Tag Archives: Murder & Attempted Murder

Phaedra by Laura Shepperson

Phaedra has been cast to the side all her life: daughter of an adulteress, sister of a monster, and now unwilling bride to the much-older, power-hungry Theseus. Young, naïve, and idealistic, she has accepted her lot in life, resigned to existing under the sinister weight of Theseus’s control and the constant watchful eye of her handsome stepson Hippolytus.

When supposedly pious Hippolytus assaults her, Phaedra’s world is darkened in the face of untouchable, prideful power… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Suicide
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Murder

The Extinction Trials by S.M. Wilson

Betrayal. Sacrifice. Survival. Welcome to the Extinction Trials. In Stormchaser and Lincoln’s ruined world, the only way to survive is to risk everything. To face a contest more dangerous than anyone can imagine. And they will do anything to win. But in a land full of monsters – human and reptilian – they can’t afford to trust anyone. Perhaps not even each other…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Animal attack
  • Murder

American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson

It’s 1986, the heart of the Cold War, and Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She’s brilliant, but she’s also a young black woman working in an old boys’ club. Her career has stalled out, she’s overlooked for every high-profile squad, and her days are filled with monotonous paperwork. So when she’s given the opportunity to join a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic, revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention, she says yes. Yes, even though she secretly admires the work Thomas is… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a sibling recounted
  • Murder
  • Home invasion

The ShadowHunter by Opal Reyne

When her younger sister is stolen in the dark of night, Valerie infiltrates the northern kingdom to rescue her. Parading around as a human and hiding her Witch scent, she doesn’t realise she’s stepped onto a Dragon’s hunting ground – or that the Dragon has settled his lustful sights on her. She only wanted to save her sister, but she can’t resist the way he sets her heart on fire. Hiding his Dragon linage, Geryon cares little about the gala thrown to find the king a wife. It’s nothing but a means to an end – a trap. That is until a certain, cold-hearted woman enthrals him as she flits around the palace with her unfeeling grace. As every… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted sexual assault
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping of a child

A Soul to Heal by Opal Reyne

All Delora ever wanted was to disappear. Thrown into the Veil for a crime she committed, Delora was discarded by the world. Although afraid of her oncoming demise, she accepts it as it would be a worldly escape from her problems. She didn’t expect that she would wake up from her deadly fall, nor that the person who saved her would be a Duskwalker. She’s wary about him at first, but Delora begins to realise there’s more to him than just a faceless monster. All he ever wanted was a name. After discovering that humans can be kept as companions, he begins planning for the day he finds his own bride. He still lacks humanity and… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Spousal infidelity
  • Depression
  • Pregnancy & childbirth
  • Murder of a husband and his mistress

A Soul to Keep by Opal Reyne

All Reia ever wanted was freedom. Known as a harbinger of bad omens and blamed for Demons eating her family, Reia is shunned by her entire village. When the next offering is due and the monstrous Duskwalker is seen heading their way, her village offers her an impossible choice – be thrown into the prison cells or allow herself to be sacrificed to a faceless monster. However, he is not what he seems. His skull face and glow eyes are ethereal, and she finds herself unwittingly enchanted by him. All Orpheus ever wanted was a companion. Each decade, in exchange for a protection ward from the Demons that terrorise the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Self-injury for magic
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction
  • Murder
  • Death of a pet dog recounted

This Pact Is Not Ours by Zachary Sergi

The summer before college Luca Piccone returns to Copper Cove, the idyllic campsite he and his closest friends have visited every year since they were kids. To Luca, Copper Cove is like the setting of the fantasy movies he loves, a sanctuary, protected from the dangers of the outside world, where nothing goes wrong and everything stays the same. But this year things are changing. Desperate to make this summer the best one yet, Luca tries to ignore the freshly torn rifts within his tight friend group, the pangs of unrequited love, the anxiety attacks he thought he’d left back at school, and the shadows at the edge of the forest… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Forced outing, recounted & off-page
  • Panic attacks
  • Suicide
  • Murder
  • Fire

Prom Mom by Laura Lippman

Amber Glass has spent her entire adult life putting as much distance as possible between her and her hometown of Baltimore, where she fears she will forever be known as “Prom Mom”–the girl who allegedly killed her baby on the night of the prom after her date, Joe Simpson, abandoned her to pursue the girl he really liked. But when circumstances bring Amber back to the city, she realizes she can have a second chance–as long as she stays away from Joe, now a successful commercial real estate developer, married to a plastic surgeon, Meredith, to whom he is devoted… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • COVID-19 pandemic
  • Murder of a newborn
  • Stalking
  • Blackmail

VenCo by Cherie Dimaline

Lucky St. James, a Métis millennial living with her cantankerous but loving grandmother Stella, is barely hanging on when she discovers she will be evicted from their tiny Toronto apartment. Then, one night, something strange and irresistible calls out to Lucky. Burrowing through a wall, she finds a silver spoon etched with a crooked-nosed witch and the word SALEM, humming with otherworldly energy. Hundreds of miles away in Salem, Myrna Good has been looking for Lucky. Myrna works for VenCo, a front company fueled by vast resources of dark money.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transmisia & deadnaming
  • Coming out scene
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Dementia
  • Parent with alcoholism
  • Smoking
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Murder
  • Home invasion

Things You Won’t Say by Sarah Pekkanen

Every morning, as her husband Mike straps on his SIG Sauer and pulls on his heavy Magnum boots, Jamie Anderson tenses up. Then comes the call she has always dreaded: There’s been a shooting at police headquarters. Mike isn’t hurt, but his long-time partner is grievously injured. As weeks pass and her husband’s insomnia and disconnectedness mount, Jamie realizes he is an invisible casualty of the attack. Then the phone rings again. Another shooting but this time Mike has pulled the trigger. But the shooting does more than just alter Jamie’s world. It’s about to change everything for two other women. Christie Simmons, Mike.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity discussed
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Attempted murder of a police partner by gun violence
  • Police shooting of an unarmed latinx teen in a gang fight