The Assassin’s Blade by Sarah J. Maas

The Assassin’s Blade by Sarah J. Maas

Celaena Sardothien is Adarlan’s most feared assassin. As part of the Assassin’s Guild, her allegiance is to her master, Arobynn Hamel, yet Celaena listens to no one and trusts only her fellow killer-for-hire, Sam. In these action-packed novellas – together in one edition for the first time – Celaena embarks on five daring missions. They take her from remote islands to hostile deserts, where she fights to liberate slaves and seeks to avenge the tyrannous. But she is acting against Arobynn’s orders and could suffer an unimaginable punishment for such treachery. Will Celaena ever be truly free? Explore the dark underworld of this kick-ass heroine to find out.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

The Assassin and the Pirate Lord• Alcohol consumption
• Blood & gore depiction
• Physical injuries
• Murder
• Knifer violence
• Physical assault
• Imprisonment
• Blackmail
• Building collapse
The Assassin and the Healer• Victim blaming
• Rape mentioned
• Sexual harassment
• Alcohol consumption
• Blood depiction
• Physical injury
• Emesis
• Death of a mother
• Murder
• Knife violence & stabbing
• Physical assault
• Hostage situation
The Assassin and the Desert• Adult-minor relationship
• Alcohol consumption
• Nonconsensual drugging
• Murder
• Torture
• Hostage situation
• Fire
The Assassin and the Underworld• Misogyny
• Slavery
• Slut-shaming
• Forced sex work
• Suicide
• Murder & attempted murder
• Torture
• Poisoning
• Fire
• Drowning
The Assassin and the Empire• Threats of rape
• Emesis
• Murder
• Torture
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The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

The Witching Hour by Anne Rice book cover

It begins in our time with a rescue at sea.  Rowan Mayfair, a beautiful woman, a brilliant practitioner of neurosurgery—aware that she has special powers but unaware that she comes from an ancient line of witches—finds the drowned body of a man off the coast of California and brings him to life.  He is Michael Curry, who was born in New Orleans and orphaned in childhood by fire on Christmas Eve, who pulled himself up from poverty, and who now, in his brief interval of death, has acquired a sensory power that mystifies and frightens him.

As these two, fiercely drawn to each other, fall in love and—in passionate alliance—set out to solve the mystery of her past and his unwelcome gift, the novel moves backward and forward in time from today’s New Orleans and San Francisco to long-ago Amsterdam and a château in the France of Louis XIV.  An intricate tale of evil unfolds—an evil unleashed in seventeenth-century Scotland, where the first “witch,” Suzanne of the Mayfair, conjures up the spirit she names Lasher… a creation that spells her own destruction and torments each of her descendants in turn.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape
  • Incest
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The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

Edward Fosca is a murderer. Of this Mariana is certain. But Fosca is untouchable. A handsome and charismatic Greek Tragedy professor at Cambridge University, Fosca is adored by staff and students alike—particularly by the members of a secret society of female students known as The Maidens. Mariana Andros is a brilliant but troubled group therapist who becomes fixated on The Maidens when one member, a friend of Mariana’s niece Zoe, is found murdered in Cambridge. Mariana, who was once herself a student at the university, quickly suspects that behind the idyllic beauty of… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Paedophilia, child sexual abuse, incest & grooming
  • Adult-minor & teacher-student relationship, including statutory rape
  • Depression & mentions of suicidal ideation
  • Graphic self-harm
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Murder
  • Stalking
  • Animal death & abuse

Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore

Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and illustrated by Brian Bolland

For the first time the Joker’s origin is revealed in this tale of insanity and human perseverance. Looking to prove that any man can be pushed past his breaking point and go mad, the Joker attempts to drive Commissioner Gordon insane.

After shooting and permanently paralyzing his daughter Barbara (a.k.a. Batgirl), the Joker kidnaps the commissioner and attacks his mind in hopes of breaking the man.

But refusing to give up, Gordon maintains his sanity with the help of Batman in an effort to beset the madman.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Sexual assault
  • Paralysis
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping
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The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock.

Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.

Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils … Pagford is not what it first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Racism
  • Rape
  • Paedophilia & incest mentioned
  • Child abuse
  • Domestic abuse
  • Graphic suicide
  • Self-harm
  • Recreational drug use
  • Bullying
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Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart

Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart

Iraya has spent her life in a cell, but every day brings her closer to freedom – and vengeance.

Jazmyne is the Queen’s daughter, but unlike her sister before her, she has no intention of dying to strengthen her mother’s power.

Sworn enemies, these two witches enter a precarious alliance to take down a mutual threat. But power is intoxicating, revenge is a bloody pursuit, and nothing is certain – except the lengths they will go to win this game.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Physical abuse
  • Rape mentioned
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a sibling
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Police brutality
  • Imprisonment
  • Stalking
  • Loss of autonomy (mind control)
  • Bullying
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Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.​

To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny & femicide
  • Rape mentioned
  • Physical & emotional abuse
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcoholism
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Murder
  • Torture
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I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara

For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area.

Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called “the Golden State Killer.” Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape
  • Murder
  • Home invasion
  • Animal cruelty
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Captive Prince by C. S. Pacat

Captive Prince by C. S. Pacat

Damen is a warrior hero to his people, and the rightful heir to the throne of Akielos. But when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity, and sent to serve the prince of an enemy nation as a pleasure slave.

Beautiful, manipulative, and deadly, his new master, Prince Laurent, epitomizes the worst of the court at Vere. But in the lethal political web of the Veretian court, nothing is as it seems, and when Damen finds himself caught up in a play for the throne, he must work together with Laurent to survive and save his country.

For Damen, there is just one rule: never, ever reveal his true identity. Because the one man Damen needs is the one man who has more reason to hate him than anyone else…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape, including statutory rape
  • Sexual abuse and sex slavery
  • Dubious consent
  • Paedophilia, specifically pederasty
  • Animal cruelty
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Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare

Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare

Together with her parabatai Julian Blackthorn, Emma Carstairs must learn to trust her head and her heart as she investigates a demonic plot that stretches across Los Angeles, from the Sunset Strip to the enchanted sea that pounds the beaches of Santa Monica. If only her heart didn’t lead her in treacherous directions…

Making things even more complicated, Julian’s brother Mark—who was captured by the faeries five years ago—has been returned as a bargaining chip. The faeries are desperate to find out who is murdering their kind—and they need the Shadowhunters’ help to do it. But time works differently in faerie, so Mark has barely aged and doesn’t recognize his family. Can he ever truly return to them? Will the faeries really allow it?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Racism
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Rape by coercion mentioned
  • Psychological, emotional & physical child abuse recounted
  • Trauma (theme)
  • Nightmares
  • Schizophrenia
  • Hallucinations
  • Nonconsensual drugging
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Dead bodies
  • Emesis
  • Physical injuries
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a brother
  • Death of a mother & father
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Torture
  • Kidnapping
  • Home invasion
  • Exile
  • Drowning
  • Fire
  • Whipping
  • Cults
  • War themes including graphic battle scenes
  • Bullying
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