jessica S. Olson

Sing Me Forgotten by Jessica S. Olson

Sing Me Forgotten by Jessica S. Olson

Cast into a well at birth for being one of the magical few who can manipulate memories when people sing, she was saved by Cyril, the opera house’s owner. Since that day, he has given her sanctuary from the murderous world outside. All he asks in return is that she use her power to keep ticket sales high—and that she stay out of sight. For if anyone discovers she survived, Isda and Cyril would pay with their lives.

But Isda breaks Cyril’s cardinal rule when she meets Emeric Rodin, a charming boy who throws her quiet, solitary life out of balance. His voice is unlike any she’s ever heard, but the real shock comes when she finds in his memories hints of a way to finally break free of her gilded prison.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child abuse
  • Emotional abuse
  • Toxic relationship
  • Self-harm
  • Emesis
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a child
  • Grief and loss depiction
  • Gun violence
  • Confinement
  • Torture
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