Chaos Reigning by Jessie Mihalik

As the youngest member of her High House, Catarina von Hasenberg is used to being underestimated, but her youth and flighty, bubbly personality mask a clever mind and stubborn determination. Her enemies, blind to her true strength, do not suspect that Cat is a spy—which makes her the perfect candidate to go undercover at a rival House’s summer retreat to gather intelligence on their recent treachery. Cat’s overprotective older sister reluctantly agrees, but on one condition: Cat cannot go alone. Alexander Sterling, a quiet, gorgeous bodyguard, will accompany her, posing as her lover. After Cat tries, and… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Physical & emotional parental abuse
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Non-consensual medical experimentation recounted
  • Minor physical injury including maiming by cutting out tongue
  • Death of parents in a bombing
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Imprisonment
  • Near-fatal motorcycle accident
  • Torture (secondary character)
  • War themes & attempted coup

Context : The protagonist’s father manipulated her genes as a child; her brother-in-law experimented on her sister without consent and tortured her.

Polaris Rising by Jessie Mihalik

In the far distant future, the universe is officially ruled by the Royal Consortium, but the High Councillors, the heads of the three High Houses, wield the true power. As the fifth of six children, Ada von Hasenberg has no authority; her only value to her High House is as a pawn in a political marriage. When her father arranges for her to wed a noble from House Rockhurst, a man she neither wants nor loves, Ada seizes control of her own destiny. The spirited princess flees before the betrothal ceremony and disappears among the stars. Ada eluded her father’s forces for two years, but now… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual harassment
  • Exile & familial disownment
  • Intimate partner violence
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Dieting & mentions of a secondary character’s stress-related weight loss
  • Physical illness & injury including knife wounds, broken bones & hypothermia
  • Murder & physical assault
  • Torture (off-page)
  • Kidnapping & imprisonment

Hideaway by Penelope Douglas

Buried in the shadows of the city, there’s a hotel called The Pope. Ailing, empty, and dark, it sits abandoned and surrounded by a forgotten mystery. But you think it’s true, don’t you, Kai Mori? The story about the hidden twelfth floor. The mystery of the dark guest who never checked in and never checks out. You think I can help you find that secret hideaway and get to him, don’t you? You and your friends can try to scare me. You can try to push me. Because even though I struggle to hide everything I feel when you look at me–and have ever since I was a girl–I think maybe what you seek is so much closer than you’ll ever realize… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism & slut-shaming
  • Attempted rape, sexual assault & sexual harassment (protagonist)
  • Physical & emotional child and sibling abuse (protagonist)
  • Incestuous child sexual abuse recounted
  • Parental infidelity mentioned
  • Forced marriage
  • Familial estrangement & disownment
  • Alcohol consumption & smoking (cigars, cigerattes)
  • Emesis
  • Alcoholism & substance addiction (secondary character)
  • Murder recounted
  • Arson & burn scars from child abuse
  • Physical assault recounted
  • Animal abuse (dog)

Context : The protagonist’s father orders her bodyguard to assault her but she is able to get away; her cousin also hired someone to grope her at a party. A secondary character also kissed and assault her while she was asleep. The protagonist was hidden in a closet with headphones while her half-brother’s mother abused him; later, he beats her. The protagonist’s father burned her with cigarettes.

An Honest Lie by Tarryn Fisher

Lorraine—“Rainy”—lives at the top of Tiger Mountain. Remote, moody, cloistered in pine trees and fog, it’s a sanctuary, a new life. She can hide from the disturbing past she wants to forget. If she’s allowed to. When Rainy reluctantly agrees to a girls’ weekend in Vegas, she’s prepared for an exhausting parade of shots and slot machines. But after a wild night, her friend Braithe doesn’t come back to the hotel room. And then Rainy gets the text message, sent from Braithe’s phone: someone has her. But Rainy is who they really want, and Rainy knows why.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child-trafficking
  • Sexual assault & sexual assault of a minor
  • Infidelity
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Drugging
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping
  • Cult

Undercover by Tamsyn Muir

A fresh-faced newcomer arrives in an isolated, gang-run town and soon finds herself taking a job nobody else wants: bodyguard to a ghoul. Not just your average mindless, half-rotted shuffler, though. Lucille is a dancer who can still put on her own lipstick and whose shows are half burlesque, half gladiator match. But the stranger is no stranger to this particular ghoul. Both women are undercover in their own way. And both have something to lose if their connection comes to light

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Blood & gore depiction including body horror and cannibalism
  • Murder
  • Animal death

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Her city is under siege. The zombies are coming back. And all Nona wants is a birthday party. In many ways, Nona is like other people. She lives with her family, has a job at her local school, and loves walks on the beach and meeting new dogs. But Nona’s not like other people. Six months ago she woke up in a stranger’s body, and she’s afraid she might have to give it back. The whole city is falling to pieces. A monstrous blue sphere hangs on the horizon, ready to tear the planet apart. Blood of Eden forces have surrounded the last Cohort facility and wait for the…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Suicidal ideation & suicide (secondary character)
  • Protagonist with pica & food sensory issues
  • Panic attack
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction including body horror, cancer, jellyfish sting, needles and dead bodies
  • Eugenics recounted
  • Murder by stabbing & shooting
  • Immolation (secondary characters)
  • Physical assault
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)
  • Nuclear bombs
  • Alcohol consumption & smoking (cigarettes)

Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith

In 1986, the teenage daughter of a wealthy family gets lost in an abandoned rubber plantation while fleeing her angry father and is forever changed by the experience. In 2009, pressed into a dangerous scheme by a former lover, a woman captures a rare two-headed cobra. And in 2011, a young, unhappy American living in Saigon with her sort-of boyfriend disappears without a trace. Over the course of the novel, the fates of these three women will lock together in an exhilarating series of nested narratives. Along the way, we meet a young boy sent to a boarding school in the mountains for the métis children of French expatriates just… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape & sexual assault
  • Incest
  • Attempted necrophilia
  • Eating disorder
  • Suicide
  • Drug use & abuse
  • Body horror
  • Murder
  • Animal death & cruelty

Christmas Is All Around by Martha Waters

Charlotte hates the holidays. As a former child actress, she starred in a modern classic of a holiday movie, and its fans won’t let her move on. When a piece revealing that her reluctance nixed plans for a reboot, she flees to London to spend the five-week countdown to the holidays with her sister. But the ghosts of Christmas past follow her there when she ends up at Eden Priory, a filming location for the movie she has never visited. There, after being recognized by a fan while viewing the extraordinary holiday decorations, she’s accidently left behind, forcing her to accept a ride back to London by Graham, the son of the owners. Their… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental infidelity mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis
  • Death of a father from cancer mentioned

The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter

Meet Maggie Chase and Ethan Wyatt: She’s the new Queen of the Cozy Mystery. He’s Mr. Big-Time Thriller Guy. She hates his guts. He thinks her name is Marcie (no matter how many times she’s told him otherwise.) But when they both accept a cryptic invitation to attend a Christmas house party at the English estate of a reclusive fan, neither is expecting their host to be the most powerful author in the world: Eleanor Ashley, the Duchess of Death herself. That night, the weather turns, and the next morning Eleanor is gone. She vanished from a locked room, and Maggie has… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Anxiety & anxiety attacks
  • Infidelity recounted (protagonist’s ex-partner cheated with her best friend)
  • Emotional intimate partner abuse & gaslighting recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of parents in a car accident recounted
  • Attempted murder by an intimate partner by beating (secondary character)
  • Near-death experience from falling off a cliff & long-term recovery from a serious shoulder injury recounted (protagonist
  • Poisoning
  • Arson
  • Kidnapping

The Lotus Empire by Tasha Suri

Malini has claimed her rightful throne as the empress of Parijatdvipa, just as the nameless gods prophesied. Now, in order to gain the support of the priesthood who remain loyal to the fallen emperor, she must consider a terrible Claim her throne and burn in order to seal her legacy—or find another willing to take her place on the pyre. Priya has survived the deathless waters and now their magic runs in her veins. But a mysterious yaksa with flowering eyes and a mouth of thorns lies beneath the waters. The yaksa promises protection for Ahiranya. But in exchange, she needs a sacrifice. And she’s chosen Priya as the one to offer it… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny & sexism
  • Intimate partner violence
  • Forced parent-child separation mentioned
  • Alcoholism
  • Suicidal ideation & self-sacrifice
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use (pipe & hookah smoking)
  • Blood & injury depiction including burns, broken bones, chronic pain, illness (which causes plants to grow through skin) and emesis
  • Death of a brother recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Fire
  • Drowning
  • Imprisonment
  • War themes & battle scenes
  • Animal death