Badger to the Bone by Shelly Laurenston

She’s the woman he’s been hired to kidnap. But ZeZé Vargas has other ideas . . . like getting them both out of this nightmare alive. Just one problem. She’s crazy. Certifiably. Because while he’s plotting their escape, the petite Asian beauty is plotting something much more deadly. Max “Kill It Again” MacKilligan has no idea what one of her own is doing with all these criminal humans until she realizes that Zé has no idea who or what he is. Or exactly how much power he truly has. But Max is more than happy to bring this handsome… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny & sexism
  • Racism & mentions of Klu Klux Klan
  • Sex trafficking mentioned
  • Drug dealing mentioned
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Bullying recounted

All Fired Up by Jenn Burke

Paranormals are dying. All over the city, with no explanation and only one thing in common: their magic is missing. Vampire and private investigator Evan Fournier isn’t supposed to be taking on paranormal cases, but when the murderer hits close to home, he agrees to look into it. The last thing he expects is to become a target himself—and then to become irrevocably bonded to the man who just tried to kill him. With his memory gone and his soul bonded to a stranger, former firefighter Colin Zhang wants to be anywhere else. He doesn’t have a damn… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Amnesia
  • Suicide
  • Drugging
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Loss of autonomy (mind control)

All Fall Down by Ally Carter

Grace Blakely is absolutely certain of three things: 1) She is not crazy; 2) Her mother was murdered, and 3) Someday she is going to find the killer and make him pay. The thing is, nobody else believes her and there’s no-one she can trust. Not her grandfather, a powerful ambassador. Not her new friends, who all live on Embassy Row. Not Alexei, the Russian boy next door, who is keeping his eye on Grace for reasons she neither likes nor understands. Grace’s past has come back to haunt her and if she doesn’t stop it… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Emotional child abuse & gaslighting
  • Drugging
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Physical injury
  • Death of a mother (theme)
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Fire

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a perfectly normal boy. Well, he would be perfectly normal if he didn’t live in a graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor the world of the dead. There are dangers and adventures for Bod in the graveyard: the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer; a gravestone entrance to a desert that leads to the city of ghouls; friendship with a witch, and so much more. But it is in the land of the living that real danger lurks, for it is there that the man Jack lives and he has already killed Bod’s family.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Drugging
  • Murder of a father, mother & sister by stabbing
  • Kidnapping
  • Gun & knife violence
  • Car accident mentioned (hit-and-run)
  • Bullying

Alien Quarantine Rescue by Robin Lovett

I haven’t touched anyone, let alone slept with anyone, since the Beerona Virus killed half of Earth’s population. This virus mutates faster than scientists can create a vaccine for it. I’ve lost all my family and all hope of seeing my friends again. Until a naked, silver alien comes for me. The only words he knows are “Give antibodies” and “Mine.” He could be lying. He could have Beerona. I could be dead in three days after the virus eats me from the inside out. But I haven’t had sex in so long, and he’s as strong as a gladiator. , as beautiful as Adonis, and did I mention his… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Deadnaming
  • Slut-shaming
  • Abortion recounted
  • Pregnancy
  • Heart condition
  • Pandemic
  • Medical procedures
  • Gun violence

AfterMath by Emily Barth Isler

After her brother’s death from a congenital heart defect, twelve-year-old Lucy is not prepared to be the new kid at school–especially in a grade full of survivors of a shooting that happened four years ago. Without the shared past that both unites and divides her classmates, Lucy feels isolated and unable to share her family’s own loss, which is profoundly different from the trauma of her peers. Lucy clings to her love of math, which provides the absolute answers she craves. But through budding friendships and an after… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Hospitalisation mentioned
  • Death of a brother from a congenital heart defect
  • School shooting massacre (aftermath, theme)

99 Red Balloons by Elisabeth Carpenter

When eight-year-old Grace goes missing from a sweetshop on the way home from school, her mother Emma is plunged into a nightmare. Her family rallies around, but as the police hunt begins, cracks begin to emerge. What are the secret emails sent between Emma’s husband and her sister? Why does her mother take so long to join the search? And is Emma really as innocent as she seems? Meanwhile, ageing widow Maggie Taylor sees Grace’s picture in the newspaper. It’s a photograph that jolts her from the pain of her existence into a spiralling obsession with… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Emotional child neglect
  • Self-harm & suicidal ideation
  • Drugging
  • Cannibalism mentioned
  • Hospitalisation mentioned
  • Death of a child (off-page)
  • Gun violence
  • Explosion (bomb)
  • Animal death (pet)

Five Found Dead by Sulari Gentill

Crime fiction author Joe Penvale has won the most brutal battle of his life. Now that he has finished his intense medical treatment, he and his twin sister, Meredith, are boarding the glorious Orient Express in Paris, hoping for some much-needed rest and rejuvenation. Meredith also hopes that the literary ghosts on the train will nudge Joe’s muse awake, and he’ll be inspired to write again. And he is; after their first evening spent getting to know some of their fellow travelers, Joe pulls out his laptop and opens a new document. Seems like this trip is just… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Cancer
  • COVID-19 pandemic (theme)
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Confinement & stalking

Wonderland by Zoje Stage

The Bennett family – artist parents and two precocious children – are leaving their familiar urban surroundings for a new home in far upstate New York. They’re an hour from the nearest city, a mile from the nearest house, and everyone has their own room for the very first time. Shaw, the father, even gets his own painting studio, now that he and his wife Orla, a retired dancer, have agreed that it’s his turn to pursue his passion. But none of the Bennetts expect what lies waiting in the lovely woods, where secrets run dark and deep. Orla must finally find a way to communicate with – not just… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence
  • Starvation
  • Gun violence

Words on Bathroom Walls by Julia Walton

Labor and delivery nurse Penelope is an expert at her job but a complete mess when it comes to her personal life. After her boyfriend dumps her in favor of saving his marriage, Penelope discovers she’s pregnant. Now Penelope must face motherhood, her greatest fear, or consider the alternatives. Jesenia, a first-generation American, made her mark as a model then quit the business in favor of a nine-to-five and wedded bliss. After three years of fertility treatments and pressure from her family, trying to become a mother is her full-time job. But when her past mistakes… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abandonment
  • Schizophrenia
  • Self-harm & suicidal ideation
  • Drug use & overdose
  • School shooting mentioned