Tag Archives: Child Abuse & Neglect

Triple Threat by K. Webster

I’m a prisoner in a prestigious world. A perfect princess locked in a tower. My father will never let me go. Not that I could leave. I would never abandon my little sister. Hope comes in the form of a devilishly handsome man with dark eyes and darker secrets. With each encounter, I’m lured deeper into the labyrinth. The danger lurking beneath his surface calls to me, even as it warns me away. Except there’s a new side of him every time we meet. A different danger each time we touch. It’s as if three different men want to devour me. He’s not just one villain. He’s three.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Psychological & physical child abuse with implications of incestuous child sexual abuse (father-daughter)

Redeeming 6 by Chloe Walsh

With his world unravelling around him, and pressure rising at home, Joey Lynch’s life has never been in more turmoil. Desperate to prove himself worthy of the only person he’s ever put his trust in, Joey fights to stay away from a world that threatens to destroy everything. But with the odds stacking against him by the day, can he keep his head above water? Unwilling to give up on the boy she loves, Aoife Molloy fights to save her best friend from the edge of self-destruction. Drowning in a world she doesn’t understand, with only her heart to guide her, Aoife refuses to turn her back on Joey, no matter how badly the odds are stacked against them.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape & attempted rape
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Foster care system experiences recounted
  • Parental infidelity
  • Substance addiction & parent with alcoholism
  • Suicidal ideation & attempted suicide
  • Miscarriage mentioned
  • Arson
  • Graphic bullying (on-page)

Saving 6 by Chloe Walsh

The second born son in a broken marriage, Joey Lynch has spent a lifetime picking up the pieces of a family unravelling. When his older brother Darren skips town, twelve-year-old Joey finds himself thrown into the role of protector to his younger siblings and mother. Plagued by self-loathing, and furious with the world, he grapples with teenage life, his unwavering sense of duty to his family, while balancing precariously close to a life of addiction that threatens to swallow him whole. The only light in his sea of darkness is his boss’s firecracker of a daughter who refuses to back down. A girl who just so happens to be his classmate. Aoife Mol… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape mentioned
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Foster care system experiences recounted
  • Parental infidelity
  • Postnatral depression
  • Substance addiction & parent with alcoholism
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Teen pregnancy (14-year-old)
  • Graphic bullying (on-page)

Keeping 13 by Chloe Walsh

Following a devastating injury that has left him sidelined and stripped of his beloved number 13 jersey, Johnny Kavanagh is struggling to hold onto his dreams. Lost, insecure, and desperately seeking comfort, he sets his sights on unravelling the mystery of the girl with the midnight-blue eyes, who haunts his every waking hour. Keeping secrets has never been a problem for Shannon Lynch. The life she was born into demands nothing less. She knows that demons and evil men don’t just exist in fairytales. They exist in her world, too. Traumatized beyond repair after her return from Dublin, and desperate to protect her little brothers… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & neglect by a parent with alcoholism (on-page)
  • Foster care system experiences recounted
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Substance addiction (secondary character)
  • Unplanned teen pregnancy & miscarriage mentioned
  • Physical injury & illness and hospitalisation for surgery recounted
  • Murder by arson
  • Attempted murder by knife
  • Drowning
  • Graphic bullying (on-page)

Binding 13 by Chloe Walsh

They are from opposites sides of the track – but when their two worlds collide, nothing will ever be the same again. Johnny Kavanagh has everything going for him. On the rugby pitch, he’s a force to be reckoned with. Primed for stardom, he’s heading straight for the top. Nothing can possibly get in his way, right? Not even the shy new girl at Tommen College. The one with the sad eyes and hidden bruises. The one that distracts him like no one ever has. Life has never been easy for Shannon Lynch. Bullied and tortured, she arrives at Tommen College mid-way through the school year.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & neglect by a parent with alcoholism (on-page)
  • Foster care system experiences recounted
  • Sexual assault of a minor (side character, off-page)
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Teen pregnancy & miscarriage mentioned
  • Hospitalisation for surgery
  • Physical injury & illness including cyclic vomiting syndrome (on-page)
  • Physical assault
  • Graphic bullying (on-page)

Aces Wild by Amanda DeWitt

Some people join chess club, some people play football. Jack Shannon runs a secret blackjack ring in his private school’s basement. What else is the son of a Las Vegas casino mogul supposed to do? Everything starts falling apart when Jack’s mom is arrested for their family’s ties to organized crime. His sister Beth thinks this is the Shannon family’s chance to finally go straight, but Jack knows that something’s not right. His mom was sold out, and he knows by who. Peter Carlevaro: rival casino owner and jilted lover. Gross. Jack hatches a plan to find out what Carlevaro’s holding over his… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & abandonment
  • Infidelity recounted (side character)
  • Alcohol consumption & gambling
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Incarceration of a parent

Iz the Apocalypse by Susan Currie and Bex Glendining

A fierce voice longs to break free. A spark ignites inside fourteen-year-old Iz Beaufort when she hears school music group Manifesto perform. Even though she hasn’t written a song since That Place, she recognizes herself in the moving performance and longs to be part of the group, certain that they might actually understand her. But Manifesto is based at the prestigious Métier School, and Iz has bounced through twenty-six foster homes. Plus, there’s no way Dominion Children’s Care would ever send a foster kid to a private school when a public option is available. So Iz does what any passionate, broken, off-the-chart wunderkind might… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Panic attacks
  • Bullying

The Forest Grimm by Kathryn Purdie

The Midnight Forest. The Fanged Creature. Two fortune-telling cards that spell an untimely death for 17-year-old Clara. Despite the ever-present warning from her fortune-teller grandmother, Clara embarks on a dangerous journey into the deadly Forest Grimm to procure a magical book – Sortes Fortunae , the Book of Fortunes – with the power to reverse the curse on her village and save her mother. Years ago, when the villagers whispered their deepest desires to the book, its pages revealed how to obtain them. All was well until someone used the book for an evil purpo… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Physical child abuse & parental abandonment
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Murder
  • Poisoning

The Murmur of Bees by Sofía Segovia

From the day that old Nana Reja found a baby abandoned under a bridge, the life of a small Mexican town forever changed. Disfigured and covered in a blanket of bees, little Simonopio is for some locals the stuff of superstition, a child kissed by the devil. But he is welcomed by landowners Francisco and Beatriz Morales, who adopt him and care for him as if he were their own. As he grows up, Simonopio becomes a cause for wonder to the Morales family, because when the uncannily gifted child closes… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Domestic violence & child abuse

And There He Kept Her by Joshua Moehling

They thought he was a helpless old man. They were wrong. When two teenagers break into a house on a remote lake in search of prescription drugs, what starts as a simple burglary turns into a nightmare for all involved. Emmett Burr has secrets he’s been keeping in his basement for more than two decades, and he’ll do anything to keep his past from being revealed. As he gets the upper hand on his tormentors, the lines blur between victim, abuser, and protector. Personal tragedy has sent former police officer Ben Packard back to the small Minnesota town of Sandy Lake in search of a fresh start. Now a sheriff’s deputy, Packard is… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Rape
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Substance addiction & alcoholism
  • Drug use
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Murder
  • Gun violence