Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world. Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind.

Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Slavery mentioned
  • Homomisia mentioned
  • Abandonment
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Emotional & physical abuse
  • Suicide
  • Alcoholism
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Drug use
  • Blood depiction
  • Physical injury
  • Beheading
  • Forced blinding
  • Scarring
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a child
  • Mass murder
  • Poisoning
  • Kidnapping
  • Physical assault
  • Imprisonment
  • Cult
  • Animal death
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Razorblade Tears by SA Cosby 

Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby

Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid. The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah’s white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss. Derek’s father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed his father his father was a criminal. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Homomisia
  • Transmisia
  • Deadnaming
  • Body horror
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child
  • Torture
  • Gun violence
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Gravemaidens by Kelly Coon 

Gravemaidens by Kelly Coon

In the walled city-state of Alu, Kammani wants nothing more than to become the accomplished healer her father used to be before her family was cast out of their privileged life in shame. When Alu’s ruler falls deathly ill, Kammani’s beautiful little sister, Nanaea, is chosen as one of three sacred maidens to join him in the afterlife. It’s an honour. A tradition. And Nanaea believes it is her chance to live an even grander life than the one that was stolen from her. But Kammani sees the selection for what it really is-a death sentence… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault
  • Suicide
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of an infant
  • Death of a mother during childbirth
  • Murder
  • Poisoning
  • Cults
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The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle by Leslie Connor

The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle by Leslie Connor

Mason Buttle is the biggest, sweatiest kid in his grade, and everyone knows he can barely read or write. Mason’s learning disabilities are compounded by grief. Fifteen months ago, Mason’s best friend, Benny Kilmartin, turned up dead in the Buttle family’s orchard. An investigation drags on, and Mason, honest as the day is long, can’t understand why Lieutenant Baird won’t believe the story Mason has told about that day.

Both Mason and his new friend, tiny Calvin Chumsky, are relentlessly bullied by the other… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a best friend
  • Death from a fall
  • Bullying
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The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin

The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin

It begins in a big yellow house, with a funeral, an iron poker, and a brief variation forever known as the Pause: a free and feral summer in a middle-class Connecticut town. Caught between the predictable life they once led and an uncertain future that stretches before them, the Skinner siblings—fierce Renee, sensitive Caroline, golden-boy Joe and watchful Fiona—emerge from the Pause staunchly loyal and deeply connected.  Two decades later, the siblings find themselves once again confronted with a family crisis that tests the strength of these bonds and forces them to question the life choices they’ve made and to ask what, exactly, they are willing to do for love. 

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Substance addiction
  • Drug use & abuse
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
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The Family Plot by Megan Collins 

The Family Plot by Megan Collins

At twenty-six, Dahlia Lighthouse has a lot to learn when it comes to the real world. Raised in a secluded island mansion deep in the woods and kept isolated by her true crime-obsessed parents, she has spent the last several years living on her own, but unable to move beyond her past—especially the disappearance of her twin brother Andy when they were sixteen.

With her father’s death, Dahlia returns to the house she has avoided for years. But as the rest of the Lighthouse family arrives for the memorial… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Cancer mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a brother
  • Death of a father
  • Disappearance of a sibling recounted
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The Haunting Season by Various

The Haunting Season: Ghostly Tales for Long Winter Nights with contributions from Bridget Collins, Natasha Pulley, Imogen Hermes Gowar, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Andrew Michael Hurley, Jess Kidd, Elizabeth Macneal and Laura Purcell

Winter, with its unsettling blend of the cosy and the sinister, has long been a popular time for gathering by the bright flame of a candle, or the warm crackling of a fire, and swapping stories.

From a bustling Covent Garden Christmas market to the frosty moors of Yorkshire, from a country estate with a dreadful secret, to a London mansion where a beautiful girl lies frozen in death, these are stories to make your hair stand on end, send shivers down your spine and to serve as your indispensable companion to the long nights of winter.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Suicide
  • Post-partum depression
  • Drug abuse
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child
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Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles

When Marvin Johnson’s twin, Tyler, goes to a party, Marvin decides to tag along to keep an eye on his brother. But what starts as harmless fun turns into a shooting, followed by a police raid. The next day, Tyler has gone missing, and it’s up to Marvin to find him. But when Tyler is found dead, a video leaked online tells an even more chilling story: Tyler has been shot and killed by a police officer. Terrified as his mother unravels and mourning a brother who is now a hashtag, Marvin must learn what justice and freedom really mean.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Alcohol consumption & recreational drug use
  • Blood depiction
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction (theme)
  • Death of a brother to gun violence
  • Police brutality & violence
  • Incarceration of a parent

A Conspiracy of Stars by Olivia Cole 

Octavia has only ever had one goal: to follow in the footsteps of her parents and become a prestigious whitecoat, one of the scientists who study the natural wonders of Faloiv. The secrets of the jungle’s exotic plants and animals are protected fiercely in the labs by the Council of N’Terra, so when the rules suddenly change, allowing students inside, Octavia should be overjoyed. But something isn’t right. The newly elected leader of the Council has some extremist views about the way he believes N’Terra should be run and he’s influencing others to follow him. When Octavia witnesses one of the Faloii—the indigenous… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Blood and injury depiction
  • Grief and loss depiction (minor)
  • Death of a friend, off-page
  • Death of a grandmother recounted
  • Death of a mother, on-page
  • Imprisonment
  • Animal death, cruelty and experimentation (theme)
  • Animal attack.

Demon from the Dark by Kresley Cole

Demon from the Dark by Kresley Cole

Tormented by his sordid past and racked by vampiric hungers, Malkom Slaine is pushed to the brink by the green-eyed beauty under his guard. Carrow Graie is hiding her own sorrows, until she meets a tortured warrior worth saving. But, in order for Malkom and Carrow to survive, he must unleash both the demon and vampire inside him.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child slavery & sex slavery mentioned
  • Parental neglect mentioned
  • Murder
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent