Tag Archives: Animal Death & Death of a Pet

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of animal death, including the death of a pet or animal companion.

See also Hunting, Animal abuse & cruelty, and Animal illness & injury.

Dark Triumph by Robin LaFevers

Dark Triumph by Robin LaFevers

The convent has returned Sybella to a life that nearly drove her mad. Her father’s rage and brutality are terrifying, and her brother’s love is equally monstrous. When she discovers an unexpected ally imprisoned in the dungeons, will the daughter of Death find something other than vengeance to live for?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child abuse recounted
  • Sex work shaming
  • Incest (brother-sister & father-daughter)
  • Rape & attempted rape, on-page & recounted (multiple scenes)
  • Paedophilia & child sexual abuse
  • Pregnancy from rape mentioned
  • Childbirth mentioned
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Graphic physical injuries & illness,
  • Facial scars and disfigurement mentioned
  • Death of a sister, off-page
  • Death of a newborn daughter recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Attempted infanticide by drowning mentioned
  • Infanticide by snapping a newborn’s neck recounted, on-page
  • Knife, sword & arrow violence
  • Poisoning
  • Imprisonment
  • Animal death (dog) mentioned
  • Animal hunting
  • War themes & battle scenes including discussions of sieges

The Wild Girls by Phoebe Morgan

The Wild Girls by Phoebe Morgan

It’s been years since Grace, Felicity, Alice and Hannah were together – The Wild Girls, as they were once called, are no longer so wild. Alice has settled with a new baby and partner. Hannah is now a teacher. Grace has gone to ground. Only Felicity seems to have the same spark she once had. And now Felicity has invited them all on the weekend of a lifetime – a mini-break in Botswana to celebrate her birthday, a chance to put that night two years ago behind them, when things went so very wrong between them, and their bomb-proof friendship was shattered for ever. But on arriving.. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Paedophilia & child sexual abuse
  • Incest
  • Infertility
  • Miscarriage
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Animal death

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

One day, the mother was a mother but then, one night, she was quite suddenly something else. At home full-time with her two-year-old son, an artist finds she is struggling. She is lonely and exhausted. She had imagined – what was it she had imagined? Her husband, always travelling for his work, calls her from faraway hotel rooms. One more toddler bedtime and she fears she might lose her mind. Instead, quite suddenly, she starts gaining things, surprising things that happen one night when her child will not sleep. Sharper canines. Strange new patches of hair. New… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Body horror
  • Animal death (cat)

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

‘It came from the woods. Most strange things do.’

Five mysterious, spine-tingling stories follow journeys into (and out of?) the eerie abyss. These chilling tales spring from the macabre imagination of acclaimed and award-winning comic creator Emily Carroll. Come take a walk in the woods and see what awaits you there…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Body horror
  • Dismemberment
  • Death of a mother
  • Death of a brother
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Animal death & dead bodies
  • Animal hunting

Forging Silver into Stars by Brigid Kemmerer

Forging Silver into Stars by Brigid Kemmerer

Magic has been banished in the land of Syhl Shallow for as long as best friends Jax and Callyn can remember. They once loved the stories of the powerful magesmiths and mythical scravers who could conjure fire or control ice, but now they’ve learned that magic only leads to danger: magic is what killed Callyn’s parents, leaving her alone to raise her younger sister. Magic never helped Jax, whose leg was crushed in an accident that his father has been punishing him for ever since. Magic won’t save either of them when the tax collector comes calling, threatening to take their homes if…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Rape
  • Child abuse
  • Death of a parent
  • Kidnapping
  • Animal death

Near the Bone by Christina Henry

Near the Bone by Christina Henry

Mattie can’t remember a time before she and William lived alone on a mountain together. She must never make him upset. But when Mattie discovers the mutilated body of a fox in the woods, she realizes that they’re not alone after all. There’s something in the woods that wasn’t there before, something that makes strange cries in the night, something with sharp teeth and claws. When three strangers appear on the mountaintop looking for the creature in the woods, Mattie knows their presence will anger William. Terrible things happen when William is angry.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Graphic domestic violence including physical beatings, deprivation of food, water and shelter, and denial of autonomy (theme)
  • Martial rape, off-page
  • Miscarriage & stillbirth recounted
  • Chronic arm injury
  • Emesis, on-page
  • Blood & gore depiction including the hanging of dead bodies
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder
  • Strangulation, on-page
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Animal death and dead bodies (fox, bear)

The Sullivan Sisters by Kathryn Ormsbee

The Sullivan Sisters by Kathryn Ormsbee

That painful fact of life couldn’t be truer for the Sullivan sisters. Once, they used to be close, sharing secrets inside homemade blanket castles. Now, life in the Sullivan house means closed doors and secrets left untold. Fourteen-year-old Murphy, an aspiring magician, is shocked by the death of Siegfried, her pet turtle. Seventeen-year-old Claire is bound for better things than her Oregonian hometown—until she receives a crushing rejection from her dream college. And eighteen-year-old Eileen is nursing a growing addiction in the wake of life-altering news… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse recounted
  • Alcoholism
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Terminal cancer (leukemia)
  • Emesis
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Animal death & neglect

The Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith Donohue

The Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith Donohue

Ever since he nearly drowned in the ocean three years earlier, ten-year-old Jack Peter Keenan has been deathly afraid to venture outdoors. Refusing to leave his home in a small coastal town in Maine, Jack Peter spends his time drawing monsters. When those drawings take on a life of their own, no one is safe from the terror they inspire. His mother, Holly, begins to hear strange sounds in the night coming from the ocean, and she seeks answers from the local Catholic priest and his Japanese housekeeper, who fill her head with stories of shipwrecks and ghosts. His father, Tim, wanders the beach, frantically searching for a strange… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Cheating
  • Pregnancy
  • Miscarriage
  • Death of a child
  • Animal death

Bad Witch Burning by Jessica Lewis

Bad Witch Burning by Jessica Lewis

Katrell can talk to the dead. And she wishes it made more money. She’s been able to support her unemployed mother–and Mom’s deadbeat-boyfriend-of-the-week–so far, but it isn’t enough. Money’s still tight, and to complicate things, Katrell has started to draw attention. Not from this world–from beyond. And it comes with a warning: STOP or there will be consequences. Katrell is willing to call the ghosts on their bluff; she has no choice. What do ghosts know of having sleep for dinner? But when her… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Domestic abuse
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Emotional abuse & gaslighting
  • Suicidal ideation (passive)
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Gun violence
  • Fire
  • Graphic animal cruelty
  • Animal death (dog)
  • Poverty

Valor by John Gwynne

Valor by John Gwynne

War has erupted in the Banished Lands as the race for power intensifies. Corban flees his homeland searching for peace, but he soon discovers that there is no haven in the west as the agents of Rhin and roaming bands of giants hound his every step. Veradis leaves the battleground and rushes to his King’s side. But he has witnessed both combat and betrayal and his duty weighs heavily upon him. Maquin seeks only revenge, but pirate slavers and the brutal world of pit-fighting stand in his way. Nathair becomes… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Rape
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Animal death