A Court of Mist and Fury: A Court of Thorns and Roses, Book 2

Murder, mayhem, mind control, imprisonment, torture, and treachery are part of the landscape and often very personal: "I slew Tamlin's brothers on sight. I held their minds, and rendered them helpless while I cut them into pieces, then melted their brains inside their skulls. And when I got to the High Lord's bedroom -- he was dead. And my father ... had killed Tamlin's mother as well." Even sympathetic characters will break bones or otherwise maim people they want to punish. Powerful characters are perfectly willing to abandon entire countries to horrible fates to save their own. Descriptions of gore, body parts, and gruesome fates -- past, present, and imagined -- are plentiful. One character drinks blood; others are often battered and bleeding. Military training, including hand-to-hand fighting, is part of the story; so is sometimes-mortal combat involving both magic and physical weapons. One of the characters is recently freed from decades of imprisonment as a villainous character's sex slave; several characters are tormented by their own dark deeds of killing and betrayal in Book 1.

There's constant sexual tension and banter between Feyre and Rhysand, along with several vivid, prolonged, explicit sex scenes, and lots of foreplay, licking of body parts, and fantasy. Most involve Feyre and either Rhysand or Tamlin (Book 1's love interest, who seems to have taken a turn to the dark side), but there's also a multi-page scene involving a naked villainess sprawled across the bed of one of the male characters and making suggestive gestures in an attempt to seduce him.

Frequent "f--k," "s--t," "ass," and Feyre's favorite insult, "Prick!" Also plentiful "damn" and "hell."

Characters, all of whom are adults, drink wine, beer, ale, and the like.

Parents need to know that A Court of Mist and Fury, sequel to Sarah J. Maas best-selling A Court of Thorns and Roses, has lots of sex and gore. It's aimed at 14-and-up readers but includes several prolonged, intense, explicit sex scenes, most featuring protagonist Feyre with two "males" (they're faeries, so they're never called "men") and another spotlighting a villainous priestess sprawled naked and making suggestive moves on the bed of a character she's trying to seduce. The story is saturated with violence, from imprisonment, forced marriage, and mind control to brutal massacres of loved ones and family members, and one character drinks blood. Crude and profane language ("f--k," "s--t," "ass," "prick," "hell," "damn," and the like) is plentiful. On the positive side, the plot's a page-turner (a good thing, as there are lots of pages). There's a strong theme of characters struggling to do the right thing and protect their loved ones, even when all the options are bad; the two central figures, Feyre and Rhysand, have emerged from the events of Book 1 traumatized by guilt, struggling for redemption, and willing to sacrifice themselves to save others.