Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu

Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker & Wendy Xu

Nova Huang knows more about magic than your average teen witch. She works at her grandmothers’ bookshop, where she helps them loan out spell books and investigate any supernatural occurrences in their New England town.

One fateful night, she follows reports of a white wolf into the woods, and she comes across the unexpected: her childhood crush, Tam Lang, battling a horse demon in the woods. As a werewolf, Tam has been wandering from place to place for years, unable to call any town home.

Pursued by dark forces eager to claim the magic of wolves and out of options, Tam turns to Nova for help.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism mentioned
  • Misgendering
  • Child abuse
  • Minor physical injuries
  • Death of a mother & father
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Cults
  • Animal abuse
  • Homelessness

We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal

We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal

We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal book cover

Zafira is the Hunter, disguising herself as a man when she braves the cursed forest of the Arz to feed her people. Nasir is the Prince of Death, assassinating those foolish enough to defy his autocratic father, the sultan. If Zafira was exposed as a girl, all of her achievements would be rejected; if Nasir displayed his compassion, his father would punish him in the most brutal of ways. Both Zafira and Nasir are legends in the kingdom of Arawiya–but neither wants to be. War is brewing, and the Arz sweeps closer with each passing day, engulfing the land in shadow. When Zafira embarks on a quest to uncover a lost artifact that can restore… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & misogyny
  • Child emotional and verbal abuse & neglect
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction including dead bodies
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother & father
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a cousin
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Torture
  • Imprisonment & captivity
  • Kidnapping & blackmail
  • War themes discussed
  • Animal death & hunting

The Disasters by M. K. England

The Disasters by M. K. England

The Disasters by M. K. England book cover

Hotshot pilot Nax Hall has a history of making poor life choices. So it’s not exactly a surprise when he’s kicked out of the elite Ellis Station Academy in less than twenty-four hours.

But Nax’s one-way trip back to Earth is cut short when a terrorist group attacks the Academy. Nax and three other washouts escape—barely—but they’re also the sole witnesses to the biggest crime in the history of space colonization. And the perfect scapegoats.

On the run and framed for atrocities they didn’t commit, Nax and his fellow failures execute a dangerous heist to spread the truth about what happened at the Academy.

They may not be “Academy material,” and they may not get along, but they’re the only ones left to step up and fight.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Transmisia recounted
  • Ableism recounted
  • Child abuse
  • Anxiety
  • Anxiety/panic attacks, on-page
  • Nightmares
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Nonconsensual drugging
  • Blood depiction
  • Physical injuries
  • Serious injury to a loved one
  • Hospital
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Murder and attempted murder
  • Gun violence
  • Plane crash
  • Car crash
  • Wrongful imprisonment
  • Colonialism themes
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Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor

Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor

The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From hereon in she would be known as Sankofa­­–a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past. Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks–alone, except for her fox companion–searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged; searching for answers. But is there a greater purpose for Sankofa, now that Death is her constant companion?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child abuse
  • Smoking mentioned
  • Malaria & fevers
  • Dead bodies
  • Body horror
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a brother
  • Death of a mother & father, off-page
  • Death of a grandmother mentioned
  • Death of a child in a pedestrian-car accident, on- & off-page
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Mass death
  • Gun violence
  • Physical assault
  • Stoning
  • Carjacking mentioned
  • Animal death (insects, repeated scenes)

The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware

The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware

On a day that begins like any other, Hal receives a mysterious letter bequeathing her a substantial inheritance. She realizes very quickly that the letter was sent to the wrong person—but also that the cold-reading skills she’s honed as a tarot card reader might help her claim the money.

Soon, Hal finds herself at the funeral of the deceased…where it dawns on her that there is something very, very wrong about this strange situation and the inheritance at the centre of it.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia
  • Sex work discussed
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Disownment & familial estrangement
  • Cheating
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • PTSD
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Alcohol abuse recounted
  • Dubious consent to medication
  • Teen pregnancy
  • Miscarriage & abortion mentioned
  • Infertility mentioned
  • Emesis
  • Hospital
  • Minor blood & gore depiction and physical injuries
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother & father
  • Death of a grandmother
  • Death of a sister
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Strangulation
  • Car accident
  • Disappearance of a loved one
  • Blackmail
  • Captivity recounted
  • Poverty themes & eviction
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When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole

When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole

When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole book cover

Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she’s known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community’s past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block—her neighbor Theo.

But Sydney and Theo’s deep dive into history quickly becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear. Their neighbors may not have moved to the suburbs after all, and the push to revitalize the community may be more deadly than advertised.

When does coincidence become conspiracy? Where do people go when gentrification pushes them out? Can Sydney and Theo trust each other—or themselves—long enough to find out before they too disappear?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism, including aversive racism
  • Gentrification
  • Attempted genocide
  • Racial profiling
  • Cheating
  • Alcohol abuse
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use, mentioned
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a mother
  • Grief depiction
  • Arrest and incarceration, mentioned
  • Dead body, on page
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Between by Jessica Warman

Between by Jessica Warman

Elizabeth Valchar-pretty, popular, and perfect-wakes up the morning after her eighteenth birthday party on her family’s yacht, where she’d been celebrating with her six closest friends. A persistent thumping noise has roused her. When she goes to investigate, what she finds will change everything she thought she knew about her life, her friends, and everything in between.

As Liz begins to unravel the circumstances surrounding her birthday night, she will find that no one around her, least of all Liz herself, was perfect-or innocent.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Eating disorder (anorexia)
  • Drug use
  • Murder
  • Emesis
  • Death of a mother recounted
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Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters

Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters

If I could have a fiddle made of Daddy’s bones, I’d play it. I’d learn all the secrets he kept.

Shady Grove inherited her father’s ability to call ghosts from the grave with his fiddle, but she also knows the fiddle’s tunes bring nothing but trouble and darkness.

But when her brother is accused of murder, she can’t let the dead keep their secrets.

In order to clear his name, she’s going to have to make those ghosts sing.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableist language
  • Attempted rape recounted (chp. 23)
  • Child abuse recounted, including being locked in the attics for extended periods of tie
  • Agoraphobia
  • Panic attack (chp. 24)
  • Death of a mother to suicide recounted
  • Recreational drug use (on-page in chp. 5 & mentioned otherwise)
  • Hospital (chp. 5 & 24)
  • Grief & loss (theme)
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Death of a stepfather (off-page)
  • Death of a sister recounted
  • Gun violence (chp. 28)
  • Police violence (chp. 28)
  • Hanging mentioned (chp. 9)
  • Near-drowning incident
  • Car accident (on-page, chp. 23-24)
  • Death of a child to a wasp attack recounted
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The Conductors by Nicole Glover

The Conductors by Nicole Glover

The Conductors by Nicole Glover book cover

As a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Hetty Rhodes helped usher dozens of people north with her wits and magic. Now that the Civil War is over, Hetty and her husband Benjy have settled in Philadelphia, solving murders and mysteries that the white authorities won’t touch. When they find one of their friends slain in an alley, Hetty and Benjy bury the body and set off to find answers. But the secrets and intricate lies of the elites of Black Philadelphia only serve to dredge up more questions. To solve this mystery, they will have to face ugly truths all around them, including the ones about each other.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slavery & human trafficking
  • Racism & colourism
  • Domestic abuse & violence
  • Infertility, miscarriage & mentions of pregnancy
  • Physical injury, including burns & scars
  • Blood and gore depiction
  • Death of a mother & father, friend, husband, sister & son
  • Disappearance of a sister
  • Torture
  • Knife violence
  • Fire
  • Kidnapping
  • Incarceration & captivity mentioned
  • Hanging/lynching (implied)

What Momma Left Me by Renée Watson

What Momma Left Me by Renée Watson

How is it that unsavory raw ingredients come together to form a delicious cake? What is it about life that when you take all the hard stuff and rough stuff and add in a lot of love, you still just might have a wonderful life?

For Serenity, these questions rise up early when her father kills her mother, and leaves her and her brother Danny to live with their kind but strict grandparents. Despite the difficulties of a new school, a new church, and a new neighborhood, Serenity gains strength from the family around her, the new friends she finds, and her own careful optimism.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Domestic violence
  • Sexual assault mentioned
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Gun violence
  • Poverty themes
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