The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

No one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden. In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That’s why they’re banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive. Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Queermisia
  • Transmisia
  • Outing
  • Slut shaming
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Statutory rape mentioned
  • Sexual assault, on-page
  • Sexual harassment
  • Forced sex work mentioned
  • Forced adult-minor marriage
  • Hallucinations & delusions
  • Suicide by drowning, on-page
  • Childbirth & death from childbirth
  • Pregnancy & teenage pregnancy
  • Infertility mentioned
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Dead bodies
  • Scalping & skinning, off-page
  • Mutilation & dismemberment mentioned
  • Cannibalism mentioned
  • Starvation
  • Nonconsensual branding
  • Scars
  • Death of a wife
  • Knife & axe violence
  • Whipping recounted
  • Lynching, on-page
  • Animal attack
  • Animal death, on-page
  • Animal cruelty mentioned
  • Bullying
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The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr

The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr.

Isaiah was Samuel’s and Samuel was Isaiah’s. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man—a fellow slave—seeks to gain favor by preaching the master’s gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel’s love, which was once… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Human trafficking
  • Rape
  • Death of an infant
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Lynching
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And We Rise by Erica Martin

And We Rise by Erica Martin

In stunning verse and vivid use of white space, Erica Martin’s debut poetry collection walks readers through the Civil Rights Movement—from the well-documented events that shaped the nation’s treatment of Black people, beginning with the “Separate but Equal” ruling—and introduces lesser-known figures and moments that were just as crucial to the Movement and our nation’s centuries-long fight for justice and equality.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Slavery mentioned
  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Lynching
  • Police brutality
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This Is My America by Kim Johnson

This Is My America by Kim Johnson

Every week, seventeen-year-old Tracy Beaumont writes letters to Innocence X, asking the organization to help her father, an innocent Black man on death row. After seven years, Tracy is running out of time—her dad has only 267 days left. Then the unthinkable happens. The police arrive in the night, and Tracy’s older brother, Jamal, goes from being a bright, promising track star to a “thug” on the run, accused of killing a white girl. Determined to save her brother, Tracy investigates what really happened between Jamal and Angela down at the Pike. But will Tracy and her family survive… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial profiling
  • Ku Klux Klan & white supremacy
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Police brutality & violence
  • Lynching mentioned
  • Incarceration of a parent
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Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham

When seventeen-year-old Rowan Chase finds a skeleton on her family’s property, she has no idea that investigating the brutal century-old murder will lead to a summer of painful discoveries about the past, the present, and herself. One hundred years earlier, a single violent encounter propels seventeen-year-old Will Tillman into a racial firestorm. In a country rife with violence against blacks and a hometown segregated by Jim Crow, Will must make hard choices on a painful journey towards self-discovery and face his inner demons in order to do what’s right the night Tulsa burns.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Hate crime
  • Blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Murder
  • Lynching
  • Car accident
  • Riots

Into the Bright Unknown by Rae Carson

Into the Bright Unknown by Rae Carson

Leah Westfall’s journey has been one of ever-present peril, hidden magic, harsh realities, loss, life, determination, and love. She has searched for a place to belong and a place to call home, and people who can accept a girl with magical powers that prove to be both blessing and curse. Leah is poised to have everything she ever dreamed of on the long, dangerous journey to California’s gold fields—wealth, love, the truest friends, and a home. Thanks to her magical ability to sense precious gold, Leah, her fiancé Jefferson, and her friends have claimed rich land in… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Smoking
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Death of parents recounted
  • Attempted murder
  • Gun violence
  • Hanging
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping
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Redwood and Wildfire by Andrea Hairston

Redwood and Wildfire by Andrea Hairston

At the turn of the 20th century, minstrel shows transform into vaudeville, which slides into moving pictures. Hunkering together in dark theatres, diverse audiences marvel at flickering images. Redwood, an African American woman, and Aidan, a Seminole Irish man, journey from Georgia to Chicago, from haunted swampland to a “city of the future.” They are gifted performers and hoodoo conjurors, struggling to call up the wondrous world they imagine, not just on stage and screen, but on city streets, in front parlours, in wounded hearts. The power of hoodoo is the power… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Lynching
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Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender

Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender

Sigourney Rose is the only surviving daughter of a noble lineage on the islands of Hans Lollik. When she was a child, her family was murdered by the islands’ colonizers, who have massacred and enslaved generations of her people—and now, Sigourney is ready to exact her revenge. When the childless king of the islands declares that he will choose his successor from amongst eligible noble families, Sigourney uses her ability to read and control minds to manipulate her way onto the royal island and into the ranks of… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Slavery
  • Rape mentioned
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Lynching
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Half Wild by Sally Green 

Half Wild by Sally Green

In a modern-day England where two warring factions of witches live amongst humans, seventeen-year-old Nathan is an abomination, the illegitimate son of the world’s most powerful and violent witch. Nathan is hunted from all sides: nowhere is safe and no one can be trusted. Now, Nathan has come into his own unique magical Gift, and he’s on the run–but the Hunters are close behind, and they will stop at nothing until they have captured Nathan and destroyed his father.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Coerced suicide of a mother recounted
  • Death of a mother from hanging mentioned
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Knife violence, including mentions of a knife being used to blind someone
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All the Days Past, All the Days to Come by Mildred Taylor

All the Days Past, All the Days to Come by Mildred D. Taylor

Cassie Logan is a young woman now, searching for her place in the world, a journey that takes her from Toledo to California, to law school in Boston, and, ultimately, in the 60s, home to Mississippi to participate in voter registration. She is witness to the now-historic events of the century: the Great Migration north, the rise of the civil rights movement, preceded and precipitated by the racist society of America, and the often violent confrontations that brought about change.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Rape & attempted rape
  • Sexual harassment
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Lynchings
  • Police brutality
  • Physical assault
  • Immolation
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