We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

Darling is only ten years old, yet she must navigate a fragile and violent world. In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo’s belly, and grasp at memories of Before. Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen. Before the school closed before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad.

But Darling has a chance to escape: she has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Rape
  • Abortion
  • Physical assault
  • Animal death
  • Animal cruelty
  • War themes
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Beautiful Dreamer by Melissa Brayden 

Beautiful Dreamer by Melissa Brayden

Philadelphia real estate broker Devyn Winters is at the peak of her career, closing multimillion-dollar deals and relishing it. She’s pretty much blocked out her formative years in Dreamer’s Bay, where the most exciting thing to happen was the twice a year bake sale. Unfortunately, a distress call hauls her back home and away from the life, she’s constructed. Now the question is just how long until she can leave again? And when did boring Elizabeth Draper get so beautiful? Elizabeth Draper loves people, free time … Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Hospitalisation for physical injury
  • Car accident
  • Disappearance of a sibling

The Baby is Mine by Oyinkan Braithwaite

The Baby is Mine by Oyinkan Braithwaite

When his girlfriend throws him out during the pandemic, Bambi has to go to his Uncle’s house in lock-down Lagos. He arrives during a blackout, and is surprised to find his Aunty Bidemi sitting in a candlelit room with another woman. They both claim to be the mother of the baby boy, fast asleep in his crib.

At night Bambi is kept awake by the baby’s cries, and during the days he is disturbed by a… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Child neglect
  • Cheating
  • Alcohol consumption, on-page
  • Recreational drug use, on-page
  • COVID-19 (theme)
  • Emesis
  • Physical illness & tribal marking disfigurement of a baby
  • Blood depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of an uncle & husband recounted
  • Animal slaughter, on-page
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Lore by Alexandra Bracken 

Lore by Alexandra Bracken

Every seven years, the Agon begins. As punishment for a past rebellion, nine Greek gods are forced to walk the earth as mortals, hunted by the descendants of ancient bloodlines, all eager to kill a god and seize their divine power and immortality.

Long ago, Lore Perseous fled that brutal world in the wake of her family’s sadistic murder by a rival line, turning her back on the hunt’s promises of eternal glory. For years she’s pushed away any thought… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault
  • Paedophilia and child sexual abuse mentioned
  • Blood depiction
  • Graphic physical injury, including eye trauma
  • Cancer & cancer treatment
  • Murder
  • Graphic torture
  • Explosions & bombings
  • Fire
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The Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn Bowman 

The Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Eighteen-year-old Nami Miyamoto is certain her life is just beginning. She has a great family, just graduated high school, and is on her way to a party where her entire class is waiting for her—including, most importantly, the boy she’s been in love with for years. The only problem? She’s murdered before she gets there.

When Nami wakes up, she learns she’s in a place called Infinity, where human consciousness goes when physical bodies die. She quickly discovers that… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Forced servitude
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Physical injuries
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Gun violence
  • Battle violence
  • Loss of autonomy (mind control & manipulation)
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Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block

Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block

Her life by the sea in ruins, Pen has lost everything in the Earth Shaker that all but destroyed the city of Los Angeles. She sets out into the wasteland to search for her family, her journey guided by a tattered copy of Homer’s Odyssey. Soon she begins to realize her own abilities and strength as she faces false promises of safety, the cloned giants who feast on humans, and a madman who wishes her dead. On her voyage, Pen learns to tell stories that reflect her strange visions, while she and her fellow survivors navigate the dangers that lie in wait.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Drug abuse
  • Graphic injury & eye trauma
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Skin of the Sea by Natasha Bowen

Simi prayed to the gods, once. Now she serves them as Mami Wata–a mermaid–collecting the souls of those who die at sea and blessing their journeys back home. But when a living boy is thrown overboard, Simi goes against an ancient decree and does the unthinkable–she saves his life. And punishment awaits those who dare to defy the gods. To protect the other Mami Wata, Simi must journey to the Supreme Creator to make amends. But all is not as it seems. There’s the boy she rescued, who knows more than he should. And something is shadowing Simi, something that would rather see her fail. Danger lurks at every… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slavery discussed
  • Alcohol consumption (wine)
  • Emesis
  • Blood and injury depiction
  • Sword and axe violence
  • Strangulation, on-page
  • Kidnapping and captivity of children
  • Drowning, on-page
  • Shipwreck and boating accidents, on-page
  • Lightning storms ,on-page
  • Mentions of war
  • Animal death mentioned (cows, goats)
  • Animal attack (hyena, shark, birds) 

Sink or Swim by Annabeth Albert

Sink or Swim by Annabeth Albert

Navy chief Calder Euler loves to win big. His latest score? A remote mountain cabin. Checking it out is supposed to be a quick trip, but Calder’s luck abruptly turns when a freak injury and a freakier snowstorm leave him stranded. Oh, and the cabin isn’t empty. A silver fox caring for two young girls claims that the property is his, but Calder’s paperwork says otherwise.

Felix Sigurd is on a losing streak, and his ex-husband risking the cabin in a reckless bet is only… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Divorce
  • Concussion recounted
  • Navy service
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Semiosis by Sue Burke

Semiosis by Sue Burke

Only mutual communication can forge an alliance with the planet’s sentient species and prove that mammals are more than tools. Forced to land on a planet they aren’t prepared for, human colonists rely on their limited resources to survive. The planet provides a lush but inexplicable landscape–trees offer edible, addictive fruit one day and poison the next, while the ruins of an alien race are found entwined in the roots of a strange plant. Conflicts between generations arise as they struggle to understand one another and grapple with an unknowable alien intellect.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Graphic rape
  • Physical injury & illness
  • Cannibalism
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Animal death
  • Animal abuse
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Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world. Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind.

Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Slavery mentioned
  • Homomisia mentioned
  • Abandonment
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Emotional & physical abuse
  • Suicide
  • Alcoholism
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Drug use
  • Blood depiction
  • Physical injury
  • Beheading
  • Forced blinding
  • Scarring
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a child
  • Mass murder
  • Poisoning
  • Kidnapping
  • Physical assault
  • Imprisonment
  • Cult
  • Animal death
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