Tag Archives: Animal Death & Death of a Pet

Mask of the Deer Woman by Laurie L. Dove

To find a missing young woman, the new tribal marshal must also find herself. At rock bottom following her daughter’s murder, ex-Chicago detective Carrie Starr has nowhere to go but back to her roots. Starr’s father never talked much about the reservation that raised him, but they need a new tribal marshal as much as Starr needs a place to call home. In the last decade, too many young women have disappeared from the rez. Some dead, others just… gone. Now, local college student Chenoa Cloud is missing, and Starr falls into an investigation that leaves her drowning in memories of her daughter—the girl she failed to… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Rape mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption & alcoholism mentioned
  • Death of a child mentioned
  • Murder mentioned
  • Animal death

I Am Still Alive by Kate Alice Marshall

After: Jess is alone. Her cabin has burned to the ground. She knows if she doesn’t act fast, the cold will kill her before she has time to worry about food. But she is still alive—for now. Before: Jess hadn’t seen her survivalist, off-the-grid dad in over a decade. But after a car crash killed her mother and left her injured, she was forced to move to his cabin in the remote Canadian wilderness. Just as Jess was beginning to get to know him, a secret from his past paid them a visit, leaving her father dead and Jess stranded. After: With only her father’s dog for company, Jess must forage and hunt for food, build shelter, and keep herself warm. Some… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Depersonalization episode (on-page)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Alcoholism & alcohol abuse mentioned
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction and emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother & father
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Gun violence
  • Explosion
  • Car accident
  • Fire
  • Kidnapping & hostage situation
  • Blackmail
  • Drowning
  • Graphic animal death & dead bodies including the on-page death of a pet dog & hunting (theme)
  • Bullying recounted

Our Last Echoes by Kate Alice Marshall

Sophia’s first memory is of drowning. She remembers the darkness of the water and the briny taste as it fills her throat. She remembers the cold shock of going under. She remembers her mother pulling her to safety before disappearing forever. But Sophia has never been in the ocean. And her mother died years ago in a hospital. Or so she has been told her whole life. A series of clues have led Sophia to the island of Bitter Rock, Alaska, where she talked her way into a summer internship at the Landon Avian Research Center, the same center her mother worked at right before she died. There, she meets the disarmingly… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Memory loss
  • Panic attack
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Body horror
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Drowning
  • Animal death

The Last Final Girl by Stephen Graham Jones

Life in a slasher film is easy. You just have to know when to die. Aerial View: A suburban town in Texas. Everyone’s got an automatic garage door opener. All the kids jump off a perilous cliff into a shallow river as a rite of passage. The sheriff is a local celebrity. You know this town. You’re from this town. Zoom In: Homecoming princess, Lindsay. She’s just barely escaped death at the hands of a brutal, sadistic murderer in a Michael Jackson mask. Up on the cliff, she was rescued by a horse and bravely defeated the killer, alone, bra-less. Her story is already a legend. She’s this town’s heroic final girl, their virgin angel. Monster… Read more,

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol abuse
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Decapitation
  • Death of a child & sibling recounted
  • Graphic murder & stalking
  • Gun violence
  • Fire
  • Animal death & cruelty

I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones

It’s the summer before senior year for best friends Tolly Driver and Amber Dennison. They’re not in the marching band, they’re not in the FFA – they don’t really count. Amber’s the only Native student in town, and Tolly’s only on the radar due to his father’s recent death. This is all about to change. Bodies are going to be dropping fast in this small West Texas town. For a few unbearably hot days that will resonate through the decades and even get made into a TV movie, Tolly and Amber will be famous. Notorious even. Finally, everyone will know their names.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & racism
  • Self-harm
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Emesis & allergic reacction
  • Murder & torture
  • Car accident
  • Stalking
  • Bullying
  • Animal death & cruelty

Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones

Stephen Graham Jones returns with Night of the Mannequins, a contemporary horror story where a teen prank goes very wrong and all hell breaks loose: is there a supernatural cause, a psychopath on the loose, or both?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Suicide
  • Blood depiction
  • Emesis
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Animal death

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape (on-page)
  • Graphic animal death

The Rose Bargain by Sasha Peyton Smith

Every citizen of England is granted one bargain from their immortal fae queen. High society girls are expected to bargain for qualities that will win them suitors: a rare talent for piano in exchange for one’s happiest childhood memory. A perfect smile for one’s ability to taste. But Ivy Benton’s debut season arrives with a shocking twist: a competition to secure the heart of the Queen’s fae son, Prince Bram. A prize that could save Ivy’s family from ruin… and free her sister from the bargain that destroyed her. Yet every glittering fae deal has a rotting heart—and at the center of this contest is a plot that could destroy everything…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Physical & verbal child abuse mentioned (secondary character)
  • Memory loss
  • Suicide (implied)
  • Self-injury & loss of limb/appendages for magic
  • Alcohol consumption & mentions of smoking
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Emesis
  • Murder by stabbing
  • Drowning mentioned
  • Animal death (swan)
  • Bullying mentioned (secondary character)

Stay Dead by April Henry

In the aftermath of a car accident that claimed the life of her senator father, sixteen-year-old Milan finds herself adrift, expelled from her third boarding school. Milan’s mother, who has assumed the senate seat, diverts her private plane to pick up her daughter. But on their way home, a bomb rips off a wing and the plane crashes in the mountains. In her final moments, Milan’s mother entrusts her with a key. She reveals it will unlock the evidence that so many people have already died for—including Milan’s father. The only way Milan can survive, her mom tells her, is to let everyone believe she died with the other passengers.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Cancer
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Death of a father in a car accident
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Plane crash
  • Animal death

Your Blood, My Bones by Kelly Andrew

Wyatt Westlock has one plan for the farmhouse she’s just inherited — to burn it to the ground. But during her final walkthrough of her childhood home, she makes a shocking discovery in the basement — Peter, the boy she once considered her best friend, strung up in chains and left for dead. Unbeknownst to Wyatt, Peter has suffered hundreds of ritualistic deaths on her family’s property. Semi-immortal, Peter never remains dead for long, but he can’t really live, either. Not while he’s bound to the farm, locked in a cycle of grisly deaths and painful rebirths. There’s only one way for him to break free. He needs to end the Westlock line… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Self-injury
  • Suicide by cutting throat
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Minor body horror
  • Torture recounted
  • Physical assault (fistfights) & stabbing
  • Drowning mentioned
  • Choking
  • Cult
  • Fire & arson
  • Animal death (chicken)