Grenade by Alan Gratz

Grenade by Alan Gratz

It’s 1945, and the world is in the grip of war. Hideki lives on the island of Okinawa, near Japan. When WWII crashes onto his shores, Hideki is drafted into the Blood and Iron Student Corps to fight for the Japanese army. He is handed a grenade and a set of instructions: Don’t come back until you’ve killed an American soldier. Ray, a young American Marine, has just landed on Okinawa. He doesn’t know what to expect — or if he’ll make it out alive. He just knows that the enemy is everywhere. Hideki and Ray each fight their way across the island, surviving heart-pounding ambushes… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Suicide
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Death of a child
  • Explosions
  • Gun violence
  • War World Two & military violence (theme)
  • Colonialism

Glass Houses by Louise Penny

Glass Houses by Louise Penny

When a mysterious figure appears in Three Pines one cold November day, Armand Gamache and the rest of the villagers are at first curious. Then wary. Through rain and sleet, the figure stands unmoving, staring ahead. From the moment the creature’s shadow falls over the village, Gamache, now Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté du Quebec suspects it has deep roots and a dark purpose. Yet he does nothing. What can he do? Only watch and wait. And hope his mounting fears are not realized. But when the figure vanishes overnight and a body is discovered, it falls to… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Suicide
  • Drug abuse
  • Abortion
  • Murder
  • Gun violence

Rescue by Jennifer Nielsen

Rescue by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Six hundred and fifty-seven days ago, Meg Kenyon’s father left their home in France to fight for the Allies in World War II, and that was the last time Meg saw him. Recently, she heard he was being held prisoner by the Nazis, a terrible sentence from which Meg fears he’ll never return. All she has left of him are the codes he placed in a jar for her to decipher, an affectionate game the two of them shared. But the codes are running low, and soon there’ll be nothing left of Papa for Meg to hold on to at all. Suddenly, an impossible chance to save her father falls into Meg’s lap. After following… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism & Nazism
  • Blood depiction
  • Gun violence
  • Explosion
  • Avalanche
  • World War Two

A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny

A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny

When an intricate old map is found stuffed into the walls of the bistro in Three Pines, it at first seems no more than a curiosity. But the closer the villagers look, the stranger it becomes Given to Armand Gamache as a gift the first day of his new job, the map eventually leads him to shattering secrets. To an old friend and older adversary. It leads the former Chief of Homicide for the Sûreté du Québec to places even he is afraid to go. But must. And there he finds four young cadets in the Sûreté academy, and a dead professor. And, with the body, a copy of the old, odd map… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Drug abuse
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Gun violence

Wait in the Truck by Aria Grace

Wait in the Truck by Aria Grace

Harris didn’t want to spend fourteen hours on the road during a storm, but when he hears about a dog in need of a home a few states away, he makes the trek. Not long after his journey home, he passes a bus stop with a person who doesn’t even look alive. When Jesse snuck out of the trailer in the dead of night, he didn’t have a plan. He just needed to get away. And after an hour of walking, he realizes how stupid he was to leave on foot. Just because he wasn’t going to die at the hands of his ex tonight doesn’t mean he won’t freeze to death on his way out. Curled up in the corner of a bus… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Domestic abuse
  • A near-death experience by freezing
  • Gun violence
  • Arson

A Hellhound Called Derek by Michelle Frost

A Hellhound Called Derek by Michelle Frost

Alpha of the Hellhound enforcers, Derek doesn’t think he has time for a mate until the Paranormal Council of the city gives him one. Hollis is smart, funny, vulnerable…human, and his police commissioner uncle has designs to use Hollis’s new mating for his own ends. He’ll learn quickly not to mess with a hellhound’s mate.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Verbal parental abuse
  • Gun violence

The Long Walk by Richard Bachman

The Long Walk by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman

In the near future, when America has become a police state, one hundred boys are selected to enter an annual contest where the winner will be awarded whatever he wants for the rest of his life. Among them is sixteen-year-old Ray Garraty, and he knows the rules—keep a steady walking pace of four miles per hour without stopping. Three warnings and you’re out—permanently.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Racism (n slur)
  • Body horror
  • Emesis
  • Murder by gun violence

Immortality by Dana Schwartz

Immortality: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz

Hazel Sinnett is alone and half-convinced the events of the year before—the immortality, Beecham’s vial—were a figment of her imagination. She doesn’t even know whether Jack is alive or dead. All she can really do now is treat patients and maintain Hawthornden Castle as it starts to decay around her. When saving a life leads to her arrest, Hazel seems doomed to rot in prison until a message intervenes: She has been specifically requested to be the personal physician of Princess Charlotte, the sickly daughter of King George IV. Soon Hazel is dragged into the glamour and romance of a court where everyone has something to… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Abortion
  • Blood & gore depiction including body horror and dead bodies
  • Dismemberment
  • Medical procedures
  • Plague mentioned
  • Attempted murder
  • Gun violence

Sanctuary by Caryn Lix

Sanctuary by Caryn Lix

Kenzie holds one truth above all: the company is everything. As a citizen of Omnistellar Concepts, the most powerful corporation in the solar system, Kenzie has trained her entire life for one goal: to become an elite guard on Sanctuary, Omnistellar’s space prison for superpowered teens too dangerous for Earth. As a junior guard, she’s excited to prove herself to her company—and that means sacrificing anything that won’t propel her forward. But then a routine drill goes sideways and Kenzie is taken hostage by rioting prisoners… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Abandonment
  • Medical treatment
  • Blood depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping
  • Gun violence
  • Imprisonment

Good Girls Don’t by Victoria Dahl

Good Girls Don’t by Victoria Dahl

With her long ponytail and sparkling green eyes, Tessa Donovan looks more like the girl next door than a businesswoman – or a heartbreaker. Which may explain why Detective Luke Asher barely notices her when he arrives to investigate a break-in at her family’s brewery. He’s got his own problems – starting with the fact that his partner, Simone, is pregnant and everyone thinks he’s the father. Tessa has her hands full, too. Her brother’s playboy ways may be threatening the business, and the tension could tear her tight-knit family apart. In fact, the only thing that could unite the Donovan boys is seeing a man come after… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Cheating mentioned
  • Pregnancy mentioned
  • Ex-wife with breast cancer
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of parents in a car accident recounted
  • Gun & knife violence mentioned