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.

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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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Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas

Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas

If there’s one thing seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter knows, it’s that a real man takes care of his family. As the son of a former gang legend, Mav does that the only way he knows how: dealing for the King Lords. With this money he can help his mom, who works two jobs while his dad’s in prison.Life’s not perfect, but with a fly girlfriend and a cousin who always has his back, Mav’s got everything under control.

Until, that is, Maverick finds out he’s a father. Suddenly he has a baby, Seven, who depends on him for everything. But it’s not so easy to sling dope, finish school, and raise a child. So when he’s offered the chance to go straight, he takes it. In a world where he’s expected to amount to nothing, maybe Mav can prove he’s different.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Coming out themes
  • Bimisia
  • Child neglect & parental abandonment
  • Recreational drug use
  • Substance addiction mentioned
  • Postnatal depression discussed
  • Teen pregnancy (theme)
  • Abortion discussed
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a cousin
  • Death of a sister to sickle cell mentioned
  • Incarceration
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Gun violence
  • Gang violence
  • Police brutality & violence mentioned
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Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

Catherine House is a school of higher learning like no other. Hidden deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, this crucible of reformist liberal arts study with its experimental curriculum, wildly selective admissions policy, and formidable endowment, has produced some of the world’s best minds. For those lucky few selected, tuition, room, and board are free. But acceptance comes with a price. Students are required to give the House three years—summers included—completely removed from the outside world. Family, friends… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slut shaming
  • Suicide
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Emesis
  • Medical examination
  • Human & animal medical experimentation
  • Needles
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a sister mentioned
  • Death of a best friend & classmate
  • Captivity & forced isolation
  • Animal injury & illness
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The Glass Town Game by Catherynne M. Valente

The Glass Town Game by Catherynne M. Valente

Inside a small Yorkshire parsonage, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne Brontë have invented a game called Glass Town, where their toy soldiers fight Napoleon and no one dies. This make-believe land helps the four escape from a harsh reality But on this Beastliest Day, the day Anne and Branwell walk their sisters to the train station, something incredible happens: the train whisks them all away to a real Glass Town.

This is their Glass Town, exactly like they envisioned it…almost. They certainly never gave Napoleon a fire-breathing porcelain rooster instead of a horse. And their soldiers can die; wars are fought over the potion that raises the dead, a potion Anne would very much like to bring back to England. But when Anne and Branwell are kidnapped, Charlotte and Emily must find a way to save their siblings. Can two English girls stand against Napoleon’s armies, especially now that he has a new weapon from the real world? And if he escapes Glass Town, will England ever be safe again?

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Dismemberment
  • Death of a mother
  • Death of a sister
  • War themes
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Saga, Vol. 6 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Saga, Vol. 6 by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated Fiona Staples

After a dramatic time jump, Hazel begins the most exciting adventure of her life: kindergarten. Meanwhile, her starcrossed family learns hard lessons of their own.

CollectingSaga 31-36

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language (r word)
  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Transmisia
  • Outing
  • Misgendering
  • Rape mentioned
  • Forced sex work mentioned
  • Child abuse
  • Substance addiction
  • Hallucinations
  • Self-harm mentioned
  • Recreational drug use
  • Overdose mentioned
  • Pregnancy
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction
  • Physical injuries, including serious injury of a loved one
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a sister
  • Death of a girlfriend
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Explosion
  • Kidnapping
  • Fire
  • Blackmail
  • Imprisonment
  • War & military violence (theme)
  • Animal death
  • Hunting
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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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Amelia Unabridged by Ashley Schumacher

Amelia Unabridged by Ashley Schumacher

Amelia Unabridged by Ashley Schumacher book cover

Eighteen-year-old Amelia Griffin is obsessed with the famous Orman Chronicles, written by the young and reclusive prodigy N. E. Endsley. They’re the books that brought her and her best friend Jenna together after Amelia’s father left and her family imploded. So when Amelia and Jenna get the opportunity to attend a book festival with Endsley in attendance, Amelia is ecstatic. It’s the perfect way to start off their last summer before college.

In a heartbeat, everything goes horribly wrong. When Jenna gets a chance to meet the author and Amelia doesn’t, the two have a blowout fight like they’ve never experienced. And before Amelia has a chance to mend things, Jenna is killed in a freak car accident. Grief-stricken, and without her best friend to guide her, Amelia questions everything she had planned for the future.

When a mysterious, rare edition of the Orman Chronicles arrives, Amelia is convinced that it somehow came from Jenna. Tracking the book to an obscure but enchanting bookstore in Michigan, Amelia is shocked to find herself face-to-face with the enigmatic and handsome N. E. Endsley himself, the reason for Amelia’s and Jenna’s fight and perhaps the clue to what Jenna wanted to tell her all along.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Parental neglect
  • Anxiety and panic attacks
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a sister
  • Grief depiction
  • Drowning
  • Car accident
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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)