How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It by KJ Parker

How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It by K.J. Parker

This is the story of how the City was saved, by Notker the professional liar, written down because eventually the truth always seeps through. The City may be under siege, but everyone still has to make a living. Take Notker, the acclaimed playwright, actor and impresario. Nobody works harder, even when he’s not working. Thankfully, the good citizens of Classis appreciate an evening at the theatre even when there are large rocks falling out of the sky. But Notker is a man of many talents, and all the world is, apparently, a stage. It seems that the Empire needs him or some… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Genocide
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Kidnapping
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The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian

The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian

When Elizabeth Endicott arrives in Aleppo, Syria she has a diploma from Mount Holyoke, a crash course in nursing, and only the most basic grasp of the Armenian language. The year is 1915 and she has volunteered on behalf of the Boston-based Friends of Armenia to help deliver food and medical aid to refugees of the Armenian genocide. There Elizabeth becomes friendly with Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has already lost his wife and infant daughter. When Armen leaves Aleppo and travels south into Egypt to join the British army, he begins to write Elizabeth… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Death of a wife & daughter
  • Armenian Genocide (theme)
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The Way of Thorn and Thunder by Daniel Heath Justice

The Way of Thorn and Thunder by Daniel Heath Justice

Taking fantasy literature beyond the stereotypes, Daniel Heath Justice’s acclaimed Thorn and Thunder novels are set in a world resembling eighteenth-century North America. The original trilogy is available here for the first time as a fully revised one-volume novel. The story of the struggle for the green world of the Everland, home of the forest-dwelling Kyn, is an adventure tale that bends genre and gender.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Body & eye horror
  • Torture
  • Genocide
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The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

In a futuristic world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America’s Indigenous people, and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world. But getting the marrow, and dreams, means death for the unwilling donors. Driven to flight, a fifteen-year-old and his companions struggle for survival, attempt to reunite with loved ones and take refuge from the “recruiters” who seek them out to bring them to the marrow-stealing “factories.”

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Genocide
  • Body horror, including dental & eyeball horror
  • Medical experimentation
  • Torture
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Symbiosis by Nicky Drayden

Symbiosis by Nicky Drayden

Nearly a thousand years removed from Earth, the remnants of humanity cling to existence inside giant, space-faring creatures known as the Zenzee. Abused and exploited by humans for generations, these majestic animals nearly went extinct, but under the command of its newly minted ruler, Doka Kaleigh, life in the Parados I has flourished. Thanks to careful oversight and sacrifice by all of its crew, they are now on the brink of utopia, and yet Doka’s rivals feel threatened by that success.  The Senate allowed Doka to lead their people believing he’d fail spectacularly—a disaster that would cement the legitimacy of their long … Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Cheating
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Panic attack
  • Abortion
  • Body horror
  • Genocide
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Bloodwitch by Susan Dennard

Bloodwitch by Susan Dennard

High in a snowy mountain range, a monastery that holds more than just faith clings to the side of a cliff. Below, thwarted by a lake, a bloodthirsty horde of raiders await the coming of winter and the frozen path to destroy the sanctuary and its secrets. The Bloodwitch Aeduan has teamed up with the Threadwitch Iseult and the magical girl Owl to stop the destruction. But to do so, he must confront his own father, and his past.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Nightmares
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction including dead bodies
  • Graphic physical injuries & illness
  • Emesis
  • Death of a baby, on-page
  • Death of a wife & daughter mentioned
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Mass murder & massacres, on-page
  • Torture mentioned
  • Gun violence
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Fire
  • Explosions, on-page
  • Decapitation
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)
  • Kidnapping
  • Disappearance of a friend
  • Imprisonment mentioned
  • War & military violence (theme)

The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey

The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey

Near the island of Black Conch, a fisherman sings to himself while waiting for a catch. But David attracts a sea-dweller that he never expected – Aycayia, an innocent young woman cursed by jealous wives to live as a mermaid. When American tourists capture Aycayia, David rescues her and vows to win her trust. Slowly, painfully, she transforms into a woman again. Yet as their love grows, they discover that the world around them is changing – and they cannot escape the curse for ever…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Racism
  • Attempted suicide
  • Genocide

Seven Mercies by L. R. Lam and Elizabeth

After an ambush leaves the Novantae resistance in tatters, the survivors scatter across the galaxy. Wanted by two great empires, the bounty on any rebel’s head is enough to make a captor filthy rich. And the seven devils? Biggest score of them all. To avoid attacks, the crew of Zelus scavenge for supplies on long-abandoned Tholosian outposts. Not long after the remnants of the rebellion settle briefly on Fortuna, Ariadne gets a message with unimaginable consequences: the Oracle has gone rogue. In a planned coup against the Empire’s new ruler, the AI has developed a way of mass programming citizens into mindless drone… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Dysphoria
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Panic attacks
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Chronic illness
  • Murder
  • Genocide
  • Torture
  • Police brutality
  • Gun violence
  • Explosion
  • War & colonialisation
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The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Bergensdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Northern town of Vardø must fend for themselves. Three years later, a sinister figure arrives. Absalom Cornet comes from Scotland, where he burned witches in the northern isles. He brings with him his young Norwegian wife, Ursa, who is both heady with her husband’s authority and terrified by it. In Vardø, and in Maren… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Period-typical misogyny
  • Anti-indigenous racism
  • Colonialism
  • Religious bigotry and persecution for witchcraft (theme) including the on-page depiction of witch trials and burning women at the stake
  • Graphic martial rape and sexual assault
  • Infidelity*
  • Forced marriage
  • Pregnancy and pregnancy from rape discussed including childbirth
  • Miscarriage
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction including dead bodies
  • Death of a friend, on-page
  • Death of a father, husband and brother mentioned
  • Mass death by boating accident
  • Murder, on-page
  • Torture, implied
  • Imprisonment mentioned
  • Near-drowning incident
  • Animal death

*Context : The protagonist falls in love with a woman but is in a forced arranged marriage with a man.

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Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare

Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare

Quinn Maybrook just wants to make it until graduation. She might not make it to morning. Quinn and her father moved to tiny, boring Kettle Springs to find a fresh start. But ever since the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory shut down, Kettle Springs has cracked in half. On one side are the adults, who are desperate to make Kettle Springs great again, and on the other are the kids, who want to have fun, make prank videos, and get out of Kettle Springs as quick as they can. Kettle Springs is caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress. It’s a fight that looks like it will destroy the town. Until Frendo, the Baypen mascot, a… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Medical trauma & treatment
  • Amputation & loss of limb
  • Graphic burns
  • Dead bodies
  • Murder & mass murder
  • Gun violence
  • Knife violence
  • Physical assault
  • Fire
  • Death from a fall
  • Hostage situation