Tag Archives: Genocide & Mass Murder

Projekt 1065 by Alan Gratz

Projekt 1065 by Alan Gratz

Infiltrate. Befriend. Sabotage. World War II is raging. Michael O’Shaunessey, originally from Ireland, now lives in Nazi Germany with his parents. Like the other boys in his school, Michael is a member of the Hitler Youth. But Michael has a secret. He and his parents are spies. Michael despises everything the Nazis stand for. But he joins in the Hitler Youth’s horrific games and book burnings, playing the part so he can gain insider knowledge. When Michael learns about Projekt 1065, a secret Nazi war mission, things get even more complicated. He must prove his loyalty… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Antisemitism & Nazism
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Gun violence
  • Explosion
  • War World Two (theme)

Prisoner B3087 by Alan Gratz

Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz

Survive. At any cost. 10 concentration camps. 10 different places where you are starved, tortured, and worked mercilessly. It’s something no one could imagine surviving. But it is what Yanek Gruener has to face. As a Jewish boy in 1930s Poland, Yanek is at the mercy of the Nazis who have taken over. Everything he has, and everyone he loves, have been snatched brutally from him. And then Yanek himself is taken prison, his arm tattooed with the words PRISONER B-3087. He is forced from one nightmarish concentration camp to another, as World War II rages… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism & Nazism
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a friend
  • Imprisonment in concentration camps (theme)
  • War World Two & the Holocaust

The Curse of Broken Shadows by Laura Winter

The Curse of Broken Shadows by Laura Winter

Shadow magic is extinct. The Veil Worshippers who honour the shadow god’s wall are hunted for their artifacts, including the Veil shards that break off the wall in Valisea. Brela vows to steal it all back. With the dagger of her people and a Veil shard embedded in her collarbone that has infected her with shadow-cursed magic, she is determined to keep her secrets or suffer a fate worse than death. That was a lot easier when the uptight and infuriatingly handsome Captain Cason Valkip wasn’t hunting her. Cason has spent his entire life hiding from the raids on Valisea, from,… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Abandonment
  • Rape & sexual assault mentioned
  • Physical & emotional child abuse mentioned
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) & trauma
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder & genocide
  • Torture
  • Kidnapping
  • Fire

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Alice by Christina Henry

Alice by Christina Henry

In a warren of crumbling buildings and desperate people called the Old City, there stands a hospital with cinderblock walls which echo with the screams of the poor souls inside. In the hospital, there is a woman. Her hair, once blonde, hangs in tangles down her back. She doesn’t remember why she’s in such a terrible place-just a tea party long ago, and long ears, and blood… Then, one night, a fire at the hospital gives the woman a chance to escape, tumbling out of the hole that imprisoned her, leaving her free to uncover the truth about what happened to her all those… Read more,

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Human trafficking
  • Slavery & sex slavery
  • Rape & threats of rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Cannibalism
  • Body horror
  • Psychiatric hospitalization
  • Murder & mass murder
  • Animal death & abuse

They Went Left by Monica Hesse

They Went Left by Monica Hesse

Germany, 1945. The soldiers who liberated the Gross-Rosen concentration camp said the war was over, but nothing feels over to eighteen-year-old Zofia Lederman. Her body has barely begun to heal; her mind feels broken. And her life is completely shattered: Three years ago, she and her younger brother, Abek, were the only members of their family to be sent to the right, away from the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Everyone else–her parents, her grandmother, radiant Aunt Maja–they went left. Zofia’s last… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism
  • PTSD & flashbacks
  • Human medical experimentation mentioned
  • Chemical gassing mentioned
  • Mass murder
  • Concentration camp
  • The Holocaust & World War Two

Woman on Fire by Lisa Barr

Woman on Fire by Lisa Barr

After talking her way into a job with Dan Mansfield, the leading investigative reporter in Chicago, rising young journalist Jules Roth is given an unusual–and very secret–assignment. Dan needs her to locate a painting stolen by the Nazis more than 75 years earlier: legendary Expressionist artist Ernst Engel’s most famous work, Woman on Fire. World-renowned shoe designer Ellis Baum wants this portrait of a beautiful, mysterious woman for deeply personal reasons, and has enlisted Dan’s help to find it. But Jules doesn’t have much time; the famous designer is dying… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism
  • Statutory rape recounted
  • Alcoholism
  • Suicide recounted
  • Drug overdose recounted
  • Terminal cancer
  • Murder
  • Hostage situation
  • World War Two & the Holocaust

Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick

Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick

Based on the true story of Cambodian advocate Arn Chorn-Pond, and authentically told from his point of view as a young boy, this is an achingly raw and powerful historical novel about a child of war who becomes a man of peace. It includes an author’s note and acknowledgments from Arn Chorn-Pond himself. Based on the true story of Cambodian advocate Arn Chorn-Pond, and authentically told from his point of view as a young boy, this is an achingly raw and powerful historical novel about a child of war who becomes a man of peace.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child sexual abuse
  • Rape mentioned
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Dead bodies
  • Cannibalism
  • Starvation
  • Death of a child
  • Cambodia’s Killing Fields (theme)
  • Murder & mass murder
  • Stabbing
  • Gun violence

Love Is the Higher Law by David Levithan

Love Is the Higher Law by David Levithan

The lives of three teens—Claire, Jasper, and Peter—are altered forever on September 11, 2001. Claire, a high school junior, has to get to her younger brother in his classroom. Jasper, a college sophomore from Brooklyn, wakes to his parents’ frantic calls from Korea, wondering if he’s okay. Peter, a classmate of Claire’s, has to make his way back to school as everything happens around him. Here are three teens whose intertwining lives are reshaped by this catastrophic event. As each gets to know the other, their moments become wound around each other’s… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • 9/11 (theme)

Perfect Villain by JL Beck and Sade Rena

Perfect Villain by J.L. Beck & Sade Rena

The second our eyes connected I felt the shift in the air. The crackle of fire igniting between us. He was dark, dangerous, and secretive. He came into my life like a storm, ripping apart everything I believed in, everything I thought I knew. With his mischievous smirk, stunning looks, and alluring behaviour I should’ve ran as far away from him as I could. But I was stupid. I trapped myself in his web. I thought I was safe with him. Safe in his arms, safe from a past that refused to let go. Turns out Christian Russo was the past I was running from, and my first mistake was ever thinking I could escape him.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault & dubious consent scenarios
  • Infidelity*
  • Death of parents
  • Graphic murder
  • Organised crime (mafia)
  • Kidnapping
  • Stalking

*Context: The heroine is in a relationship at the beginning of the novel and her boyfriend is cheating on her with her roommate. The hero and heroine get together before she breaks up with her current boyfriend.

The High Mountain Court by A.K. Mulford

The High Mountain Court by A.K. Mulford

Thirteen years fleeing witch hunters and the looming threat of death. Nineteen-year-old Remy knows she is possibly the last red witch alive, and she is determined to stay that way. The Northern Court King has slaughtered her home court and placed a bounty on red witch heads. When four fae warriors enter her tavern refuge, Remy tries to flee, but her magic isn’t strong enough to stop a fae prince on a mission. The handsome Prince Hale of the Eastern Kingdom wants to stop a war with the Northern Court before his kingdom befalls the same fate as Remy’s. He needs a red witch… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Genocide
  • War themes