I consider my books Dark Epic Fantasy, and I made sure the blurbs reflect the tone and content readers can expect.

Personally, I love tropes. Those graphics and arrows that promise adventure, quirks, and, sometimes, romantic overtures.

Trigger warnings, however, are another matter. Even when they’re funny.

That’s not to say I haven’t dealt with past trauma. I have. But that’s not something I’m going to get into here, or publicly—ever. What I will say is that I understand why trigger warnings exist and why I didn’t add them to my books.

I have a knack for weeding out books I don’t want to read simply by reading the descriptions.

For example, if I pick up a dark romance and the blurb says something like, “She has reason to second-guess his intentions. After all, she knows she doesn’t want to be manipulated like that again…” then I can probably assume a past relationship caused some sort of trauma. That’s usually enough information for me to decide whether I want to read it. Most of the time, I’ll pass, unless a close friend recommends it, or curiosity gets the better of me, and I decide to do a little extra research first.

The same logic applies to genres.

If a book is labeled medieval fantasy, I can reasonably expect oppression, misuse of power, and sometimes darker historical realities like slavery, serfdom, assault, or even incest, because those things existed in history. In thrillers or horror, I expect triggering events to happen to characters. The same goes for crime stories and many historical dramas.

And yet, I rarely see trigger warnings attached to those genres. It simply comes with the territory.

Back to my books:

Dark fantasy, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is:

A genre of fiction combining elements of horror and fantasy, typically sinister, bleak, or disturbing in tone or subject matter.

My books lean less toward horror and more toward disturbing or heavy themes. Unless you count the “horrors of war” mentioned in Mirror and Sword. Personally, I didn’t think that required much elaboration. It’s war.

Apparently, it does.

Which brings me to the bigger question: Why is it up to the author to guess what trauma every reader might have endured?

Short answer: it isn’t.

But I do understand the argument. Why read the blurb or do a little extra digging when we live in a world where most things are handed to us? It’s a sign of the times, and perhaps I should get on board before I end up banned.

While I occasionally share tropes as a way to lure readers in, the only time I’ve ever shared trigger warnings was when recruiting beta readers.

Because of recent conversations, I’ll now be adding those warnings to the author notes on my website. I haven’t yet updated the individual book pages with this information.

To be clear, this isn’t high on my priority list at the moment. Dagger is still under construction, and deadlines are looming.

But check back in a week… or a month or two… and you should start seeing those updates appear.

What are your thoughts on trigger warnings and tropes? I’m curious to know, seriously.

Until next time, keep reading ✌🏽,

~Devon