The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles

Paris, 1939: Young and ambitious Odile Souchet has it all: her handsome police officer beau and a dream job at the American Library in Paris. When the Nazis march into Paris, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear, including her beloved library. Together with her fellow librarians, Odile joins the Resistance with the best weapons she has: books. But when the war finally ends, instead of freedom, Odile tastes the bitter sting of unspeakable betrayal. Montana, 1983: Lily is a lonely teenager looking for adventure in small-town Montana. Her interest is piqued by her solitary, elderly neighbour. As Lily uncovers more about… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism & Nazism
  • World War II

The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri

Nuri is a beekeeper; his wife, Afra, an artist. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo–until the unthinkable happens. When all they care for is destroyed by war, they are forced to escape. But what Afra has seen is so terrible she has gone blind, and so they must embark on a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece towards an uncertain future in Britain. On the way, Nuri is sustained by the knowledge that waiting for them is Mustafa, his cousin and business partner, who has started an apiary and is teaching fellow refugees in Yorkshire to keep bees. As Nuri and Afra travel through a.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a son in a explosion & loss of vision from injuries sustained during said explosion (protagonist)
  • War themes

The Girl from Snowy River by Jackie French

The year is 1919. Thirty years have passed since the man from Snowy River made his famous ride. But World War I still casts its shadow across a valley in the heart of Australia, particularly for orphaned sixteen-year-old Flinty McAlpine, who lost a brother when the Snowy River men marched away to war. Why has the man Flinty loves returned from the war so changed and distant? Why has her brother Andy ′gone with cattle′, leaving Flinty in charge of their younger brother and sister and with the threat of eviction from the farm she loves so dearly? A brumby muster held… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Attempted rape
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • War World I (aftermath)

Tumbleglass by Kate Constable

Thirteen-year-old Rowan is helping her older sister Ash paint her bedroom when she discovers a mysterious ring that transports them both back in time to 1999. To a party being held in the very same house! .While Ash dances, Rowan unwittingly disrupts the laws of time, and when she wakes up back in the present day, her sister is missing, and – even worse – everyone in their family seems to be forgetting she ever existed. With the help of her magical neighbour Verity, Rowan must find the courage to travel back through the history of the house. But can she find everything she needs to rescue Ash before her sister disappears forever?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Disappearance
  • Military violence & World War II

The Endless War by Danielle L. Jensen

Newly crowned as king, Keris has watched powerless as his forbidden relationship with Zarrah is revealed. But when Zarrah is imprisoned by the Empress, Keris knows there is only one way to save to ally with the kingdom he nearly destroyed. Imprisoned on the dreaded Devil’s Island, Zarrah faces two prove her loyalty to the Empress who condemned her or die a traitor. Yet as she struggles to survive among violent prisoners, Zarrah uncovers a third a rebellion to overthrow tyranny entwined with a destiny she must fight to claim. While the Empress plots war with devastating… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Blood & gore depiction including cannibalism
  • Battle scenes

The Things We Didn’t Know by Elba Iris Pérez

Andrea Rodríguez is nine years old when her mother whisks her and her brother, Pablo, away from Woronoco, the tiny Massachusetts factory town that is the only home they’ve known. With no plan and no money, she leaves them with family in the mountainside villages of Puerto Rico and promises to return. Months later, when Andrea and Pablo are brought back to Massachusetts, they find their hometown significantly changed. As they navigate the rifts between their family’s values and all-American culture and face the harsh realities of growing up, they must embrace both the triumphs and heartache that mark the journey to adulthood.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Racism
  • Cheating
  • Domestic violence & child abuse
  • Parental abandonment
  • Vietnam War
  • Colonisation

So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole

Faron Vincent can channel the power of the gods. Five years ago, she used her divine magic to liberate her island from its enemies, the dragon-riding Langley Empire. But now, at seventeen, Faron is all powered up with no wars to fight. She’s a legend to her people and a nuisance to her neighbors. When she’s forced to attend an international peace summit, Faron expects that she will perform tricks like a trained pet and then go home. She doesn’t expect her older sister, Elara, forming an unprecedented bond with an enemy dragon—or the gods claiming the only way to break that bond is to kill her sister. As Faron’s desperation to find… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Panic attacks
  • War, genocide & colonisation

The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan

Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara’s family is in terrible danger: her fifteen-year-old son, Abel, has disappeared, and her youngest daughter, Jasmin, is confined in a basement to prevent being pressed into service at the comfort stations. Her eldest daughter Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day. Cecily knows two things: that this is all her fault; and that her family must never learn the truth. A decade prior, Cecily has been desperate to be more than a housewife to a low-level bureaucrat in British-colonized Malaya. A… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Colonisation
  • World War Two (theme)

The Ruined by Renée Ahdieh

The Sylvan Vale and the Sylvan Wyld are at war. Now that the unsteady truce between them has been broken, lines must be drawn. In an effort to protect the weakened Winter Court, Bastien rallies powerful allies and friends in New Orleans to come to their aid. Meanwhile, under protection alongside her injured mother in the Summer Court, Celine is uncertain of whom to trust. She cannot get word to Bastien, and does not understand why he has not returned. When she realises war between the fey courts is imminent, she journeys with Ali in an effort to find the time travelling mirror and change their fate… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & neglect mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption (secondary characters)
  • Blood-drinking
  • Attempted murder by poisoned arrow and knives
  • Murder by gun violence
  • Graphic torture
  • Accidental explosion resulting in mass death
  • Graphic battles scenes with cannonballs and gunfire

Heroes by Alan Gratz

December 6, 1941: Best friends Frank and Stanley have it good. Their dads are Navy pilots stationed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and the boys get a front-row view of the huge battleships and the sparkling water. Yes, World War II is raging in Europe and in Asia, but the US isn’t involved in the war, and the boys are free to dream about becoming comic book creators. They’ve even invented a superhero of their own, in the style of Batman, Superman, Captain America, and other stars of the Golden Age of Comics. Maybe they’ll even get their comic published someday. December 7th, 1941: Everything explodes. That morning, Frank and Stanley are aboard the battleship the USS Utah… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racial slurs (anti-Japanese)
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned (secondary characters)
  • Mass hospitalisation for injuries and mentions of dead bodies
  • Naval warfare including ship explosions, shipwrecks, and death from drowning or burning in flaming oil-spills
  • Gun violence
  • Plane crashes & death from explosions upon their impact
  • Attack of Pearl Harbor (theme)
  • Animal attack (dog)