Bluebird by Sharon Cameron

Bluebird by Sharon Cameron

In 1946, Eva leaves behind the rubble of Berlin for the streets of New York City, stepping from the fiery aftermath of one war into another, far colder one, where power is more important than principles, and lies are more plentiful than the truth. Eva holds the key to a deadly secret: Project Bluebird — a horrific experiment of the concentration camps, capable of tipping the balance of world power. Both the Americans and the Soviets want Bluebird, and it is something that neither should ever be allowed to possess.

But Eva hasn’t come to America for secrets or power. She hasn’t even come for a new life. She has come to America for one thing: justice. And the Nazi that has escaped its net.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Antisemitism & Nazism
  • Rape, off-page
  • Suicide by cyanide pill
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Smoking
  • Death of children
  • Murder & mass murder
  • Torture
  • Gun & knife violence
  • Concentration camps
  • Human medical experimentation
  • Animal death (bird) recounted
  • Animal cruelty

Dead Girls by Abigail Tarttelin

Dead Girls by Abigail Tarttelin

When her best friend Billie is found murdered, eleven-year-old Thera – fearless and forthright – considers it her duty to find the killer.

Aided by an Ouija board, Billie’s ghost, and the spirits of four other dead girls, she’s determined to succeed. The trouble with Thera, though, is that she doesn’t always know when to stop – and sometimes there’s a fine line between doing the right thing and doing something very, very bad indeed.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slut shaming
  • Paedophilia
  • Child abuse
  • Death of child
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping
  • Bullying

Firefight by Brandon Sanderson

Firefight by Brandon Sanderson

They told David it was impossible – that even the Reckoners had never killed a High Epic. Yet, Steelheart – invincible, immortal, unconquerable – is dead. And he died by David’s hand.

Eliminating Steelheart was supposed to make life more simple. Instead, it only made David realize he has questions. Big ones. And there’s no one in Newcago who can give him the answers he needs.

Babylon Restored, the old borough of Manhattan, has possibilities, though. Ruled by the mysterious High Epic, Regalia, David is sure Babylon Restored will lead him to what he needs to find… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Murder
  • Gun violence

Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson

Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson

It is more than 300 years after the events of the The Final Empire shaped Scadrial. Waxillium Ladrian has returned to the capital city of Elendel from the far-flung roughs. Elendel is crisscrossed by canals and railways and towers reach for the sky but this is still a city of dangers and of magic; Allomancy and Feruchemy can still change the world. Wax faces many more adventures.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Murder

The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson

The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson

In a world recovering only slowly from evil, a world where allomancers wield immense power through their ability to unleash the magic bound up in common metals someone who can burn metals that no one has burned before can tip the balance…

Sanderson has the knack of giving the epic fantasy reader exactly what they want. This ability has thrown him to the forefront of the genre and the dramatic story within The Alloy of Law shows off this skill to its very best.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child abuse & neglect mentioned
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Sword violence
  • Explosions
  • Kidnapping

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics. But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his wills.

Nobody fights the Epics… nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.

And David wants in. He wants Steelheart—the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David’s father. For years, like the Reckoners, David’s been studying, and planning—and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Car accident

Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

Return to a planet swept by apocalyptic storms, a world tipping into war as aristocratic families move to control the shard blades and shard plates, ancient artifacts from a past civilisation that can win wars.

As the world tips into a war for control of the mythical artifacts of power made from Shard, characters are swept up into new dangers which will threaten their integrity and their lives.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Attempted murder
  • Sword violence
  • War themes & battle scenes

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

For a thousand years the ash fell. For a thousand years, the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years, the Lord Ruler reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Every attempted revolt has failed miserably.

Yet somehow hope survives. A new kind of uprising is being planned, one that depends on the cunning of a brilliant criminal mastermind and the courage of an unlikely heroine, a Skaa street urchin, who must learn to master Allomancy, the power of a mistborn.

What if the prophesied hero had failed to defeat the Dark Lord?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slavery
  • Physical & emotional abuse
  • Death of a child
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Graphic murder
  • Torture

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas 

Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to the grim fortress of the Château d’If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and becomes determined not only to escape but to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. A huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s, Dumas was inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment when writing his epic tale of suffering and retribution.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical racial slurs & antiziganism (g slur)
  • Slavery
  • Rape
  • Domestic abuse
  • Alcoholism
  • Miscarriage
  • Death by starvation
  • Cannibalism mentioned
  • Death of a child & attempted infanticide
  • Torture
  • Wrongful imprisonment

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again…

Working as a paid companion to a bitter elderly lady, the timid heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Life is bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she falls in love with Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower whose proposal takes her by surprise. Whisked from Monte Carlo to Manderley, Maxim’s isolated Cornish estate, the friendless young bride begins to realise she barely knows her husband at all. And in every corner of every room is the phantom of his beautiful first wife, Rebecca.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia
  • Racism
  • Incest
  • Infidelity
  • Dementia
  • Alcoholism
  • Suicide
  • Cancer
  • Murder
  • Drowning