The Housemaid’s Secret by Freida McFadden

Freddie Makin is a spy for hire. For a year he’s been watching Jiang Cheng, an academic whose life seems suspiciously normal. To Freddie it’s just a job: he never asks who’s paying him and why—until the day someone is sent to kill him, and suddenly the watcher becomes the watched. On the run from whoever wants him dead, Freddie knows he must have seen something incriminating. The only trouble is, he has no idea what. Is the CIA behind all this—or does it go higher than that? Have his trackers uncovered his own murky past? As he’s forced into a lethal dance across… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Fatmisia and body-shaming
  • Classism
  • Attempted rape
  • Infidelity (on-page)
  • Discussions of domestic abuse and violence
  • Disordered eating & food thoughts including calorie counting and food shaming
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Infertility mentioned
  • Blood depiction
  • Emesis
  • Death of a mother from a stroke mentioned
  • Murder by gun & knife violence
  • Physical assault
  • Stalking
  • Incarceration for physical assault mentioned
  • Poverty & financial difficulties discussed

Context : The protagonist’s employee has her gigolo pretend to be an abusive, violent husband. This includes physical abuse, attempted strangulation, electronic monitoring, and food deprivation. Mentions of the protagonist working to free previous clients from domestic abuse situations, including murdering the abuser when necessary. Her neighbour attempts to rape her and she pushes him down the stairs. The police do not believe her and victim-blame. Her ex-boyfriend hides illegal drugs in his apartment in revenge, and her neighbour goes to jail for drug possession. The protagonist was in jail for assaulting her friend’s rapist because he died from his injuries. Wendy, the protagonist’s employer, also didn’t tell her real husband that she was could not get pregnant, even though he believed they were trying to have a child.

    Zodiac Starforce, Vol. 1: The Power of Astra by Kevin Panetta

    They’re an elite group of teenage girls with magical powers who have sworn to protect our planet against dark creatures . . . as long as they can get out of class! Known as the Zodiac Starforce, these high-school girls aren’t just combating math tests. They’re also battling monsters–not your typical afterschool activity! But when an evil force from another dimension infects team leader Emma, she must work with her team of magically powered friends to save herself–and the world–from the evil Diana and her mean-girl minions!

    Goodreads

    Trigger and Content Warnings

    • Injury & blood depiction
    • Death of a mother
    • Death of a friend
    • Kidnapping
    • Physical assault
    • Bullying

    Champions of the Fox by Kevin Sands

    Commanded by the magical artefact known as the Dragon’s Eye, junior con artist Callan and his friends are eagerly reaching the end of the epic quest that will finally free him from the Eye’s sinister hold. But their final task is their most ambitious: sneaking into the emperor’s private island prison and rescuing a man from a jail cell that has been locked tight for forty years. This impossible heist will strain the gang’s unique abilities to thieve and deceive everyone from the guards, the city elite, the warden, and even the nefarious local crime boss who warns them to stay away. Commanded by the magical… Read more.

    Goodreads

    Trigger and Content Warnings

    • Alcohol consumption mentioned
    • Mentions of a dead body
    • Physical assault of a minor recounted
    • Minor knife & sword violence
    • Loss of autonomy (magical)

    Mark of the Plague by Kevin Sands

    The Black Death has returned to London, spreading disease and fear through town. A mysterious prophet predicts the city’s ultimate doom—until an unknown apothecary arrives with a cure that actually works. Christopher’s Blackthorn shop is chosen to prepare the remedy. But when an assassin threatens the apothecary’s life, Christopher and his faithful friend Tom are back to hunting down the truth, risking their lives to untangle the heart of a dark conspiracy. And as the sickness strikes close to home, the stakes are higher than ever before…

    Goodreads

    Trigger and Content Warnings

    • Alcohol consumption mentioned
    • Plague (theme)
    • Physical injury & Illness (broken bones, plague)
    • Death of a child mentioned
    • Murder including mentions of a mob lynching
    • Explosion
    • Physical assault of minors & threats of torture
    • Kidnapping & captivity
    • Animal injury (bird)

    The Blackthorn Key by Kevin Sands

    Until he got that cryptic warning, Christopher Rowe was happy, learning how to solve complex codes and puzzles and creating powerful medicines, potions, and weapons as an apprentice to Master Benedict Blackthorn—with maybe an explosion or two along the way. But when a mysterious cult begins to prey on London’s apothecaries, the trail of murders grows closer and closer to Blackthorn’s shop. With time running out, Christopher must use every skill he’s learned to discover the key to a terrible secret with the power to tear the world apart.

    Goodreads

    Trigger and Content Warnings

    • Child abuse & physical assault of a minor
    • Murder & mentions of public executions
    • Torture by acid mentioned (secondary character)
    • Explosions

    One Day by David Nicholls

    15th July 1988: Emma and Dexter meet for the first time on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways. So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that? And every year that follows?

    Goodreads

    Trigger and Content Warnings

    • Drug use & smoking (on-page)
    • Alcohol consumption & abuse (on-page)
    • Alcoholism (protagonist)
    • Minor injury & emesis
    • Car accident
    • Physical assault

    Scarred by Emily McIntire

    Prince Tristan Faasa was never destined for the throne. That was always his brother, Michael. The same brother responsible for both Tristan’s tormented childhood and the scar that mars his face. When their father dies, Michael is set to assume the throne, and Tristan is set to steal it. The leader of a secret rebellion, Tristan will stop at nothing to end his brother’s reign. But when Michael’s new betrothed, Lady Sara Beatreaux arrives, Tristan finds himself in the middle of a new kind of war. The kind that begs the question of what’s more important, the crown or the woman about… Read more.

    Goodreads

    Trigger and Content Warnings

    • Attempted sexual assault & threats of rape
    • Suicide (secondary character)
    • Drug use & cigar smoking mentioned
    • Abortion mentioned
    • Murder of a father & death of a father from hanging for treason
    • Murder & attempted murder
    • Torture
    • Physical assault

    Forestborn by Elayne Audrey Becker

    Rora is a shifter, as magical as all those born in the wilderness–and as feared. She uses her abilities to spy for the king, traveling under different guises and listening for signs of trouble. When a magical illness surfaces across the kingdom, Rora uncovers a devastating truth: Finley, the young prince and her best friend, has caught it, too. His only hope is stardust, the rarest of magical elements, found deep in the wilderness where Rora grew up–and to which she swore never to return. But for her only friend, Rora will face her past and brave the dark, magic… Read more.

    Goodreads

    Trigger and Content Warnings

    • Murder
    • Physical assault

    Keeping 13 by Chloe Walsh

    Following a devastating injury that has left him sidelined and stripped of his beloved number 13 jersey, Johnny Kavanagh is struggling to hold onto his dreams. Lost, insecure, and desperately seeking comfort, he sets his sights on unravelling the mystery of the girl with the midnight-blue eyes, who haunts his every waking hour. Keeping secrets has never been a problem for Shannon Lynch. The life she was born into demands nothing less. She knows that demons and evil men don’t just exist in fairytales. They exist in her world, too. Traumatized beyond repair after her return from Dublin, and desperate to protect her little brothers… Read more.

    Goodreads

    Trigger and Content Warnings

    • Child abuse & neglect by a parent with alcoholism (on-page)
    • Foster care system experiences recounted
    • Anxiety & panic attacks
    • Alcohol consumption
    • Substance addiction (secondary character)
    • Unplanned teen pregnancy & miscarriage mentioned
    • Physical injury & illness and hospitalisation for surgery recounted
    • Murder by arson
    • Attempted murder by knife
    • Drowning
    • Graphic bullying (on-page)

    Binding 13 by Chloe Walsh

    They are from opposites sides of the track – but when their two worlds collide, nothing will ever be the same again. Johnny Kavanagh has everything going for him. On the rugby pitch, he’s a force to be reckoned with. Primed for stardom, he’s heading straight for the top. Nothing can possibly get in his way, right? Not even the shy new girl at Tommen College. The one with the sad eyes and hidden bruises. The one that distracts him like no one ever has. Life has never been easy for Shannon Lynch. Bullied and tortured, she arrives at Tommen College mid-way through the school year.. Read more.

    Goodreads

    Trigger and Content Warnings

    • Child abuse & neglect by a parent with alcoholism (on-page)
    • Foster care system experiences recounted
    • Sexual assault of a minor (side character, off-page)
    • Suicidal ideation
    • Anxiety & panic attacks
    • Alcohol consumption
    • Teen pregnancy & miscarriage mentioned
    • Hospitalisation for surgery
    • Physical injury & illness including cyclic vomiting syndrome (on-page)
    • Physical assault
    • Graphic bullying (on-page)