Criminal Past by Gregory Ashe

Criminal Past by Gregory Ashe

It all starts to go wrong at the shooting gallery. Emery Hazard and his boyfriend, John-Henry Somerset, just want to enjoy the day at the Dore County Independence Fair. At the shooting gallery, though, Hazard comes face to face with one of his old bullies: Mikey Grames. Even as a drugged-out wreck, Mikey is a reminder of all the ugliness in Hazard’s past. Worse, Mikey seems to know something Hazard doesn’t—something about the fresh tension brewing in town.

When the Chief of Police interrupts Hazard’s day at the fair, she has a strange request. She doesn’t want Hazard and Somers to solve a murder. She wants them to prevent one. The future victim? Mayor Sherman Newton—a man who has tried to have Hazard and Somers… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Homomisic hate crime recounted
  • Graphic rape recounted
  • Graphic torture
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The Same Breath by Gregory Ashe

The Same Breath by Gregory Ashe

Teancum Leon, who goes by Tean, is a wildlife veterinarian. His life has settled into a holding pattern: he loves his job, he hates first dates, and he only occasionally has to deal with his neighbor Mrs. Wish’s cat-related disasters.

All of that changes, though, when a man appears in his office, asking for help to find his brother. Jem is convinced that something bad has happened to Benny, and he thinks Tean might be able to help. Tean isn’t sure, but he’s willing to try. After all, Jem is charming and sweet and surprisingly vulnerable. Oh. And hot… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Fatmisia
  • Racism
  • Homomisia
  • Rape mentioned
  • Emotional abuse & gaslighting
  • Child abuse mentioned
  • Attempted suicide mentioned
  • Animal death
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If They Come for Us by Fatimah Asghar

If They Come for Us by Fatimah Asghar

In this powerful and imaginative debut poetry collection, Fatimah Asghar nakedly captures the experiences of being a young Pakistani Muslim woman in America by braiding together personal and marginalized people’s histories. After being orphaned as a young girl, Asghar grapples with coming-of-age as a woman without the guidance of a mother, questions of sexuality and race, and navigating a world that put a target on her back. Asghar’s poems at once bear anguish, joy, vulnerability, and compassion, while exploring the many facets of violence: how it persists within us, how it is inherited across generations, and how it manifests in our relationships with friends and family, and in our own understanding of identity. Using experimental forms and a mix of lyrical and brash language, Asghar confronts her own understanding of identity and place and belonging.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape
  • Domestic abuse
  • Genocide
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The Electric Kingdom by David Arnold

The Electric Kingdom by David Arnold

When a deadly Fly Flu sweeps the globe, it leaves a shell of the world that once was. Among the survivors are eighteen-year-old Nico and her dog, on a voyage devised by Nico’s father to find a mythical portal; a young artist named Kit, raised in an old abandoned cinema; and the enigmatic Deliverer, who lives Life after Life in an attempt to put the world back together. As swarms of infected Flies roam the earth, these few survivors navigate the woods of post-apocalyptic New England, meeting others along the way, each on their own quest to find life and love in a world gone dark. 

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Attempted rape
  • Pregnancy & childbirth
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Pandemic
  • Coma
  • Physical illness
  • Death of a mother & father
  • Gun violence
  • Knife violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Car accident
  • Animal death
  • Animal injury
  • Hunting mentioned
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This Fallen Prey by Kelley Armstrong

This Fallen Prey by Kelley Armstrong

When Casey first arrived at the off-the-grid town, an isolated community built as a haven for people running from their pasts, she had no idea what to expect, with no cell phones, no internet, no mail, and no way of getting in or out without the town councils approval. She certainly didn’t expect to be the homicide detective on two separate cases or to begin a romantic relationship with her boss. But the very last thing she expected was for the council to drop a dangerous criminal into their midst without a plan to keep him imprisoned and to keep others safe. Of course, Oliver Brady claims he’s being set up. But the longer Brady stays in town, the more things start to go wrong. When evidence comes to light that someone inside Rockton might be working as his accomplice, helping him to escape, Casey races to figure out who exactly Brady is and what crimes he’s truly responsible for committing.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape recounted
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Animal cruelty
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The Warsaw Orphan by Kelly Rimmer

The Warsaw Orphan by Kelly Rimmer

In the spring of 1942, young Elzbieta Rabinek is aware of the swiftly growing discord just beyond the courtyard of her comfortable Warsaw home. She has no fondness for the Germans who patrol her streets and impose their curfews, but has never given much thought to what goes on behind the walls that contain her Jewish neighbors. She knows all too well about German brutality–and that it’s the reason she must conceal her true identity. But in befriending Sara, a nurse who shares her apartment floor, Elzbieta makes a discovery that propels her into a dangerous world of deception and heroism.

Using Sara’s credentials to smuggle children out of the ghetto brings Elzbieta face-to-face with the reality of the war behind its walls, and to the… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Antisemitism
  • Rape
  • Sexual assault mentioned
  • Pregnancy
  • Starvation
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Warrior by Zoe Archer

Warrior by Zoe Archer

The vicious attack Capt. Gabriel Huntley witnesses in a dark alley sparks a chain of events that will take him to the ends of the Earth and beyond—where what is real and what is imagined become terribly confused. And frankly, Huntley couldn’t be more pleased. Intrigue, danger, and a beautiful woman in distress—just what he needs.

Raised thousands of miles from England, Thalia Burgess is no typical Victorian lady. A good thing, because a proper lady would have no hope of recovering the priceless magical artifact Thalia is after. Huntley’s assistance might come in handy, though she has to keep him in the dark. But this distractingly handsome soldier isn’t easy to deceive… 

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Attempted rape
  • Explosions
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou’s seven volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope and joy, achievement and celebration. In this first volume of her autobiography, Maya Angelou beautifully evoker her childhood with her grandmother in the American South of the 1930s. She learns the power of the white folks at the other end of town and suffers the terrible trauma of rape by her mother’s lover. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • White supremacy & mentions of the Klu Klux Klan
  • Sexism
  • Rape of a child
  • Sexual assault
  • Chronic bronchitis
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Smoking
  • Dead body
  • Murder
  • Physical assault
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Magic Stars by Ilona Andrews

Magic Stars by Ilona Andrews

Scarred, solitary Derek Gaunt has separated from his Pack, and is truly a lone wolf. With no family he answers to no one; but is fiercely loyal to a chosen few. So, when several of those close to him are murdered, he’ll stop at nothing to hunt their killer through the magic-drenched streets of Atlanta.

Never one to be left on the sidelines, equally determined—some might say stubborn—Julie Lennart-Olsen soon joins in his pursuit; and what began as revenge turns into a race to save the city. Their search pits them against powers they never imagined and magic so old, it predates history. It may cost Derek his life, but there are things for which even he would risk everything.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape mentioned
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Murder
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What Happened That Night by Deanna Cameron

What Happened That Night by Deanna Cameron

Four months after the murder, the entire town of Shiloh is still in shock. For Clara Porterfield, the normal world has crumbled around her in a million chaotic pieces. Now Clara lives in a new reality, where her sister awaits trial for murder, her mother obsessively digs in a dead, frozen garden, and her father lives and breathes denial. At school, Clara is haunted by her classmates’ morbid curiosity—and all of the unspoken questions they won’t ask.

Now Clara’s sister wants something from her—the one thing in all of this that Clara isn’t ready to face: the truth about what really happened that night. Because this story didn’t die with Griffin Tomlin. There’s another story that needs to be told. And sometimes, the lies we’re told are nowhere near as deadly as the lies we tell ourselves . . .

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Murder
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