Black Widow by Carol Baxter

Black Widow by Carol Baxter

‘Never before in the hundred year history of Australia has a female prisoner become so notorious as Louisa Collins.’ – Evening News..Two inquests, four trials, three hung juries and the executioner…but was Louisa Collins really a husband killer? Was she the callous adulteress, drunkard and liar known as the Botany Bay Murderess and the Lucrezia Borgia of Botany Bay? Or was this mother of seven a spirited and defiant woman who was punished for breaching society’s expectations of womanly behaviour?..Compelling, freshly told and richly detailed, Black Widow uncovers the truth of a story that challenged the morality, the politics and the notion of law in an Australia on the edge of nationhood…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Graphic emesis
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a spouse
  • Murder
  • Poisoning

Ashes and Flame by Aiden Bates and Jill Haven

Ashes and Flame by Aiden Bates and Jill Haven

After uncovering a threat to dragons everywhere, my mission was simple – find the mage with the evil magic book, and bring him back home to Emberwood Weyr. There we could figure out what he knew… and what we could do about it.

Finding him was easy… but protecting him is hard.

The more I get to know Daniel, the more I realize that he’s another victim in all this – hunted, afraid, and so beaten down he can’t even recognize a helping hand when it’s offered. He tugs at my heartstrings even while his out of control magic threatens to burn the world down around us. Good thing I’m fireproof.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fire
  • Homelessness
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Ashes and Grave by Aiden Bates and Jill Haven

Ashes and Grave by Aiden Bates and Jill Haven

I don’t normally deal with nasty ghosts, but when Nix needs help, I’m the only one qualified. His dragons are under attack, and it’s up to me to stop it. But Nix isn’t making it easy. He seems determined to hate me because I’m a necromancer, and he wants nothing to do with the attraction smoldering between us.

This specter isn’t a random haunting, and its connected to both Nix and me. We’re going to have to work together to defeat it, but if Nix finds out how I’m connected, any trust I’ve built with him will go up in smoke.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Patricide
  • Torture mentioned
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)
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Titanic 2020 by Colin Bateman

Titanic 2020 by Colin Bateman

‘Lucky’ Jimmy Armstrong stows away on the first voyage of the ‘new’ Titanic – and sails straight into the end of the world. As a plague destroys civilization Jimmy and his friend Claire, the daughter of the ship’s owner, record the downfall of civilization through the on-board newspaper, The Titanic Times and find themselves up to their necks in danger from mutineers and flesh eating dogs.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia
  • Pandemic
  • Murder
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To Stand in the Light by Kayla Bashe

To Stand in the Light by Kayla Bashe

Answering a distress call in the farthest reaches of the galaxy, teenage half-demon Shadow finds a scene of carnage where their superheroine foster parents once lived. Only one thing holds them back from seeking death: the unexpected discovery of a small, scruffy girl. Bean, an acid-green-haired high school dropout, is feral and whimsical by turns. As they travel home, she slowly grows to trust Shadow, and wriggles into their closed-off heart.

Dangerous secrets and painful memories drive Shadow away from New York again and again, but their friendship with Bean only grows. When they return home, though, it’s to a grown-up Bean who finds herself falling for her former mentor — and tumbling headlong into much bigger trouble than anyone suspects…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Parental abandonment
  • Child abuse
  • Forced starvation
  • Self harm
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping
  • Homelessness
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Ruby on the Outside by Nora Raleigh Baskin

Ruby on the Outside by Nora Raleigh Baskin

Ruby’s mom is in prison, and to tell anyone the truth is to risk true friendship in this novel that accurately and sensitively addresses a subject too often overlooked.

Eleven-year-old Ruby Danes is about to start middle school, and only her aunt knows her deepest, darkest, most secret secret: her mother is in prison.

Then Margalit Tipps moves into Ruby’s condo complex, and the two immediately hit it off. Ruby thinks she’s found her first true-blue friend—but can she tell Margalit the truth about her mom? Maybe not. Because it turns out that Margalit’s family history seems closely connected to the very event that put her mother in prison, and if Ruby comes clean, she could lose everything she cares about most. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Incarceration of a parent
  • Murder from gun violence
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Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

There was and there was not, as all stories begin, a princess cursed to be poisonous to the touch. But for Soraya, who has lived her life hidden away, apart from her family, safe only in her gardens, it’s not just a story.

As the day of her twin brother’s wedding approaches, Soraya must decide if she’s willing to step outside of the shadows for the first time. Below in the dungeon is a demon who holds knowledge that she craves, the answer to her freedom. And above is a young man who isn’t afraid of her, whose eyes linger not with fear, but with an understanding of who she is beneath the poison.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Drugging
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Death of a father mentioned
  • Murder
  • Torture mentioned
  • Poisoning
  • Kidnapping
  • Imprisonment
  • War themes
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The Good Girls by Claire Eliza Bartlett

The Good Girls by Claire Eliza Bartlett

The troublemaker. The overachiever. The cheer captain. The dead girl. Like every high school in America, Jefferson-Lorne High contains all of the above.

After the shocking murder of senior Emma Baines, three of her classmates are at the top of the suspect list: Claude, the notorious partier; Avery, the head cheerleader; and Gwen, the would-be valedictorian.

Everyone has a label, whether they like it or not–and Emma was always known as a good girl. But appearances are never what they seem. And the truth behind what really happened to Emma may just be lying in plain sight. As long-buried secrets come to light, the clock is ticking to find Emma’s killer–before another good girl goes down.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Attempted coerced marriage
  • Staged suicide
  • Emesis
  • Murder mentioned
  • Poisoning
  • Drowning
  • War themes
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The Winter Duke by Claire Eliza Bartlett

The Winter Duke by Claire Eliza Bartlett

When Ekata’s brother is finally named heir, there will be nothing to keep her at home in Kylma Above with her murderous family. Not her books or science experiments, not her family’s icy castle atop a frozen lake, not even the tantalizingly close Kylma Below, a mesmerizing underwater kingdom that provides her family with magic. But just as escape is within reach, her parents and twelve siblings fall under a strange sleeping sickness.

In the space of a single night, Ekata inherits the title of duke, her brother’s warrior bride, and ever-encroaching challengers from without—and within—her own ministry. Nothing has prepared Ekata for diplomacy, for war, for love…or for a crown she has never wanted.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Attempted coerced marriage
  • Staged suicide
  • Emesis
  • Murder mentioned
  • Poisoning
  • Drowning
  • War themes
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Awaken the Dragon by AC Arthur

Awaken the Dragon by A.C. Arthur

Next in line for the Drakon throne, Theo Masters is the most powerful half human, half dragon in the world. Royal power is the last thing he wants, however. He lives as a human and runs the Legion Security Company. But his new client—a mysterious, beautiful human from a small African village—and the unknown danger she faces may forever change the quiet life that he’s chosen.

Shola N’Gara exists to kill the dark spirit that is attempting to demolish her people. It’s her purpose and her destiny. The gorgeous protector who taunts her with his sexy voice and body is not—especially after he shifts into a magnificent black dragon with turquoise eyes… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Kidnapping
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