Tag Archives: Cancer & Terminal Illness

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of cancer and terminal illness.

Good Girls Don’t by Victoria Dahl

Good Girls Don’t by Victoria Dahl

With her long ponytail and sparkling green eyes, Tessa Donovan looks more like the girl next door than a businesswoman – or a heartbreaker. Which may explain why Detective Luke Asher barely notices her when he arrives to investigate a break-in at her family’s brewery. He’s got his own problems – starting with the fact that his partner, Simone, is pregnant and everyone thinks he’s the father. Tessa has her hands full, too. Her brother’s playboy ways may be threatening the business, and the tension could tear her tight-knit family apart. In fact, the only thing that could unite the Donovan boys is seeing a man come after… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Cheating mentioned
  • Pregnancy mentioned
  • Ex-wife with breast cancer
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of parents in a car accident recounted
  • Gun & knife violence mentioned

Only For Tonight by Kendall Ryan

Only For Tonight by Kendall Ryan

Spotting a hooker on a city street corner is not an abnormal thing. Me bringing one home? Well, that’s a first. But this girl . . . She’s in trouble. And this asshole is not a guy she wants to go home with. So I do the exact thing I shouldn’t—I offer to bring her home with me instead. She says this is the first time she’s ever done this, which is adorably ironic. Then proceeds to tell me a sob story about needing money to care for the baby who was left on her doorstep. That’s when my stomach starts to clench. I think she might be telling the truth. So I do what any respectable man would do—I take her home, stopping to pick up diapers and… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sex work
  • Child abandonment, on-page
  • Terminal cancer (sc)
  • Poverty
  • Homelessness

Throw Like a Girl by Sarah Henning

Throw Like a Girl by Sarah Henning

When softball star Liv Rodinsky throws one ill-advised punch during the most important game of the year, she loses her scholarship to her fancy private school, her boyfriend, and her teammates all in one fell swoop. With no other options, Liv is forced to transfer to the nearest public school, Northland, where she’ll have to convince their coach she deserves a spot on the softball team, all while facing both her ex and the teammates of the girl she punched. Every. Single. Day. Enter Grey, the injured star quarterback with amazing hair and a foolproof plan: if Liv joins the football team as his temporary replacement, he’ll make sure she gets… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Lesbomisia
  • Physical injuries (minor sports injuries)
  • Parent with cancer
  • Physical assault resulting in a broken nose

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

Beginning in 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus. Once unleashed, the Arctic Plague will reshape life on earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy. In a theme park designed for terminally ill children… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Suicide
  • COVID-19 pandemic
  • Cancer & terminal illness
  • Hospitalisation
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child
  • Gun violence mentioned
  • Animal death & cruelty
  • Animal experimentation

All I Want for Christmas by Maggie Knox

All I Want for Christmas by Maggie Knox

When Sadie and Max are selected as contestants on the famed reality singing show Starmaker, each thinks they’ve finally gotten their big Nashville break. But then they’re paired up for duet week and stun the world with their romantic onstage chemistry. With fans going wild for #Saxie the network demands that they remain a duo on and offstage, or exit the competition. Faking a relationship until their final performance in the Starmaker holiday special shouldn’t be too hard, except for one small problem–Sadie and Max can’t stand each other. But with their… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexual harassment
  • Alcoholism
  • Death of a grandmother
  • Death of a mother from cancer

The Twisted Dead by Darcy Coates

The Twisted Dead by Darcy Coates

Keira is ready for her life to return to normal. Though, to be fair, normal is a tall ask when your ability to see ghosts has landed you the job of groundskeeper in a small town’s cemetery. When Keira receives an invitation to dinner at Dane Crispin’s crumbling ancestral estate, she knows she can’t refuse. The last living descendant of the Crispin family is reclusive. Keira only met him once…on the night he tried to kill her. The mansion is steeped in history that is equal parts complicated and bloody. Keira senses the presence of restless spirits the moment she steps through its door. And Dane, waiting for her inside, wants to ask for her help.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Familial estrangement mentioned
  • Amnesia
  • Parent with a chronically, and possibly terminally, ill parent (sc)
  • Blood and physical injuries, on-page
  • Needles
  • Arson and damage to property discussed
  • Murder including murder by stabbing and knife violence, on-page
  • Gun violence

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism (r slur)
  • Fatphobia & body-shaming
  • Child physical, verbal and emotional abuse including gaslighting
  • Grooming and sexually predatory behaviour toward a minor discussed
  • Parent with Hoarding Disorder
  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
  • Eating disorder (bulimia)
  • Graphic disordered eating including food restriction, bingeing, purging and over-exercising (theme)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis
  • Death of a mother from terminal breast cancer

With Love from London by Sarah Jio

With Love from London by Sarah Jio

When librarian Valentina Baker was a teenager, her mother, Eloise, unexpectedly fled to her native London, leaving Val and her father on their own. Now in her thirties and fresh out of a failed marriage, Val feels a nagging disenchantment with her life–and knows she is still heartbroken over her mother’s abandonment. In a bittersweet twist of fate, Val receives word that Eloise has passed away, leaving Val her Primrose Hill apartment and the deed to a bookshop Val never knew she’d owned. Though the news is devastating, Val finds herself more determined than ever to… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Miscarriage
  • Death of a parent from cancer

Enemies With Benefits by Roxie Noir

Enemies With Benefits by Roxie Noir

Eli Loveless was my nemesis from the first day of kindergarten until we graduated high school. Everything I did, he had to do better – and vice versa. The day he left town was the best day of my life. Ten years later, the day he came back was the worst. Now he’s my co-worker. Grown-up Eli Loveless is sexy as sin. He’s hotter than asphalt in the summer. The irritating kid I once knew is gone, and he’s been replaced by a man with green eyes, perfect abs, and a cocky smile. It’s bad that I want him. It’s worse that he… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Nonconsensual distribution of nude photographs
  • Sexual harassment
  • Slut shaming
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a father mentioned
  • Death of a mother from lung cancer mentioned
  • Bullying recounted

By Any Other Name by Lauren Kate

By Any Other Name by Lauren Kate

What she doesn’t know about love could fill a book. With a successful career as a romance editor and an engagement to a man who checks off all ninety-nine boxes on her carefully curated list, Lanie’s more than good. She’s killing it. Then she’s given the opportunity of a lifetime: to work with world-renowned author and her biggest inspiration in love and life—the Noa Callaway. All Lanie has to do is cure Noa’s writer’s block and she’ll get the promotion she’s always dreamed of. Simple, right? But there’s a reason no one has ever seen or spoken to the mysterious Noa Calloway… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Parent with Alzheimer’s
  • Death of parent from cancer