Tag Archives: Slavery & Indentured Servitude

A Shadow Crown by Melissa Blair

To the kingdom, Keera is the king’s Blade, his most feared and trusted spy and assassin. But in the shadows, she works with Prince Killian and his Shadow—the dark, brooding Fae, Riven, who sets her blood on fire. Together, they plot to kill a tyrant king. In Myrelinth, the lush, secret city of trees, Fae, Elves, and Halflings like Keera live in harmony. But Keera cannot escape her past: her crimes against her own people have followed her all the way to the Faeland. There is a traitor in their midst, and Keera is the top suspect. Keera finds comfort in the allies that have become her family… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slut-shaming
  • Slavery & sex slavery mentioned (secondary character)
  • Intimate partner abuse (on-page)
  • Suicidal ideation recounted
  • Self-injury & self-harm (cutting)
  • Alcoholism (recovery/sobriety) & alcohol consumption (secondary character)
  • Pregnancy & death during childbirth mentioned (secondary characters)
  • Death of an ex-partner recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder including patricide
  • Physical assault
  • Imprisonment

Faebound by Saara El-Arifi

Yeeran is a warrior in the elven army and has known nothing but violence her whole life. Her sister, Lettle, is trying to make a living as a diviner, seeking prophecies of a better future. When a fatal mistake leads to Yeeran’s exile from the Elven lands, they are both forced into the terrifying wilderness beyond their borders. There they encounter the impossible: the fae court. The fae haven’t been seen for a millennium. But now Yeeran and Lettle are thrust into their seductive world – torn between their loyalty to each other, their elven homeland, and their hearts…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Human trafficking & slavery
  • Hospitalisation mentioned
  • Death of a parent, recounted & discussed
  • Torture
  • War themes including colonialism & child soldiers
  • Graphic animal death

All We Were Promised by Ashton Lattimore

Philadelphia, 1837. After Charlotte escaped from the crumbling White Oaks plantation down South, she’d expected freedom to feel different from her former life as an enslaved housemaid. After all, Philadelphia is supposed to be the birthplace of American liberty. Instead, she’s locked away playing servant to her white-passing father, as they both attempt to hide their identities from slavecatchers who would destroy their new lives. Longing to break away, Charlotte befriends Nell, a budding abolitionist from one of Philadelphia’s wealthiest Black families. Just as Charlotte starts to envision a future, a familiar face from her… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & slavery

Acts of Forgiveness by Maura Cheeks

Every American waits with bated breath to see whether or not the country’s first female president will pass the Forgiveness Act. The bill would allow Black families to claim up to $175,000 if they can prove they are the descendants of slaves and for ambitious single mother Willie Revel the bill could be a long-awaited form of redemption. A decade ago, Willie gave up her burgeoning journalism career to help run her father’s struggling construction company in Philadelphia and she has reluctantly put family first without being able to forget who she might have become. Now… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Discussions of enslavement & racism (theme)

James by Percival Everett

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Enslavement & human trafficking (protagonist)
  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Child abuse
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Murder
  • Animal death & attack (snake)

PathFinder by Angie Sage

Tod has grown up a PathFinder, one of an ancient seafaring tribe. Her mother, who died when Tod was young, had a very different history. She was from a mysterious magykal desert-dwelling family. When Tod’s father disappears she is not only alone, but soon finds herself swept into the path of an evil sorcerer. Now Tod must choose which of her pasts will help her to survive: PathFinder or Magician. Magyk will allow her to fight like with like, but her PathFinder heritage gives Tod something special – the edge.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Threats of murder by drowning
  • Kidnapping
  • Disappearance of a parent
  • Fire

So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix by Bethany C. Morrow

North Carolina, 1863. As the American Civil War rages on, the Freedmen’s Colony of Roanoke Island is blossoming, a haven for the recently emancipated. Black people have begun building a community of their own, a refuge from the shadow of the old life. It is where the March family has finally been able to safely put down roots with four young daughters: Meg, a teacher who longs to find love and start a family of her own. Jo, a writer whose words are too powerful to be contained. Beth, a talented seamstress searching for a higher purpose. Amy, a dancer eager to explore… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slavery (theme)
  • Racism
  • Chronic illness
  • Gun violence
  • American Civil War

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness is the thrilling tale of Marlow, a seaman and wanderer recounting his physical and psychological journey in search of the infamous ivory trader Kurtz. Traveling upriver into the heart of the African continent, he gradually becomes obsessed by this enigmatic, wraith-like figure. Marlow’s discovery of how Kurtz has gained his position of power over the local people involves him in a radical questioning, not only of his own nature and values, but of those that underpin Western civilization itself.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Graphic racism & racial slurs
  • Slavery including death of slaves from exhaustion and malnourishment
  • Gun, cannon & arrow violence

Monkey Hunting by Cristina García

The García sisters and their family must flee their home in the Dominican Republic after their father’s role in an attempt to overthrow brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo is discovered. They arrive in New York City in 1960 to a life far removed from their existence in the Caribbean. In the wondrous but not always welcoming USA., their parents try to hold on to their old ways as the girls try find new lives. For them, it is at once liberating and excruciating to be caught between the old world and the new. Here they tell their stories about being at home–and not at home–in America.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slavery & indentured servitude

Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli

On the night Rune’s life changed forever, blood ran in the streets. Now, in the aftermath of a devastating revolution, witches have been diminished from powerful rulers to outcasts ruthlessly hunted due to their waning magic, and Rune must hide what she is. Spending her days pretending to be nothing more than a vapid young socialite, Rune spends her nights as the Crimson Moth, a witch vigilante who rescues her kind from being purged. When a rescue goes wrong, she decides to throw the witch hunters off her scent and gain the intel she desperately needs by courting the handsome Gideon Sharpe, a notorious and unforgive….Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Persecution for witchcraft including mass murder of witches recounted
  • Enslavement recounted
  • Rape recounted (multiple, forced sexual relationship)
  • Substance addiction & alcoholism recovery (laudanum, opium)
  • Murder by gun violence and explosion
  • Torture
  • Gun & knife violence