Tag Archives: Animal Death & Death of a Pet

HappyHead by Josh Silver

We are in an epidemic. An epidemic of unhappiness. Friends, here is the good news: HappyHead has the answer. When Seb is offered a place on a radical retreat designed to solve the national crisis of teenage unhappiness, he is determined to change how people see him and make his parents proud. But as he finds himself drawn to the enigmatic Finn, Seb starts to question the true nature of the challenges they must undergo. The deeper into the programme the boys get, the more disturbing the assessments become, until it’s clear there may be no escape…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & outing mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use mentioned
  • Overdose mentioned
  • Emesis
  • Animal death

The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas

Tasha and her older sister Alice may look alike, but they couldn’t be more different. Tasha’s married with two children and still lives in their hometown near Bristol. Alice is a high-flying scientist who travels the world with her equally successful husband. Yet each sister would trust the other with her life. When Tasha and her husband Aaron need a break and Alice offers to stay in their home with the kids, Tasha knows her family is in safe hands. She couldn’t be more wrong. The call from home is devastating. Alice and her husband Kyle have been attacked, leaving Alice in intensive care and Kyle dead. Rushing to the hospital, Tasha… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Home invasion
  • Alcohol concumption
  • Murder mentioned
  • Kidnapping of a child mentioned
  • Drowning
  • Animal death mentioned

Under Your Spell by Laura Wood

Dumped by her cheating ex, fired from her dream job, about to lose her flat: Clementine Monroe is not having a good day. So when her sisters get her drunk and suggest reviving a childhood ritual called the breakup spell, she doesn’t see the harm in it. But now Clemmie has accidentally ruined a funeral, had her first one-night stand, and she’s stuck with a new job she definitely doesn’t want – spending six weeks alone with the gorgeous and very-off-limits rock star, Theo Eliott. He’s the most famous man on the planet. Her life’s a disaster. When it comes to love, Clemmie is learning you should be careful what you wish for…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Statutory rape & teen pregnancy mentioned*
  • Image-based sexual abuse (paparazzi publish intimate photos of them)
  • Harassment & loss of privacy from paparazzi (on-page & recounted)
  • Parental abandonment & neglect recounted
  • Infidelity (ex-partner) & mentions of parental infidelity*
  • Minor physical injury & emesis
  • Dieting (protagonist)
  • Death of a grandparent from a heart attack
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use recounted
  • Physical assault
  • Animal death

*Context : The protagonist’s 40-year-old father cheated on her mother and impregnated three women, including a 17-year-old teenage girl.

The Songbird & the Heart of Stone by Carissa Broadbent

Mische lost everything when she was forcibly Turned into a vampire – her home, her humanity, and most devastating of all, the love of the sun god to whom she had devoted her life. Now, sentenced to death for murdering the vampire prince who Turned her, redemption feels impossible. But when Mische is saved by Asar, the bastard prince of the House of Shadow with a past as brutal as his scars, she’s forced into a mission worse than execution: a journey to the underworld to resurrect the god of death himself. Yet, Mische’s punishment may be the key to her… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Statutory rape & child sexual abuse recounted
  • Sex work recounted (secondary character)
  • Exile recounted
  • Nightmares
  • Dementia (secondary character)
  • Blood & injury depiction (scars, burns, broken leg, etc) & blood-drinking, including protagonist with facial and body scars and vision impairment (loss of left eye)
  • Emesis
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Murder of sister & friend recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Infanticide recounted
  • Physical assault
  • Loss of autonomy (mind invasion)
  • Imprisonment
  • Murder of a pet dog recounted

Boys, Beasts and Men by Sam J. Miller

Despite his ability to control the ambient digital cloud, a foster teen falls for a clever con-man. Luring bullies to a quarry, a boy takes clearly enumerated revenge through unnatural powers of suggestion. In the aftermath of a shapeshifting alien invasion, a survivor fears that he brought something out of the Arctic to infect the rest of the world. A rebellious group of queer artists create a new identity that transcends even the anonymity of death.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & racism, including slurs
  • Child abuse
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Drug abuse
  • AIDS
  • Murder
  • Physical assault (mugging)
  • Animal deaths

Straight as a Wheel by K.A. Merikan

Zolt. Gay. Player. Predator. Fetish: Straight guys. Leo. Straight. Biker. Prey. Fetish: True love. Zolt knows what he wants from life–cold hard cash so that he can enjoy an early retirement in the Carribean as rent boys serve him drinks on the beach. Meanwhile, he’s got his pawn shop as a front for illegal operations, and a baseball bat to deal with troublemakers. When it comes to men, Zolt loves the chase, and his favourite, most elusive prey is curious straight guys. He goes out of his way to seduce and devour them. If he can be their first, all the better. His next mark? A biker. And… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & coming out themes
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Organised crime (outlaw motorcycle club)
  • Gun violence
  • Hostage situation
  • Animal death (pet)

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

Beastly Bones by William Ritter

In 1892, New Fiddleham, New England, things are never quite what they seem, especially when Abigail Rook and her eccentric employer, R. F. Jackaby, are called upon to investigate the supernatural. First, members of a particularly vicious species of shape-shifters disguise themselves as a litter of kittens. A day later, their owner is found murdered, with a single mysterious puncture wound to her neck. Then, in nearby Gad’s Valley, dinosaur bones from a recent dig go missing, and an unidentifiable beast attacks animals… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Animal death

An Education in Malice by S.T. Gibson

Deep in the forgotten hills of Massachusetts stands Saint Perpetua’s College. Isolated and ancient, it is not a place for timid girls. Here, secrets are currency, ambition is lifeblood, and strange ceremonies welcome students into the fold. On her first day of class, Laura Sheridan is thrust into an intense academic rivalry with the beautiful and enigmatic Carmilla. Together, they are drawn into the confidence of their demanding poetry professor, De Lafontaine, who holds her own dark obsession with Carmilla. But as their rivalry blossoms into something far more delicious, Laura must confront her own strange hungers. Tangled in a… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism, misogyny & homophobia
  • Alcohol consumption & smoking
  • Blood & gore depiction including emesis, blood-drinking, dead bodies & decapitation
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Murder
  • Death of a kitten mentioned (brief)

Wisteria by Adalyn Grace

Blythe Hawthorne has never let anyone tell her what to do—not society, not her overprotective father, and certainly not the man she’s bound herself to, no matter how rude and insufferable he is. In fact, she’s determined to be a thorn in his side for the rest of her days, even as he ensures that her life in his palace is anything but a fairytale. But as Blythe discovers a new side of herself linked to his past, she’ll have to decide if she’s willing to let an unexpected spark ignite…and to discover the truth about who she really is.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Hallucinations
  • Emesis
  • Blood & gore depiction and dead bodies
  • Plague mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Poisoning
  • Animal death