Tag Archives: Genocide & Mass Murder

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Ableism
  • Queermisia
  • Hate crime
  • Rape mentioned
  • Alcoholism
  • Self-harm
  • Abortion
  • Cancer
  • Dead bodies
  • Murder & mass murder
  • War themes

The Measure by Nikki Erlick

Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice. It seems like any other day. You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out. But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds your fate inside: the answer to the exact number of years you will live. From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise? As society comes together and pull apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Suicide
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of both parents in a car accident
  • Bombing
  • Workplace mass shooting
  • Bullying

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.

But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transmisia
  • Slavery
  • Rape threatened
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Loss of autonomy, by possession
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Dead bodies
  • Murder
  • Knife violence
  • Torture
  • Poisoning
  • Fire
  • Genocide mentioned
  • Fantastical animal attack

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world’s center for translation and, more importantly, magic.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism, including slurs & cultural appropriation
  • Classism
  • Colourism
  • Misogyny & sexism
  • Islamophobia
  • Violent hate crime
  • Slavery, including child labour
  • Sexual assault
  • Suicide discussed
  • Self-harm
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use
  • Blood depiction
  • Emesis
  • Feet binding discussed
  • Plague
  • Death of mother
  • Grief depiction
  • Murder
  • Police brutality
  • Genocide
  • Gun violence
  • Torture
  • Physical assault
  • Colonization
  • War themes

Raven Stratagem by Yoon Ha Lee

When the hexarchate’s gifted young captain Kel Cheris summoned the ghost of the long-dead General Shuos Jedao to help her put down a rebellion, she didn’t reckon on his breaking free of centuries of imprisonment – and possessing her. Even worse, the enemy Hafn are invading, and Jedao takes over General Kel Khiruev’s fleet, which was tasked with stopping them. Only one of Khiruev’s subordinates, Lieutenant Colonel Kel Brezan, seems to be able to resist the influence of the brilliant but psychotic Jedao. Jedao claims to be interested in defending the hexarchate, but can Khiruev or Brezan trust him? For that… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape recounted
  • Incest (sibling)
  • Memory loss
  • Suicide
  • Mass shooting
  • Torture
  • Genocide

Sing Me to Sleep by Gabi Burton

Saoirse Sorkova survives on lies. As a soldier-in-training at the most prestigious barracks in the kingdom, she lies about being a siren to avoid execution. At night, working as an assassin for a dangerous group of mercenaries, Saoirse lies about her true identity. And to her family, Saoirse tells the biggest lie of all: that she can control her siren powers and doesn’t struggle constantly against an impulse to kill. As the top trainee in her class, Saoirse would be headed for a bright future if it weren’t for the need to keep her secrets out of the spotlight. But when a mysterious black… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis
  • Murder including murder by poisoning, stabbing, and drowning
  • Kidnapping
  • Loss of autonomy (magical coercion)
  • Genocide recounted

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho

A bandit walks into a coffeehouse, and it all goes downhill from there. Guet Imm, a young votary of the Order of the Pure Moon, joins up with an eclectic group of thieves (whether they like it or not) in order to protect a sacred object, and finds herself in a far more complicated situation than she could have ever imagined.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misgendering
  • Religious persecution
  • Massacres, off-page
  • War themes

In Pain and Blood by Aldrea Alien

In Pain and Blood by Aldrea Alien

Dylan’s life in the spellster tower has everything he should want: magical knowledge, safety from the King’s Hounds and frequent clandestine affairs with women. All at the cost of his freedom. So when the chance to leave the tower—even as a leashed weapon for the King’s Army—arises, he seizes it. When his first scouting mission goes awry, Dylan is left alone in a hostile world with the tower a distant beacon of safety. Only the flirtatious Tracker, an elven man whose very presence awakens Dylan’s long-repressed desire… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Bimisia
  • Threats & mentions of rape
  • Sex-trafficking
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Suicide
  • Death of children
  • Graphic mass murder including infanticide
  • Kidnapping
  • War

Tracking Trouble by Aldrea Alien

Tracking Trouble by Aldrea Alien

Before a routine job brought him to the love of his life, Tracker’s world had two facets: Hunting spellsters and entertaining strangers in his bed. There’s no doubt he’s good at both, even if only one is considered acceptable amongst the King’s Hounds. But there’s something off about his current tasks. The spellsters he typically finds aren’t usually this powerful or anywhere near as dangerous to a man untouchable by magic. It’s as if someone is releasing them with an eye to weaken an already harried kingdom. Can he find out who before they run out of hounds? Join this mess of… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sex-trafficking
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Death of children
  • Graphic mass murder including infanticide
  • Kidnapping

And the World Crumbled by Aldrea Alien

And the World Crumbled by Aldrea Alien

No escape. No defence. One chance. Who’ll make it out alive? Everyone knows that Demarn’s spellster tower is the safest place to be for those with magic. The site is shielded by mountains to west, by allies to the north, and their kingdom’s army in the south whilst the whole kingdom stretches between them and the magic-reviling people patrolling the sea to the east. And yet, the enemy has breached the gates. They’ve issued no demands. Only death. Fleeing the tower and the ultimate demise is the one choice left. There is but one way out and the enemy holds more power… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Blood & gore depiction including dead bodies
  • Beheading & dismemberment
  • Graphic mass murder including infanticide
  • Vivisepulture (buried alive)