A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab

A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab

Kell is one of the last Antari—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black. Kell was raised in Arnes—Red London—and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, travelling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see. Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they’ll never see. It’s a defiant hobby with dangerous consequen… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slavery
  • Attempted rape
  • Self-harm for magic
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Torture
  • Knife violence
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The Revenant by Michael Punke

The Revenant by Michael Punke

The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge by Michael Punke

Rocky Mountains, 1823. The trappers of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company live a brutal frontier life. Hugh Glass is one of the most respected men in the company, an experienced frontiersman and an expert tracker.But when a scouting mission puts Glass face-to-face with a grizzly bear, he is viciously mauled and not expected to survive. Two men from the company are ordered to remain with him until his inevitable death. But, fearing an imminent attack, they abandon Glass, stripping him of his prized rifle and hatchet.

As Glass watches the men flee, he is driven to survive by one all-consuming desire: revenge. With shocking grit and determination, he sets out on a three-thousand-mile journey across the harsh American frontier, to seek revenge on the men who betrayed him.

The Revenant is a remarkable tale of obsession and the lengths that one man will go to for retribution.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny and sexism
  • Racism and racial slurs
  • Sex worker shaming and slurs
  • Abuse, neglect and abandonment
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood and gore depiction
  • Body horror
  • Dead bodies and body parts
  • Decapitation
  • Physical injury and wounds
  • Medical treatment, including surgery
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder
  • Knife violence
  • Gun violence
  • Scars
  • Imprisonment and captivity
  • Starvation and dehydration depiction
  • Blizzard
  • Animal death
  • Hunting
  • Colonialism themes
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The Traitor’s Ruin by Erin Beaty

The Traitor’s Ruin by Erin Beaty

After proving her worth in book one as a deft spy and strategic matchmaker, Sage Fowler is now comfortably positioned in high society as the royal tutor. When she’s called upon to teach his majesty’s soldiers how to read and write, she jumps at the chance to serve her kingdom of Demora—and to be reunited with her fiancé, Captain Alex Quinn.

During a skirmish, Sage and Alex are separated. She watches him die before he can deliver important military intel—or so she thinks. She escapes from the enemy and makes an unlikely alliance with a mysterious soldier from a third nation. As Sage tries to rally their support against a common foe, the important political alliance is plagued by secrets and betrayal.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Torture
  • Knife violence
  • Fire
  • Quicksand

The Traitor’s Kiss by Erin Beaty

The Traitor’s Kiss by Erin Beaty

With a sharp tongue and an unruly temper, Sage Fowler is not what they’d call a lady―which is perfectly fine with her. Deemed unfit for marriage, Sage is apprenticed to a matchmaker and tasked with wrangling other young ladies to be married off for political alliances. She spies on the girls―and on the soldiers escorting them.

As the girls’ military escort senses a political uprising, Sage is recruited by a handsome soldier to infiltrate the enemy ranks. The more she discovers as a spy, the less certain she becomes about whom to trust―and Sage becomes caught in a dangerous balancing act that will determine the fate of her kingdom.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexual assault, including nonconsensual kiss and unwanted touching
  • Domestic abuse mentioned
  • Suicide
  • Miscarriage mentioned
  • Torture mentioned
  • Poisoning
  • Knife violence

Devil’s Lair by Sarah Barrie

Devil’s Lair by Sarah Barrie

After the violent death of her husband, Callie Jones retreats to a cottage in the grounds of an old mansion in Tasmania. The relative remoteness of the place and the wild beauty of the Tasmanian landscape are a balm to her shattered nerves and the locals seem friendly, particularly horseman Connor Atherton and his siblings at the nearby property, Calico Lodge.

But all is not well: the old mansion has a sinister past, one associated with witchcraft and murder. As Callie is threatened by odd events in the night and strange dreams overtake her sleep, she begins to doubt her own sanity. What’s really going on beneath the surface of this apparently peaceful town? Are her friends and neighbours really who they seem? As events escalate, Callie starts to realise that the mansion may hold the key to unlocking the mystery, but the truth might have as much power to destroy as it does to save.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Blood depiction
  • Death of a spouse
  • Death of a child recounted
  • Murder
  • Stabbing
  • Drowning mentioned
  • Stalking
  • Graphic animal death
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Bad Blood by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Bad Blood by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

When Cassie Hobbes joined the FBI’s Naturals program, she had one goal: uncover the truth about her mother’s murder. But now, everything Cassie thought she knew about what happened that night has been called into question. Her mother is alive, and the people holding her captive are more powerful—and dangerous—than anything the Naturals have faced so far. As Cassie and the team work to uncover the secrets of a group that has been killing in secret for generations, they find themselves racing a ticking clock.

The bodies begin piling up, the deaths hit closer and closer to home, and it soon becomes apparent that this time, the Naturals aren’t just hunting serial killers.

They’re being hunted themselves.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Parental abuse
  • Murder
  • Knife violence & stabbing
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Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic by Armand Baltazar

Timeless: Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic by Armand Baltazar

The world did not end. At least not permanently. The Time Collision came from beyond the stars, a cosmic event that fractured time and space, tearing apart the earth and reshaping it into something entirely new. This is the world Diego Ribera was born into. The past, present, and future coexisting together. Timeless.

In New Chicago, Diego’s middle school hallways buzz with kids from all eras of history and from cultures all over the world. The pieces do not always fit together neatly, but this is the world he loves. There are those, however, who do not share his affection… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Smoking mentioned
  • Murder of a brother mentioned
  • Sword violence
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Near-drowning incident
  • War themes & battle scenes
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Kent State by Derf Backderf

Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio by Derf Backderf

On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard gunned down unarmed college students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University. In a deadly barrage of 67 shots, 4 students were killed and 9 shot and wounded. It was the day America turned guns on its own children—a shocking event burned into our national memory.

A few days prior, 10-year-old Derf Backderf saw those same Guardsmen patrolling his nearby hometown, sent in by the governor to crush a trucker strike. Using the journalism skills he employed on My FriendD ahmer and Trashed, Backderf has conducted extensive interviews and research to explore the lives of these four young people and the events of those four days in May, when the country seemed on the brink of tearing apart.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Gun violence, including the shooting of unarmed protestors
  • Arson
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The Tangled Lands by Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias S. Buckell

The Tangled Lands by Paolo Bacigalupi & Tobias S. Buckell

Khaim, The Blue City, is the last remaining city in a crumbled empire that overly relied upon magic until it became toxic. It is run by a tyrant known as The Jolly Mayor and his devious right hand, the last archmage in the world. Together they try to collect all the magic for themselves so they can control the citizens of the city. But when their decadence reaches new heights and begins to destroy the environment, the people stage an uprising to stop them.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexual assault
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Torture
  • Vivisepulture (being buried alive)
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A Drop of Night by Stefan Bachmann

A Drop of Night by Stefan Bachmann

Seventeen-year-old Anouk has finally caught the break she’s been looking for—she’s been selected out of hundreds of other candidates to fly to France and help with the excavation of a vast, underground palace buried a hundred feet below the suburbs of Paris. Built in the 1780’s to hide an aristocratic family and a mad duke during the French Revolution, the palace has lain hidden and forgotten ever since. Anouk, along with several other gifted teenagers, will be the first to set foot in it in over two centuries. Or so she thought.

But nothing is as it seems, and the teens soon find themselves embroiled in a game far more sinister, and dangerous, than they could possibly have imagined. An evil spanning centuries is waiting for them in the depths.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Classism
  • Emotional child abuse
  • Parental abandonment
  • Hallucinations & delusions mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Nonconsensual drugging
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Physical injury
  • Dead bodies
  • Human experimentation
  • Needles
  • Hospital
  • Decapitation
  • Emesis
  • Death of a mother
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a wife
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Gun violence
  • Stabbing
  • Explosions
  • Physical assault
  • Torture & sensory deprivation
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Car accident
  • Plane crash mentioned
  • Bullying
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