Heroes by Alan Gratz

December 6, 1941: Best friends Frank and Stanley have it good. Their dads are Navy pilots stationed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and the boys get a front-row view of the huge battleships and the sparkling water. Yes, World War II is raging in Europe and in Asia, but the US isn’t involved in the war, and the boys are free to dream about becoming comic book creators. They’ve even invented a superhero of their own, in the style of Batman, Superman, Captain America, and other stars of the Golden Age of Comics. Maybe they’ll even get their comic published someday. December 7th, 1941: Everything explodes. That morning, Frank and Stanley are aboard the battleship the USS Utah… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racial slurs (anti-Japanese)
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned (secondary characters)
  • Mass hospitalisation for injuries and mentions of dead bodies
  • Naval warfare including ship explosions, shipwrecks, and death from drowning or burning in flaming oil-spills
  • Gun violence
  • Plane crashes & death from explosions upon their impact
  • Attack of Pearl Harbor (theme)
  • Animal attack (dog)

What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher

After kan terrifying ordeal at the Usher manor, Alex Easton feels as if ka just survived another war. All ka crave is rest, routine, and sunshine, but instead, as a favour to Angus and Miss Potter, they find kanself heading to kan family hunting lodge, deep in the cold, damp forests of their home country, Gallacia. In theory, one can find relaxation in even the coldest and dampest of Gallacian autumns, but when Easton arrives, ka find the caretaker dead, the lodge in disarray, and the grounds troubled by a strange, uncanny silence. The villagers whisper that a breath-stealing monster from folklore has taken up residence in Eastonh… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Military-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) including flashbacks, nightmares, and panic attacks
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Physical illness and injury including chronic shoulder injury and pneumonia
  • Depiction of a dead body
  • Graphic body horror (theme)
  • Military enlistment during wartime discussed
  • Animal hunting mentioned

All This Twisted Glory by Tahereh Mafi

As the long-lost heir to the Jinn throne, Alizeh has finally found her people—and she might’ve found her crown. Cyrus, the mercurial ruler of Tulan, has offered her his kingdom in a twisted exchange: one that would begin with their marriage and end with his murder. Cyrus’s dark reputation precedes him; all the world knows of his blood-soaked past. Killing him should be easy—and accepting his offer might be the only way to fulfill her destiny and save her people. But the more Alizeh learns of him, the more she questions whether the terrible stories about him are true… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Self-harm & self-sacrifice
  • Blood & injury depiction including loss of an eye
  • Torture
  • Knife & sword violence

Adore by Ella James

For years, I’ve kept his secret. When he called, I answered. When he needed, I gave. Then he went dark. I tracked him on Instagram–like his sixteen million other followers. When being on the planet with him, separated by his secrets, felt like torture, I moved on. But Luke McDowell wouldn’t let me go. He says he doesn’t want me, but we both know that won’t hold. By the end of our story, he’ll have taken everything. The question is, what will he give?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Physical injury

A Thousand Heartbeats by Kiera Cass

Princess Annika has lived a life of comfort—but no amount of luxuries can change the fact that her life isn’t her own to control. The king, once her loving father, has gone cold, and Annika will soon be forced into a loveless marriage for political gain. Miles away, small comforts are few and far between for Lennox. He has devoted his life to the Dahrainian army, hoping to one day help them reclaim the throne that was stolen from them. For Lennox, the idea of love is merely a distraction—nothing will stand in the way of fighting for his people. But when love, against all odds, finds them both, they are bound by its call. They can’t possibly be together… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Murder
  • Beheading mentioned

Do Your Worst by Rosie Danan

Riley Rhodes finally has the chance to turn her family’s knack for the supernatural into a legitimate business when she’s hired to break the curse on an infamous Scottish castle. Used to working alone in her alienating occupation, she’s pleasantly surprised to meet a handsome stranger upon arrival—until he tries to get her fired. Fresh off a professional scandal, Clark Edgeware can’t allow a self-proclaimed “curse breaker” to threaten his last chance for redemption. After he fails to get Riley kicked off his survey site, he vows to avoid her. Unfortunately for him, she vows to get even. Riley expects the curse to do her dirty work by.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Blood & injury depiction

Anne of West Philly by Ivy Noelle Weir and illustrated by Myisha Haynes

When Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert decide to foster a teenage girl for the first time, their lives are changed forever. Their redheaded foster daughter, Anne Shirley, is in search of an exciting life and has decided that West Philly is where she’s going to find it. Armed with a big personality and unstoppable creativity, Anne takes her new home by storm as she joins the robotics club, makes new friends in Diana and Gilbert, experiences first love, and turns the ordinary into the extraordinary. But as Anne starts to get comfortable, she discovers one thing she wasn’t looking for: a family.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism discussed
  • Experiences in & trauma from the foster care system discussed
  • Hospitalisation for a medical emergency
  • Bullying

A Crown of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi

She is the princess of Bharata—captured by her kingdom’s enemies, a prisoner of war. Now that she faces a future of exile and scorn, Gauri has nothing left to lose. But should she trust Vikram, the notoriously cunning prince of a neighboring land? He promises her freedom in exchange for her battle prowess. Together they can team up and win the Tournament of Wishes, a competition held in a mythical city where the Lord of Wealth promises a wish to the victor. It seems like a foolproof plan—until Gauri and Vikram arrive at the tournament and find that danger takes on new shapes: poisonous courtesans, mischievous story… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted sexual assault recounted
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood depiction
  • Serious injury & illness of a loved one
  • Death of a mother
  • War themes

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim

Mia, the irreverent, hyper analytical twenty-year-old daughter, has an explanation for everything–which is why she isn’t initially concerned when her father and younger brother Eugene don’t return from a walk in a nearby park. They must have lost their phone. Or stopped for an errand somewhere. But by the time Mia’s brother runs through the front door bloody and alone, it becomes clear that the father in this tight-knit family is missing and the only witness is Eugene, who has the rare genetic condition Angelman syndrome and cannot speak. What follows is both a ticking clock… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape mentioned
  • Suicide
  • Angelman Syndrome
  • Disappearance of parent (theme)

Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt

Three years ago, Alice spent one night in an abandoned house with her friends, Ila and Hannah. Since then, Alice’s life has spiraled. She lives a haunted existence, selling videos of herself for money, going to parties she hates, drinking herself to sleep. Memories of that night torment Alice, but when Ila asks her to return to the House, to go past the KEEP OUT sign and over the sick earth where teenagers dare each other to venture, Alice knows she must go. Together, Alice and Ila must face the horrors that happened there, must pull themselves apart from the inside out, put their differences aside, and try to rescue Hannah, whom the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Antisemitism
  • Graphic transphobia & deadnaming including discussions of TERFism
  • Eugenics
  • Graphic rape & attempted rape
  • Sex work
  • Self-harm
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Gender dysphoria
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use & abuse
  • Mutilation
  • Emesis
  • Graphic blood, gore & body horror
  • Medical experimentation
  • Murder