The Night Swim by Megan Goldin

The Night Swim by Megan Goldin

The Night Swim by Megan Goldin book cover

After the first season of her true crime podcast became an overnight sensation, Rachel Krall is now a household name―and the last hope for thousands of people seeking justice. But she’s used to being recognized for her voice, not her face. Which makes it all the more unsettling when she finds a note on her car windshield, addressed to her, begging for help.

The small town of Neapolis is being torn apart by a devastating rape trial. The town’s golden boy has been accused of raping a high school student. Under pressure to make Season Three a success, Rachel throws herself into interviewing and investigating―but someone is following her, and she won’t stop until Rachel finds out what happened to her sister twenty-five years ago.

The past and present start to collide as Rachel uncovers startling connections between the two cases that will change the course of the trial and the lives of everyone involved.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Victim blaming (discussed in-depth)
  • Rape culture (theme)
  • Sexual assault
  • Sexual harassment
  • Paedophilia mentioned
  • Graphic rape & gang rape of a minor discussed
  • Physical child abuse recounted
  • PTSD
  • Panic attacks
  • Night terrors
  • Attempted suicide by drowning mentioned
  • Suicide of a parent by overdose discussed
  • Addiction mentioned
  • Drug & alcohol abuse mentioned
  • Terminal cancer
  • Hospitalisation
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Death of a sister & child (off-page)
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Drowning
  • Hostage situation
  • Stalking
  • Car accident & motorcycle accident recounted
  • Animal injury mentioned (minor)
  • Bullying & hazing
  • Grave desecration
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Find Me Their Bones by Sara Wolf

Find Me Their Bones by Sara Wolf

In order to protect Prince Lucien d’Malvane’s heart, Zera had to betray him. Now, he hates the sight of her. Trapped in Cavanos as a prisoner of the king, she awaits the inevitable moment her witch severs their magical connection and finally ends her life. But fate isn’t ready to give her up just yet.

With freedom coming from the most unlikely of sources, Zera is given a second chance at life as a Heartless. But it comes with a terrible price. As the king mobilizes his army to march against the witches, Zera must tame an elusive and deadly valkerax trapped in the tunnels underneath the city if she wants to regain her humanity.

Winning over a bloodthirsty valkerax? Hard. Winning back her friends before war breaks out? A little harder. But a Heartless winning back Prince Lucien’s heart? The hardest thing she’s ever done.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Classism
  • Persecution for witchcraft (theme)
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Nightmares
  • Self-harm (on-page)
  • Self-sacrifice discussed
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Nonconsensual drugging
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Cannibalism mentioned
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother & father recounted
  • Death of a grandfather mentioned
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Torture
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Poisoning
  • Fire
  • Loss of autonomy (mind control)
  • Imprisonment
  • War themes (central theme)
  • Animal cruelty & torture
  • Animal injury, blood & body parts
  • Animal attack
  • Hunting mentioned
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Moonbreeze by Adrienne Woods

Moonbreeze by Adrienne Woods

The life of a star-studded royal has not been kind to eighteen year-old Elena Watkins. With a Council breathing down her neck and a dragon that refuses to accept her as her rider, she must convince everyone that she is ready to rule Paegeia like her parents before her. But she has made a promise to her father King Albert, that she will not go looking for him and free the people of Etan. Elena has promised to never truly fulfil her destiny.

However, situations out of her control will soon force her to confront herself and the evil that seeks to destroy her. Elena must look inside herself to discover if she can defeat the approaching darkness, be accepted by the people of Paegeia, bring her dragon back to light and fulfill the destiny written in their stars.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Graphic gang rape & rape
  • Nightmares
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Girls with Sharp Sticks by Suzanne Young

The Girls of Innovations Academy are beautiful and well-behaved—it says so on their report cards. Under the watchful gaze of their Guardians, the all-girl boarding school offers an array of studies and activities, from “Growing a Beautiful and Prosperous Garden” to “Art Appreciation” and “Interior Design.” The girls learn to be the best society has to offer. Absent is the difficult math coursework, or the unnecessary sciences or current events. They are obedient young ladies, free from arrogance or defiance. Until Mena starts to realize that their carefully controlled existence… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny, slut-shaming & victim blaming
  • Emotional abuse & gaslighting
  • Rape culture (theme), including sexual harassment, sexual assault (on- & off-page) and rape of a minor, implied
  • PTSD, trauma, nightmares & flashbacks
  • Dieting & food-shaming
  • Alcohol consumption & drugging
  • Infertility mentioned
  • Blood & injury depiction including body horror, dead bodies, consensual & non-consensual medical treatment, graphic use of needles, and human medical experimentation
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Graphic torture
  • Knife violence
  • Strangulation
  • Physical assault
  • Loss of autonomy (memory & mind manipulation)
  • Disappearance of a friend

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black book cover

Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences. As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Body shaming
  • Slut-shaming
  • Slavery
  • Physical & psychological child abuse
  • Cheating
  • Disownment
  • Nightmares mentioned
  • Suicide, on-page
  • Coerced self-harm
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Drug use & drugging
  • Self-harm (mithridatism)
  • Death of a pregnant character mentioned*
  • Blood and gore depiction, including dead bodies & emesis
  • Graphic physical injuries
  • Decapitation & dismemberment mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of mother and father, on-page
  • Death of friend
  • Death of a sister & brother
  • Death by a fall mentioned
  • Drowning
  • Murder and attempted murder
  • Knife and sword violence & stabbing
  • Strangulation
  • Torture
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Loss of autonomy (glamour magic)
  • War themes discussed
  • Bullying

*Context: The father of an unborn child poisons his pregnant consort in an attempt to murder her and the unborn child.

Halt’s Peril by John Flanagan

Halt’s Peril by John Flanagan

Halt's Peril by John Flanagan book cover

The renegade outlaw group known as the Outsiders has journeyed from kingdom to kingdom, conning the innocent out of their few valuables. Will and Halt, his mentor, are ambushed by the cult’s deadly assassins when Halt is pierced by a poisoned arrow. Now Will must travel day and night in search of the one person with the power to cure Halt: Malkallam the Sorcerer.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood and gore depiction
  • Captivity
  • Cave collapse
  • Cult
  • Dead bodies and body parts
  • Grief and loss depiction
  • Knife violence
  • Medical treatment/procedures and physical injuries
  • Murder and attempted murder
  • Nightmares and night terrors
  • Phobias
  • Animal death
  • Poverty themes
  • Stalking
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The Golden Tower by Cassandra Clare & Holly Black

The Golden Tower by Cassandra Clare & Holly Black

A generation ago, powerful mage Constantine Madden came close to achieving what no magician had ever achieved: the ability to bring back the dead. He didn’t succeed . . . but he did find a way to keep himself alive, inside a young child named Callum Hunt.

Facing up to what he is, Callum has battled chaos and evil across four years of magical training at the Magisterium, eventually defeating the armies of chaos in an epic battle.

It came at a cost.

Now, triumphant and heartbroken, Callum Hunt has just about had enough, and is ready to complete his training. But the evil Callum faced has not given up just yet…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism, internalised ableism & ableist language
  • Nightmares
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend discussed
  • Death of a mother, wife and son recounted
  • Murder & mass murder
  • Kidnapping recounted & hostage situation
  • Imprisonment recounted
  • Fire
  • War themes & battle scenes
  • Bullying
  • Animal attack
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The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.

By her brother’s graveside, Liesel’s life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger’s Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor’s wife’s library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel’s foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel’s world is both opened up, and closed down.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism, including blackface, and antiziganism (g slur)
  • Anti-semitism and Nazism (theme)
  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Parental abandonment & verbal abuse
  • PTSD & nightmares
  • Recreational drug use (smoking)
  • Emesis
  • Starvation
  • Gore depiction (dead bodies)
  • Death of a brother
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a father & uncle mentioned
  • Murder
  • Explosions, including air raids, and fire
  • Death by exposure to the cold
  • War themes* and battle scenes
  • Poverty themes
  • Bullying

*Set during WWII and discussed the Holocaust.

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The Project by Courtney Summers

The Project by Courtney Summers

The Project by Courtney Summers book cover

Lo Denham is used to being on her own. After her parents died, Lo’s sister, Bea, joined The Unity Project, leaving Lo in the care of their great aunt. Thanks to its extensive charitable work and community outreach, The Unity Project has won the hearts and minds of most in the Upstate New York region, but Lo knows there’s more to the group than meets the eye. She’s spent the last six years of her life trying—and failing—to prove it. When a man shows up at the magazine Lo works for claiming The Unity Project killed his son, Lo sees the perfect opportunity to expose the group and… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Abandonment
  • Disfigurmisia
  • Child abuse & neglect recounted, including emotional abuse & gaslighting
  • Infidelity
  • Trauma, panic attacks, nightmares & mentions of hallucinations
  • Suicide by train (on-page) & mentions of suicidal ideation
  • Pregnancy & pregnancy complications (on-page), including traumatic premature childbirth (on-page)
  • Blood & injury depiction, including graphic burns, hospitalisation, comas, broken bones, and facial scars
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother & father in a car accident (off-page)
  • Death of a mother in a fire mentioned
  • Death of a guardian mentioned
  • Death of a sister by drowning (off-page)
  • Death of a son discussed
  • Murder
  • Torture (on-page)
  • Disappearance of a sibling
  • Car accident (on- & off-page)
  • Blackmail mentioned and mentions of stalking & harassment
  • Cults (theme)
  • Homelessness mentioned

The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh

The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh

In 1872, New Orleans is a city ruled by the dead. But to seventeen-year-old Celine Rousseau, New Orleans provides her a refuge after she’s forced to flee her life as a dressmaker in Paris. Taken in by the sisters of the Ursuline convent along with six other girls, Celine quickly becomes enamored with the vibrant city from the music to the food to the soirées and—especially—to the danger. She soon becomes embroiled in the city’s glitzy underworld, known as La Cour des Lions, after catching the eye of the group’s leader, the enigmatic Sébastien Saint Germain. When the body of one of the girls from the convent is found in the lair of La Cour des Lions, Celine battles her attraction to him and suspicions about Sébastien’s guilt along with the shame of her own horrible secret… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Sex worker slurs
  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Colourism
  • Segregation discussed
  • Attempted rape recounted (theme)
  • Nightmares & flashbacks
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Emesis
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a sister recounted
  • Death of a mother & father recounted
  • Murder
  • Torture recounted
  • Gun violence
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