Contemporary – Page 115 – Trigger Warning Database

Private Lessons by Cynthia Salaysay

Private Lessons by Cynthia Salaysay

After seventeen-year-old Claire Alalay’s father’s death, only music has helped her channel her grief. Claire likes herself best when she plays his old piano, a welcome escape from the sadness — and her traditional Filipino mother’s prayer groups. In the hopes of earning a college scholarship, Claire auditions for Paul Avon, a prominent piano teacher, who agrees to take Claire as a pupil. Soon Claire loses herself in Paul’s world and his way of digging into a composition’s emotional core. She pra… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Statutory rape, on-page
Paedophilia & grooming
Teacher-student relationship
Emotional & verbal abuse
Depression
Self-harm
Alcohol consumption
Smoking
Death of a parent from cancer

Saucy by Cynthia Kadohata

Saucy by Cynthia Kadohat and illustrated by Marianna Raskin

Being a quadruplet can make it hard to stand out from the crowd. Becca’s three brothers all have something that makes them…them. Jake has his music and dancing, Jammer plays hockey, and K.C. thinks they’re all living in a simulation and doesn’t see the point of doing much of anything. Becca is the only one with nothing to make her special. But when she finds a tiny, sick piglet on the side of the road, Becca knows this is it. This is her thing. She names the piglet Saucy and between her… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Animal cruelty
Animal illness & injury

With You All the Way by Cynthia Hand

With You All the Way by Cynthia Hand

Ada’s life is a mess. She just caught her boyfriend cheating on her after a humiliating attempt at losing her virginity, and she’s had it up to here with her gorgeous older sister’s unsolicited advice.

But things really hit the fan during a family vacation in Hawaii, where Ada discovers her own mother is having an affair. Apparently, everyone is falling into bed with people they shouldn’t. Everyone except Ada. But wh… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Cheating
Alcohol abuse

The How and the Why by Cynthia Hand

The How and the Why by Cynthia Hand

Cassandra McMurtrey has the best parents a girl could ask for. They’ve given Cass a life she wouldn’t trade for the world. She has everything she needs—except maybe the one thing she wants. Like, to know who she is. Where she came from. Questions her adoptive parents can’t answer, no matter how much they love her.

But eighteen years ago, someone wrote Cass a series of letters. And they may just hold the answers Cass has been searching for.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Racism
Depression
Alcoholism
Attempted suicide
Drug abuse
Heart disease
Hospitalisation

Don’t Let Go by Cynthia Dane and Hildred Billings

Don’t Let Go by Cynthia Dane & Hildred Billings

Rose Wu’s ordinary life as a concierge clerk was only meant to be a means to a financial end. Yet there is one resident in her high-rise luxury building who makes coming to work worth it.

Cindy Ling, the enigmatic businesswoman who always has a lady on her arm, also has a wink to spare the mild-mannered clerk looking her way…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Sexism
Homomisia
Classism

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

Mr. and Mrs. Fang called it art. Their children called it mischief.

Performance artists Caleb and Camille Fang dedicated themselves to making great art. But when an artist’s work lies in subverting normality, it can be difficult to raise well-adjusted children. Just ask Buster and Annie Fang. For as long as they can remember, they starred (unwillingly) in their parents’ madcap pieces. But now that… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Ableism
Incest mentioned
Animal death mentioned

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson

Lillian and Madison were unlikely roommates and yet inseparable friends at their elite boarding school. But then Lillian had to leave the school unexpectedly in the wake of a scandal and they’ve barely spoken since. Until now, when Lillian gets a letter from Madison pleading for her help.

Madison’s twin stepkids are moving in with her family and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Death of a mother from suicide
Attempted infanticide by overdose

Once We Were Starlight by Mia Sheridan

Once We Were Starlight by Mia Sheridan

Sundara: the lush and forbidden oasis in the desert where men travel to watch acts of sexual deviancy, and the only existence seventeen-year-old Karys has ever known. But despite a life where secrets and sin are in high supply, and freedom remains far beyond their reach, Karys and her partner Zakai find safety in each other, their passionate love the light that helps them both survive the darkness.

Very suddenly, Karys and Zakai find themselves in the bright and confusing world of New York City,…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Sex trafficking
Sexual assault, off-page
Unplanned pregnancy

Fallen by Mia Sheridan

Fallen by Mia Sheridan

Scarlett Lattimore arrives at Lilith House, an abandoned mansion built in 1876, that later housed a reform school for troubled girls, to start a new life with her seven-year-old daughter.

But between the nearby town with the strange, disconcerting feel, the deputy sheriff who is equal parts intriguing and suspicious, and the discovery that their new home holds a dark and violent past, Scarlett soon begins to question her rash decision… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Rape, on-page
Animal cruelty

Where the Truth Lives by Mia Sheridan

Where the Truth Lives by Mia Sheridan

When the director of a local mental health hospital is found murdered and mutilated, Homicide Detective Reed Davies is first on scene. What was done to the body is gruesome. Inexplicable. But Reed is dealt another curveball when he finds that the doctor who discovered the victim is someone Reed is intimately familiar with—a woman with whom he shared one passionate night weeks before.

Dr. Elizabeth Nolan is somehow tangled up in the crime, and even while Reed must now question her… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

Rape of a child recounted
Domestic abuse
Murder
Kidnapping