Bitterblue: Graceling Realm, Book 3

Knives and swords are the weapons of choice. Bitterblue knifes to death a man who was trying to kidnap her and breaks her arm in another scuffle. Other key characters are stabbed and attacked, with some discussion of surgery to repair intestines. Two characters commit suicide (hanging and jumping off a bridge). Saf is always getting into fistfights. Talk reaches Bitterblue of fires set and killings of prisoners and others in her kingdom. Worse than that is what Bitterblue uncovers about her dead father's reign. He was clearly a psychopath who enjoyed torture, mutilation (ritual cutting, eyes removed, experiments conducted on even pregnant women and infants), and rape of numerous victims (piles of bones are found in the river). His mind control of his advisors, whom he makes his accomplices, drives them mad. Bitterblue's childhood memories of her father and his treatment of his mother slowly resurface, as do memories of her mother's fierce protection of her because she knew he especially liked to torture and kill young girls.