Night Wherever We Go by Tracey Rose Peyton

On a struggling Texas plantation, six enslaved women slip from their sleeping quarters and gather in the woods under the cover of night. The Lucys—as they call the plantation owners, after Lucifer himself—have decided to turn around the farm’s bleak financial prospects by making the women bear children. They have hired a “stockman” to impregnate them. But the women are determined to protect themselves.

Now each of the six faces a choice. Nan, the doctoring woman, has brought a sack of cotton root clippings that can stave off children when chewed daily… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Slavery
  • Rape
  • Lynching

Lying in the Deep by Diana Urban

After being jilted by her ex-boyfriend and best friend, Jade couldn’t be more ready to embark on the adventure of a lifetime—11 countries in 4 months, all from the luxurious Campus on Board ship—and to wedge an entire globe between her and the people who broke her heart. But when Jade discovers the backstabbing couple are also setting sail, her obsession with them grows and festers, leading to a shocking murder. And as their friends begin to drop like flies, Jade and her new crush must race to clear her name and find the killer they’re trapped at sea with….before anyone else winds up in body bags.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Infidelity
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Overdose mentioned (opiates)
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Murder
  • Death from hanging
  • Gun & knife violence
  • Car accident

The Boneless Mercies by April Genevieve Tucholke

Frey, Ovie, Juniper, and Runa are Boneless Mercies – death-traders, hired to kill quickly, quietly and mercifully. It is a job for women, and women only. Men will not do this sad, dark work.
Frey has no family, no home, no fortune, and yet her blood sings a song of glory. So when she hears of a monster slaughtering men, women, and children in a northern jarldom, she decides this the Mercies’ one chance to change their fate… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Child abuse
  • Attempted forced child sex work mentioned
  • Suicide & assisted voluntary euthanasia, on-page
  • Suicidal ideation & attempted suicide recounted
  • Self-flagellation, on-page
  • Dead bodies & body parts
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Eyeball trauma
  • Serious physical injury & illness
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child, on-page
  • Death of a sister recounted
  • Death of a girlfriend recounted
  • Death of a mentor recounted
  • Death of a parent from illness recounted
  • Death of a friend, on-page
  • Graphic murder & attempted murder (theme)
  • Knife, axe & attempted murder
  • Hanging, off-page
  • Poisoning
  • Graphic drowning
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • War themes & battle scenes
  • Animal attack
  • Graphic animal death
  • Animal abuse

The Merciless Ones by Namina Forna

It’s been six months since Deka freed the goddesses in the ancient kingdom of Otera and discovered who she really is… but war is waging across the kingdom, and the real battle has only just begun. For there is a dark force growing in Otera—a merciless power that Deka and her army must stop. Yet hidden secrets threaten to destroy everything Deka has known. And with her own gifts changing, Deka must discover if she holds the key to saving Otera… or if she might be its greatest threat.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Sex work-shaming
  • Parental abuse mentioned
  • Panic attacks
  • Body horror & gore depiction including dead bodies
  • Murder
  • Grief depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a father
  • Torture
  • Immolation (burning alive) & fire mentioned
  • Hanging mentioned
  • Drowning mentioned
  • Death from falling discussed
  • Loss of autonomy (mind control)

To Catch a Raven by Beverly Jenkins

Lying and cheating may be sins to some people, but for Raven Moreaux, it is a way of life. She comes from a long line of grifters and couldn’t be prouder…Until she’s forced to help the government. A former Confederate official is suspected of stealing the Declaration of Independence, and Raven, posing as his housekeeper, is tasked with getting it back. Her partner is the too handsome Braxton Steel. Masquerading as a valet/driver, Brax is also supposed to be her “husband.” He has his own reasons for doing this job, but when their pretend marriage ignites into fiery… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slavery recounted
  • Racism
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drugging
  • Pregnancy & childbirth, off-page
  • Yellow Fever epidemic, off-page
  • Murder, off-page
  • Lynching mentioned
  • Imprisonment recounted
  • Blackmail

Mirror Girls by Kelly McWilliams

Mirror Girls by Kelly McWilliams

As infants, twin sisters Charlie Yates and Magnolia Heathwood were secretly separated after the brutal lynching of their parents, who died for loving across the color line. Now, at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, Charlie is a young Black organizer in Harlem, while white-passing Magnolia is the heiress to a cotton plantation in rural Georgia. Magnolia knows nothing of her racial heritage, but secrets are hard to keep in a town haunted by the ghosts of its slave-holding past. When Magnolia finally learns the truth, her reflection mysteriously disappears from… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Grap

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Klu Klux Klan
  • Hate crimes mentioned
  • Child abuse
  • Forced institutionalisation mentioned
  • Starvation
  • Police violence mentioned
  • Lynching, off-page
  • Mass drowning mentioned
  • Animal sacrifice (snake)

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

Esther is a stowaway. She’s hidden herself away in the Librarian’s book wagon in an attempt to escape the marriage her father has arranged for her—a marriage to the man who was previously engaged to her best friend. Her best friend who she was in love with. Her best friend who was just executed for possession of resistance propaganda. The future American Southwest is full of bandits, fascists, and queer librarian spies on horseback trying to do the right thing.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Queermisia & internalised queermisia
  • Misogyny
  • Attempted forced arranged marriage
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend recounted
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Hanging recounted, off-page

The Spite House by Johnny Compton

The Spite House by Johnny Compton

Eric Ross is on the run from a mysterious past with his two daughters in tow. Having left his wife, his house, his whole life behind in Maryland, he’s desperate for money–it’s not easy to find safe work when you can’t provide references, you can’t stay in one place for long, and you’re paranoid that your past is creeping back up on you. When he comes across the strange ad for the Masson House in Degener, Texas, Eric thinks they may have finally caught a lucky break. The Masson property, notorious for being one of the most haunted places in Texas, needs a caretaker of sorts. The… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Child neglect
  • Suicide
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Death of a child
  • Lynching mentioned
  • Drowning
  • Arson

Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz

Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz

Edinburgh, 1817. Hazel Sinnett is a lady who wants to be a surgeon more than she wants to marry. Jack Currer is a resurrection man who’s just trying to survive in a city where it’s too easy to die. When the two of them have a chance encounter outside the Edinburgh Anatomist’s Society, Hazel thinks nothing of it at first. But after she gets kicked out of renowned surgeon Dr Beecham’s lectures for being the wrong gender, she realizes that her new acquaintance might be more helpful than she first thought. Because Hazel has made a deal with Dr Beecham: if she can pass the medical examination on her own, the university will allow her to… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Childbirth
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Body horror
  • Plague
  • Dead bodies
  • Dismemberment
  • Hanging

For Lamb by Lesa Cline-Ransome

For Lamb by Lesa Cline-Ransome

For Lamb follows a family striving to better their lives in the late 1930s Jackson, Mississippi. Lamb’s mother is a hard-working, creative seamstress who cannot reveal she is a lesbian. Lamb’s brother has a brilliant mind and has even earned a college scholarship for a black college up north– if only he could curb his impulsiveness and rebellious nature. Lamb herself is a quiet and studious girl. She is also naive. As she tentatively accepts the friendly overtures of a white girl who loans her a book she loves, she sets off a calamitous series of events that pulls in … Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Lynching