Tag Archives: Child Abuse & Neglect

Final Offer by Lauren Asher

Callahan. I’m the Kane brother everyone gossips about behind closed doors. Trust fund brat. Washed-up athlete. High-functioning alcoholic. No one knows the real me but her. Lana Castillo—my childhood best friend and the only woman I ever loved. When I broke her heart six years ago, I promised to never return to Lake Wisteria. I kept my word until my grandfather’s will changed everything. To receive my inheritance, I was tasked with spending a summer at the family lake house before selling it. The request was simple in theory until my entire plan blew up on the very first day. Turns out Lana doesn’t just live at the house, but… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Emotional & verbal child abuse
  • Substance addiction & alcoholism
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Drug use (smoking)
  • Overdose recounted
  • Infertility
  • Cancer
  • Death of a grandfather
  • Animal abuse

Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins

For David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare — poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a U.S. Armed Forces icon and one of the world’s top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events, inspiring Outside magazine to name him “The Fittest (Real) Man in America.”

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Child abuse
  • Alcoholism
  • Military enlistment & deployment (theme)

The Marquis Who Mustn’t by Courtney Milan

One good fraud deserves another… Miss Naomi Kwan has long wanted to take ambulance classes so that she can save lives. But when she tries to register, she’s told she needs permission from the man in charge of her. It would be incredibly wrong to claim that the tall, taciturn Chinese nobleman she just met is her fiancé, but Naomi is desperate, and desperate times call for fake engagements. To her unending surprise, Liu Ji Kai goes along with her ruse. It’s not that Kai is nice. He’s in Wedgeford to practice his family business, and there’s no room for “nice” when you’re out to… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Racism
  • Child abuse & parental abandonment recounted

At First Spite by Olivia Dade

When Athena Greydon’s fiancé ends their engagement, she has no choice but to move into the Spite House she recklessly bought him as a wedding gift. This is a problem, for several reasons: The house, originally built as a brick middle finger to the neighbours, is only ten feet wide. Her ex’s home is attached to hers. And Dr. Matthew Vine the Freaking Third (aka the uptight, judgmental jerk who convinced his younger brother to leave her) is living on the other side, only a four-foot alley away. If she has to see Matthew every time she looks out the windows, she might as… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment & neglect recounted
  • Depression & depressive episode, on-page
  • Anxiety
  • Death of an infant sibling recounted, on-page

The ​Missing of Clairdelune by Christelle Dabos

When our heroine Ophelia is promoted to Vice-storyteller by Farouk, the ancestral Spirit of Pole, she finds herself unexpectedly thrust into the public spotlight and her special gift is revealed to all. Ophelia knows how to read the secret history of objects and there could be no greater threat to the nefarious denizens of her icy adopted home than this. Beneath the golden rafters of Pole’s capitol, Citaceleste, she discovers that the only person she may be able to trust is Thorn, her enigmatic fiancé. As one after another influential courtier disappears, Ophelia again finds herself unintentionally implicated in an… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Suicide
  • Kidnapping
  • Gun violence
  • Animal abuse, implied

Magic Tides by Ilona Andrews

Kate, Curran and their son, Conlan have left Atlanta, vowing to keep a low profile, and are settling into a new city and new house…but some things never change! Magical mayhem is about to erupt when Kate undertakes the rescue of a kidnapped youth, while Curran guards the homefront. It should be a simple retrieval, but with monsters on land and sea, Kate’s got her work cut out for her. Still, she’s never let her blade dull or her purpose falter. And that low profile? It’s about to wash away with the raging tides!

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Human trafficking
  • Child abuse
  • Cannibalism mentioned
  • Murder
  • Torture

The Narrow Road Between Desires by Patrick Rothfuss

Bast knows how to bargain. The give-and-take of a negotiation is as familiar to him as the in-and-out of breathing; to watch him trade is to watch an artist at work. But even a master’s brush can slip. When he accepts a gift, taking something for nothing, Bast’s whole world is knocked askew, for he knows how to bargain—but not how to owe. From dawn to midnight over the course of a single day, follow the Kingkiller Chronicle’s most charming fae as he schemes and sneaks, dancing into trouble and back out again with uncanny grace.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & domestic abuse, off-page
  • Alcoholism discussed
  • Self-harm for magic
  • Blood depiction

The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz

Five attendees are selected for a month-long writing retreat at the remote estate of Roza Vallo, the controversial high priestess of feminist horror. Alex, a struggling writer, is thrilled. Upon arrival, they discover they must complete an entire novel from scratch, and the best one will receive a seven-figure publishing deal. Alex’s long-extinguished dream now seems within reach. But then the women begin to die. Trapped, terrified yet still desperately writing, it is clear there is more than a publishing deal at stake at Blackbriar Estate. Alex must confront her own demons – and finish her novel – to save herself.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Nazism mentioned
  • Homomisia mentioned
  • Child abuse & neglect recounted
  • Domestic abuse recounted
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Drugging
  • Gun violence
  • Bullying mentioned

Black Hearts by Karina Halle

For Vicente Bernal, truth is all he’s known. The son of an infamous drug lord, Vicente was born to help run the family business, which means he’s been raised on a throne of sordid pasts and dirty laundry, violence and pride. But when Vicente stumbles across someone he’s not supposed to know about – a woman from his father’s checkered past – he sets out to California to find her behind his father’s back. What Vicente doesn’t expect to find in San Francisco is Violet McQueen, the woman’s twenty-year-old daughter. Beautiful and edgy with vulnerability he can’t resist, Violet…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Infidelity recounted
  • Nightmares
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use (cigarettes)
  • Death of a grandfather from cancer
  • Death of an aunt from a car bomb recounted
  • Murder
  • Physical assault
  • Organised crime
  • Attempted kidnapping

What Was Meant to Be by Heather Guerre

There’s nothing Wes Sorenson cares about more than restoring his family’s lost legacy—a Northwoods cottage resort that’s been handed down from one generation to the next since the late-1800s until it was stolen from them by unscrupulous business partners, dismantled, and sold in pieces. Bit by bit, over the course of years, Wes has managed to restore the family business, except for one piece: the crucial lakefront acreage necessary to the resort’s success. But after years of dead ends, he’s finally figured out how to secure to the last piece of the puzzle: marrying the woman who owns the land. Rain has never really belonged anywhere… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Anxiety
  • Emotional child abuse recounted
  • Parental infidelity & divorce recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Physical illness (migraine)
  • Death of grandparents mentioned
  • Death of a father
  • Death of a mother from a heart defect recounted