Animal Cruelty, Abuse & Torture – Trigger Warning Database

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality: her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world. That is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault. Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Racism, misogyny & ableism
Emesis
Self-injury (for blood) & mentions of self-starvation
Chronic illness (IBS & Crohn’s)
Needles discussed
Animal death & experimentation (including death of a cat)

The Girls Before by Kate Alice Marshall

Audrey is a search and rescue expert who never stopped looking for her ex-best friend, Janie, who disappeared when they were teenagers. Janie used to love the local legend of a forest witch who saves girls from bad men, but Audrey knows now that for every one saved, there’s always another one lost. When she stumbles upon evidence in the forest that a teenage runaway might have actually been kidnapped from land belonging to the town’s most prominent family, she will have to dig through decades of secrets to reveal the biggest one of all: what happened to the girls before.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Kidnapping & confinement
Physical injury & body horror
Murder
Gun violence
Animal cruelty

Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez

There might be no such a thing as a perfect guy, but Xavier Rush comes disastrously close. A gorgeous veterinarian giving Greek god vibes—all while cuddling a tiny kitten? Immediately yes. That is until Xavier opens his mouth and proves that even sculpted gods can say the absolute wrong thing. Like, really wrong. Of course, there’s nothing Samantha loves more than proving an asshole wrong…unless, of course, he can admit he made a mistake. But after one incredible and seemingly endless date—possibly the best in living history—Samantha is forced to admit the truth… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Infidelity (secondary character, on-page)
Physical & emotional child abuse recounted & discussed (off-page)
Parent with dementia (on-page)
Animal abuse & neglect mentioned

The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig

A group of friends investigates the mystery of a strange staircase in the woods. While on a camping trip, five high-schoolers bound by an oath to always protect one another discover something in the middle of the forest: a mysterious staircase to nowhere. One friend climbs up but does not come back down. Then the staircase disappears. Twenty years later it reappears, and the friends return to find the lost boy—and what lies beyond the staircase.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Child abuse
Anxiety & depression
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Self-harm & suicidal ideation
Drug use
Body horror
Emesis
Animal abuse

Dead Happy by Josh Silver

Friends. Welcome to Elmhallow. Seb, along with a select group of participants, finds himself washed up on an isolated island called Elmhallow, under the guardianship of a mysterious couple. As the experiment steps up another level, Seb is forced to team up with Eleanor once more. But where is Finn? And what does HappyHead have in store for them next?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Homophobia
Eugenics
Suicide mentioned
Drug use recounted
Blood & injury depiction
Emesis mentioned
Murder & torture
Physical assault
Animal death & cruelty

The Fourth Monkey by J.D. Barker

For over five years, the Four Monkey Killer has terrorized the residents of Chicago. When his body is found, the police quickly realize he was on his way to deliver one final message, one which proves he has taken another victim who may still be alive. As the lead investigator on the 4MK task force, Detective Sam Porter knows even in death, the killer is far from finished. When he discovers a personal diary in the jacket pocket of the body, Porter finds himself caught up in the mind of a psychopath, unraveling a twisted history in hopes of finding one last girl, all while struggling with personal demons of his own.… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Homophobia
Rape
Child abuse & neglect
Domestic violence
Substance addiction & alcoholism
Drug use
Kidnapping & captivity
Murder
Torture
Gun violence
Animal death & cruelty

Trial by Desire by Courtney Milan

Lady Kathleen Carhart knows all about imperfect marriages. For years, she has secretly helped women escape their violent husbands. She feels she owes it to womankind. After all, her husband is handsome, gentle, amusing…and best of all, he left the country three years ago. She isn’t even bitter about that anymore. Mostly. When Ned Carhart returns in the middle of her most delicate operation to date, her life is thrown into turmoil. She’ll do anything to preserve her secrets…even if it means risking her heart to the man who abandoned her once.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Misogyny
Domestic violence
Depression
Suicidal ideation recounted
Physical injury (broken leg)
Animal abuse

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Everything readers expect from Follett is here: intrigue, fast-paced action, and passionate romance. But what makes The Pillars of the Earth extraordinary is the time the twelfth century; the place feudal England; and the subject the building of a glorious cathedral. Follett has re-created the crude, flamboyant England of the Middle Ages in every detail. The vast forests, the walled towns, the castles, and the monasteries become a familiar landscape. Against this richly imagined and intricately interwoven backdrop, filled with the ravages of war and the rhythms of daily life, the master storyteller draws the reader irresistibly into the intertwined… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Rape
Domestic violence
Animal abuse

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last—inexorably—into evil.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Ableism (r slur)
Slut-shaming
Homophobia & slurs
Racism & racial slur
Sexual assault & incest (implied)
Suicide & mentions of suicidal ideation
Drug abuse
Emesis
Murder
Poisoning
Animal death & cruelty

My Husband’s Wife by Alice Feeney

Eden Fox, an artist on the brink of her big break, sets off for a run before her first exhibition. When she returns to the home she recently moved into, Spyglass, an enchanting old house in Hope Falls, nothing is as it should be. Her key doesn’t fit. A woman, eerily similar to her, answers the door. And her husband insists that the stranger is his wife. One house. One husband. Two women. Someone is lying. Six months earlier, a reclusive Londoner called Birdy, reeling from a life-changing diagnosis, inherits Spyglass. This unexpected gift from a long-lost grandmother brings her to the pretty seaside village of Hope Falls. But… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Child abuse & neglect mentioned
Infidelity
Suicide mentioned
Alcohol consumption
Emesis
Terminal cancer
Death of a parent mentioned
Murder
Car accident
Animal death & cruelty mentioned