Alice Payne Arrives by Kate Heartfield

Alice Payne Arrives by Kate Heartfield

It’s 1788 and Alice Payne is the notorious highway robber, the Holy Ghost. Aided by her trusty automaton, Laverna, the Holy Ghost is feared by all who own a heavy purse. It’s 1889 and Major Prudence Zuniga is once again attempting to change history―to save history―but seventy attempts later she’s still no closer to her goal. But in 2020 the Farmers and the Guides are locked in battle; time is their battleground, and the world is their prize. Only something new can change the course of the war. Or someone new. Little did they know, but they’ve all been waiting until Alice Payne arrives.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical misogyny
  • Sexual assault of a minor & statutory rape mentioned*
  • Depression mentioned
  • Suicide, suicidal ideation & suicide pacts discussed
  • Minor blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Gun violence
  • War themes, including refugee experiences & displacement

*Context : Mentions of sex between a seventeen-year-old girl and an adult man.

The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake

The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake

The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake book cover

The Larkin family isn’t just lucky—they persevere. At least that’s what Violet and her younger brother, Sam, were always told. When the Lyric sank off the coast of Maine, their great-great-great-grandmother didn’t drown like the rest of the passengers. No, Fidelia swam to shore, fell in love, and founded Lyric, Maine, the town Violet and Sam returned to every summer.

But wrecks seem to run in the family. Tall, funny, musical Violet can’t stop partying with the wrong people. And, one beautiful summer day, brilliant, sensitive Sam attempts to take his own life.

Shipped back to Lyric while Sam is in treatment, Violet is haunted by her family’s missing piece – the lost shipwreck she and Sam dreamed of discovering when they were children. Desperate to make amends, Violet embarks on a wildly ambitious mission: locate the Lyric, lain hidden in a watery grave for over a century.

She finds a fellow wreck hunter in Liv Stone, an amateur local historian whose sparkling intelligence and guarded gray eyes make Violet ache in an exhilarating new way. Whether or not they find the Lyric, the journey Violet takes-and the bridges she builds along the way-may be the start of something like survival.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Disordered eating
  • Suicide attempt, side character
  • Alcohol abuse
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Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And Other Questions About Dead Bodies by Caitlin Doughty

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And Other Questions About Dead Bodies by Caitlin Doughty

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And Other Questions About Dead Bodies by Caitlin Doughty book cover

Everyone has questions about death. In Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?, best-selling author and mortician Caitlin Doughty answers the most intriguing questions she’s ever received about what happens to our bodies when we die. In a brisk, informative, and morbidly funny style, Doughty explores everything from ancient Egyptian death rituals and the science of skeletons to flesh-eating insects and the proper depth at which to bury your pet if you want Fluffy to become a mummy. Now featuring an interview with a clinical expert on discussing these issues with young people—the source of some of our most revealing questions about death—Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? confronts our common fear of dying with candid, honest, and hilarious facts about what awaits the body we leave behind.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Suicide mentioned
  • Graphic dead bodies, central theme
  • Funeral-related preperation of bodies discussed in detail
  • Medical conditions discussed
  • Medical procedures discussed
  • Death, central theme
  • Murder mentioned
  • Torture mentioned
  • Death by drowning mentioned
  • Animal death
  • Graphic animal dead bodies
  • Death of a pet discussed
  • Animal testing and other animal cruelty mentioned
  • Grave desecration
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The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw

The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw

The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw book cover

Where, two centuries ago, three sisters were sentenced to death for witchery. Stones were tied to their ankles and they were drowned in the deep waters surrounding the town. Now, for a brief time each summer, the sisters return, stealing the bodies of three weak-hearted girls so that they may seek their revenge, luring boys into the harbor and pulling them under. Like many locals, seventeen-year-old Penny Talbot has accepted the fate of the town. But this year, on the eve of the sisters’ return, a boy named Bo Carter arrives; unaware of the danger he has just stumbled into. Mistrust and lies spread quickly through the salty, rain… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableist language
  • Misogyny & slut-shaming
  • Persecution for witchcraft
  • Dubious consent scenes & sexual assault (non-consensual kiss) (on-page)
  • Suicide & self-sacrifice (on-page, discussed)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Injury & gore depiction including dead bodies
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a brother
  • Death of a father & husband
  • Death of a fiancé
  • Murder & kidnapping
  • Drowning (multiple scenes, on-page & recounted)
  • Fire

Context : The protagonist lies to her love interest about her identity and they have sex (on-page).

The Disasters by M. K. England

The Disasters by M. K. England

The Disasters by M. K. England book cover

Hotshot pilot Nax Hall has a history of making poor life choices. So it’s not exactly a surprise when he’s kicked out of the elite Ellis Station Academy in less than twenty-four hours.

But Nax’s one-way trip back to Earth is cut short when a terrorist group attacks the Academy. Nax and three other washouts escape—barely—but they’re also the sole witnesses to the biggest crime in the history of space colonization. And the perfect scapegoats.

On the run and framed for atrocities they didn’t commit, Nax and his fellow failures execute a dangerous heist to spread the truth about what happened at the Academy.

They may not be “Academy material,” and they may not get along, but they’re the only ones left to step up and fight.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Transmisia recounted
  • Ableism recounted
  • Child abuse
  • Anxiety
  • Anxiety/panic attacks, on-page
  • Nightmares
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Nonconsensual drugging
  • Blood depiction
  • Physical injuries
  • Serious injury to a loved one
  • Hospital
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Murder and attempted murder
  • Gun violence
  • Plane crash
  • Car crash
  • Wrongful imprisonment
  • Colonialism themes
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Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi book cover

Ada begins her life in the south of Nigeria as a troubled baby and a source of deep concern to her family. Her parents, Saul and Saachi, successfully prayed her into existence, but as she grows into a volatile and splintered child, it becomes clear that something went terribly awry. When Ada comes of age and moves to America for college, the group of selves within her grows in power and agency. A traumatic assault leads to a crystallization of her alternate selves: Asụghara and Saint Vincent. As Ada fades into the background of her own mind and these selves–now protective, now hedonistic–move into control, Ada’s life spirals in a dark and dangerous direction.

Narrated by the various selves within Ada and based in the author’s realities, Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy and serpentine grace, heralding the arrival of a fierce new literary voice.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape
  • Sexual abuse
  • Eating disorder/s
  • Suicide
  • Self-harm
  • Substance abuse
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Wild Women & the Blues by Denny S. Bryce

Wild Women & the Blues by Denny S. Bryce

1925: Chicago is the jazz capital of the world, and the Dreamland Café is the ritziest black-and-tan club in town. Honoree Dalcour is a sharecropper’s daughter, willing to work hard and dance every night on her way to the top. Dreamland offers a path to the good life, socializing with celebrities like Louis Armstrong and filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. But Chicago is also awash in bootleg whiskey, gambling, and gangsters. And a young woman driven by ambition might risk more than she can stand to lose.

2015: Film student Sawyer Hayes arrives at the bedside of 110-year-old Honoree Dalcour, still reeling from a devastating loss that has taken him right to the brink. Sawyer has rested all his hope on this frail but formidable woman, the only living link to the legendary Oscar Micheaux. If he’s right–if she can fill in the blanks in his research, perhaps he can complete his thesis and begin a new chapter in his life. But the links Honoree makes are not ones he’s expecting . . .

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape (ch 43)
  • Attempted suicide mentioned (chp 15)
  • Cancer mentioned (briefly in chp 15)
  • Emesis (chp 13)
  • Death of a parent & sibling
  • Car accident
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Temeraire by Naomi Novik

Temeraire by Naomi Novik

Also called His Majesty’s Dragon.

Captain Will Laurence has been at sea since he was just twelve years old; finding a warmer berth in Nelson’s navy than any he enjoyed as the youngest, least important son of Lord Allendale. Rising on merit to captain his own vessel, Laurence has earned himself a beautiful fiancée, society’s esteem and a golden future. But the war is not going well. It seems Britain can only wait as Napoleon plans to overrun her shores.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Minor sex work shaming & slurs
  • Suicide*
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use (smoking)
  • Blood depiction
  • Death of a colleague (off-page)
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Bombings
  • War themes (Napoleonic Wars)
  • Military violence & naval warfare
  • Animal death (graphic, multiple scenes)
  • Animal cruelty & abuse
  • Animal illness & injury
  • Animal attack
  • Death of an animal companion

*Note: An enemy air force captain chooses to stay on-board his dying dragon as it falls & plummets into the ocean.

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One by One by Ruth Ware

One by One by Ruth Ware

Getting snowed in at a beautiful, rustic mountain chalet doesn’t sound like the worst problem in the world, especially when there’s a breathtaking vista, a cozy fire, and company to keep you warm. But what happens when that company is eight of your coworkers…and you can’t trust any of them?

When an off-site company retreat meant to promote mindfulness and collaboration goes utterly wrong when an avalanche hits, the corporate food chain becomes irrelevant and survival trumps togetherness. Come Monday morning, how many members short will the team be?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Panic attack & flashback
  • Sexual assault recounted (described)
  • Suicide by overdose discussed
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Minor blood & gore depiction, including dead bodies
  • Physical injuries
  • Emesis mentioned
  • Death of a brother recounted
  • Death of a friend & colleague (multiple, on-page)
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Asphyxia (suffocation)
  • Poisoning
  • Death from a fall (off-page)
  • Disappearance of a friend & colleague
  • Avalanche (on-page & recounted, theme)
  • Bullying recounted
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In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

Nora hasn’t seen Clare for ten years. Not since Nora walked out of school one day and never went back.

Until, out of the blue, an invitation to Clare’s hen do arrives. Is this a chance for Nora to finally put her past behind her?

But something goes wrong. Very wrong.

Some things can’t stay secret for ever.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Suicide & attempted suicide
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use
  • Overdose
  • Nonconsensual drugging
  • Teen pregnancy recounted
  • Abortion recounted
  • Hospital
  • Blood depiction & physical injuries
  • Serious injury to a loved one
  • Forced hospitalisation
  • Scars
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a fiancé
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Car accident
  • Animal hunting mentioned

*Note: Adult-minor relationship & statutory rape briefly mentioned.

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