Heart of Thorns by Bree Barton

Heart of Thorns by Bree Barton

Heart of Thorns by Bree Barton book cover

In the ancient river kingdom, where touch is a battlefield and bodies the instruments of war, Mia Rose has pledged her life to hunting Gwyrach: women who can manipulate flesh, bones, breath, and blood. The same women who killed her mother without a single scratch.

But when Mia’s father announces an alliance with the royal family, she is forced to trade in her knives and trousers for a sumptuous silk gown. Determined to forge her own path forward, Mia plots a daring escape, but could never predict the greatest betrayal of all: her own body. Mia possesses the very magic she has sworn to destroy.

Now, as she untangles the secrets of her past, Mia must learn to trust her heart…even if it kills her.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny (central theme)
  • Homomisia, coming out themes and hate crimes
  • Rape (mostly recounted, one graphic on-page scene) and sexual assault
  • Forced non-consensual arranged marriage
  • Physical abuse
  • Suicide and suicidal ideation (mentioned)
  • Blood and gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Grief and loss depiction
  • Death of mother & wife recounted
  • Death of a father & husband recounted
  • Emesis
  • Graphic physical injuries and illness
  • Torture (secondary character, off-page)
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Poisoning
  • Imprisonment
  • War themes
  • Graphic animal death, animal bodies, and hunting
  • Mind control discussed
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Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo book cover

Hunted across the True Sea, haunted by the lives she took on the Fold, Alina must try to make a life with Mal in an unfamiliar land, all while keeping her identity as the Sun Summoner a secret. But she can’t outrun her past or her destiny for long.

The Darkling has emerged from the Shadow Fold with a terrifying new power and a dangerous plan that will test the very boundaries of the natural world. With the help of a notorious privateer, Alina returns to the country she abandoned, determined to fight the forces gathering against Ravka. But as her power grows, Alina slips deeper into the Darkling’s game of forbidden magic, and farther away from Mal. Somehow, she will have to choose between her country, her power, and the love she always thought would guide her—or risk losing everything to the oncoming storm.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Body shaming
  • Suicide attempt by self-sacrifice
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood and gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Physical injuries
  • Emesis
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Physical and psychological torture
  • Knife violence
  • Gun violence
  • Explosions & bombings
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Hostage situation
  • Airship accident
  • War themes
  • Animal death
  • Animal dead bodies & body parts
  • Hunting
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Counterpoint by Anna Zabo

Counterpoint by Anna Zabo

Twisted Wishes lead guitarist Dominic “Domino” Bradley is an animal onstage. But behind his tight leather pants and skull-crusher boots lies a different man entirely, one who needs his stage persona not only to perform, but to have the anonymity he craves. A self-imposed exile makes it impossible to get close to anyone outside the band, so he’s forced to get his sexual fix through a few hot nights with a stranger.

When computer programmer Adrian Doran meets Dominic, he’s drawn to the other man’s quiet voice and shy smile. But after a few dirty, demanding nights exploring Dominic’s need to be dominated, Adrian wants more than a casual distraction. He has no idea he’s fallen for Domino Grinder—the outlandish, larger-than-life rock god.

Dominic is reluctant to trust Adrian with his true identity. But when the truth is revealed prematurely, Dominic is forced to reevaluate both his need for Adrian and everything he believes about himself.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Workplace homomisia & racism
  • Anxiety & panic attacks (on-page)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis
  • Death of a parent mentioned
  • Bullying mentioned
  • Doxxing
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Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist book cover

It is autumn 1981 when the inconceivable comes to Blackeberg, a suburb in Sweden. The body of a teenage boy is found, emptied of blood, the murder rumored to be part of a ritual killing. Twelve-year-old Oskar is personally hoping that revenge has come at long last—revenge for the bullying he endures at school, day after day.

But the murder is not the most important thing on his mind. A new girl has moved in next door—a girl who has never seen a Rubik’s Cube before, but who can solve it at once. There is something wrong with her, though, something odd. And she only comes out at night….

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape
  • Paedophilia
  • Blood and gore depiction
  • Dead bodies
  • Physical injuries
  • Scars
  • Emesis
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Fire
  • Animal cruelty
  • Bullying
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In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado book cover

For years Carmen Maria Machado has struggled to articulate her experiences in an abusive same-sex relationship. In this extraordinarily candid and radically inventive memoir, Machado tackles a dark and difficult subject with wit, inventiveness and an inquiring spirit, as she uses a series of narrative tropes—including classic horror themes—to create an entirely unique piece of work which is destined to become an instant classic.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Body-shaming
  • Intimate partner violence, domestic abuse/violence, toxic relationship/s, cheating and emotional abuse
  • Sexual assault, sexual abuse and adult-minor relationship
  • Recreational marijuana use
  • Emesis
  • Suicidal ideation
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Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado book cover

In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women’s lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.

A wife refuses her husband’s entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store’s prom dresses. One woman’s surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella Especially Heinous, Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naively assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgangers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes.

Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Rape
  • Child abuse and domestic violence
  • Abortion and miscarriage
  • Emesis, blood and gore depiction
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The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.

By her brother’s graveside, Liesel’s life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger’s Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor’s wife’s library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel’s foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel’s world is both opened up, and closed down.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism, including blackface, and antiziganism (g slur)
  • Anti-semitism and Nazism (theme)
  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Parental abandonment & verbal abuse
  • PTSD & nightmares
  • Recreational drug use (smoking)
  • Emesis
  • Starvation
  • Gore depiction (dead bodies)
  • Death of a brother
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a father & uncle mentioned
  • Murder
  • Explosions, including air raids, and fire
  • Death by exposure to the cold
  • War themes* and battle scenes
  • Poverty themes
  • Bullying

*Set during WWII and discussed the Holocaust.

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The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf

The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf

Melati Ahmad looks like your typical moviegoing, Beatles-obsessed sixteen-year-old. Unlike most other sixteen-year-olds though, Mel also believes that she harbors a djinn inside her, one who threatens her with horrific images of her mother’s death unless she adheres to an elaborate ritual of counting and tapping to keep him satisfied.

But there are things that Melati can’t protect her mother from. On the evening of May 13th, 1969, racial tensions in her home city of Kuala Lumpur boil over. The Chinese and Malays are at war, and Mel and her mother become separated by a city in flames.

With a 24-hour curfew in place and all lines of communication down, it will take the help of a Chinese boy named Vincent and all of the courage and grit in Melati’s arsenal to overcome the violence on the streets, her own prejudices, and her djinn’s surging power to make it back to the one person she can’t risk losing.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism, internalised ableism & ableist language
  • Racism & race riots (theme)
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • OCD & intrusive thoughts (protagonist)
  • Hospital
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Emesis
  • Death of a mother discussed
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence
  • Fire & being burned alive
  • Hostage situation
  • Displacement & homelessness
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The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams

The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams

Nashville Legends second baseman Gavin Scott’s marriage is in major league trouble. He’s recently discovered a humiliating secret: his wife Thea has always faked the Big O. When he loses his cool at the revelation, it’s the final straw on their already strained relationship. Thea asks for a divorce, and Gavin realizes he’s let his pride and fear get the better of him.

Distraught and desperate, Gavin finds help from an unlikely source: a secret romance book club made up of Nashville’s top alpha men. With the help of their current read, a steamy Regency titled Courting the Countess, the guys coach Gavin on saving his marriage. But it’ll take a lot more than flowery words and grand gestures for this hapless Romeo to find his inner hero and win back the trust of his wife.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Parental abuse & neglect recounted
  • Miscarriage mentioned
  • Emesis
  • Alcohol consumption
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Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power

Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power

Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power book cover

Ever since Margot was born, it’s been just her and her mother. No answers to Margot’s questions about what came before. No history to hold on to. No relative to speak of. Just the two of them, stuck in their run-down apartment, struggling to get along.

But that’s not enough for Margot. She wants a family. She wants a past. And she just found the key she needs to get it: A photograph, pointing her to a town called Phalene. Pointing her home. Only, when Margot gets there, it’s not what she bargained for. Margot’s mother left for a reason. But was it to hide her past? Or was it to protect Margot from what’s still there?

The only thing Margot knows for sure is there’s poison in their family tree, and their roots are dug so deeply into Phalene that now that she’s there, she might never escape. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Emotional parental abuse & gaslighting
  • Nonconsensual pregnancy
  • Blood and gore depiction
  • Body horror
  • Dead body
  • Emesis mentioned
  • Death of an infant, off-page
  • Gun violence, off-page
  • Fire