Tag Archives: Child Abuse & Neglect

In the Quick by Kate Hope Day

In the Quick by Kate Hope Day

June is a brilliant but difficult girl with a gift for mechanical invention who leaves home to begin gruelling astronaut training at the National Space Program. Younger by two years than her classmates at Peter Reed, the school on campus named for her uncle, she flourishes in her classes but struggles to make friends and find true intellectual peers. Six years later, she has gained a coveted post as an engineer on a space station—and a hard-won sense of belonging—but is haunted by the mystery of Inquiry, a revolutionary spacecraft powered by her beloved late… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Amputation
  • Death of a parent, off-page
  • Arson
  • Near-drowning incident

Ruthless People by J.J. McAvoy

Ruthless People by J.J. McAvoy

To the outside world, they look like American royalty, giving to charities, feeding the homeless, and rebuilding the city. But behind closed doors is a constant battle for dominance between two bosses, cultures, and hearts. Ruthless People is a romantic crime fiction set in modern day Chicago and follows the life and marriage of Melody Giovanni and Liam Callahan – rivals by blood and leaders through fear. Theirs is an arranged marriage with the goal of ending years of bloodshed between the Irish and the Italians. Liam assumes he’s getting a simple-minded wife, one he can… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Arranged marriage
  • Child abuse mentioned
  • Neglect & abandonment
  • Nyctophobia
  • Substance addiction
  • Drugging
  • Miscarriage
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Hospitalisation
  • Needles mentioned
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Torture
  • Gun violence
  • Knife violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Plane crash

The Watchers by A.M. Shine

The Watchers by A.M. Shine

This forest isn’t charted on any map. Every car breaks down at its treeline. Mina’s is no different. Left stranded, she is forced into the dark woodland only to find a woman shouting, urging Mina to run to a concrete bunker. As the door slams behind her, the building is besieged by screams. Mina finds herself in a room with a wall of glass and an electric light that activates at nightfall when the Watchers come above ground. These creatures emerge to observe their captive humans—and terrible things happen to anyone who doesn’t reach the bunker in time… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child abuse recounted
  • Drug use (smoking)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a husband
  • Death of a friend
  • Confinement

Nine Lives by Peter Swanson

Nine Lives by Peter Swanson

Nine strangers receive a list with their names on it in the mail. Nothing else, just a list of names on a single sheet of paper. None of the nine people know or have ever met the others on the list. They dismiss it as junk mail, a fluke – until very, very bad things begin happening to people on the list. First, a well-liked old man is drowned on a beach in the small town of Kennewick, Maine. Then, a father is shot in the back while running through his quiet neighbourhood in suburban Massachusetts. A frightening pattern is emerging, but what do these nine people have in common? Their professions range from… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Racism mentioned
  • Ableism (r slur), on-page
  • Sexual assault mentioned (groping)
  • Child abuse and neglect recounted including a mention of child sexual assault
  • Spousal abandonment
  • Abusive relationship (scs)
  • Cheating
  • Sex work, on-page
  • Familial estrangement mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption, on-page
  • Alcohol abuse (implied)
  • Recreational drug use, on-page
  • Chronic leg injury
  • Grief and loss depiction
  • Death of a girlfriend from an oxycontin overdose mentioned
  • Death of a husband and a pet dog in a car accident recounted
  • Death of a sister from drowning recounted
  • Murder by drowning
  • Murder by gun violence
  • Murder by poisoning
  • Stalking
  • Animal dead body mentioned (seagull)

Ravenfall by Kalyn Josephson

Ravenfall by Kalyn Josephson

Thirteen-year-old Annabella Ballinkay has never been normal, even by her psychic family’s standards. Every generation uses their abilities to help run the Ravenfall Inn, a sprawling, magical B&B at the crossroads of the human world and the Otherworld. But it’s hard to contribute when your only power is foreseeing death. So when fourteen-year-old Colin Pierce arrives at Ravenfall searching for his missing older brother and the supernatural creature who killed their parents, Anna jumps at the chance to help. But the mysteries tied to Colin go much deeper than either of.… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Absent parent
  • Near-miscarriage mentioned
  • Blood and injury depiction
  • Murder of a mother and father (seen through visions, protagonist discovered his dead parents’ bodies)
  • Death of a mother in a hospital mentioned
  • Torture mentioned
  • Physical assault
  • Disappearance of a sibling
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)
  • Animal death including the on-page death of a pet cat (resurrected)

House of Ash by Hope Cook

House of Ash by Hope Cook

After hearing voices among an eerie copse of trees in the woods, seventeen-year-old Curtis must confront his worst fear: that he has inherited his father’s mental illness. A desperate search for answers leads him to discover Gravenhearst, a labyrinth mansion that burned down in 1894. When he locks eyes with a steely Victorian girl in a forgotten mirror, he’s sure she’s one of the fire’s victims. If he can unravel the mystery, he can save his sanity . . . and possibly the girl who haunts his dreams. But more than 100 years in the… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Homomisia & slurs
  • Child abuse

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi

Once upon a time, a man who believed in fairy tales married a beautiful, mysterious woman named Indigo Maxwell-Casteñada. He was a scholar of myths. She was heiress to a fortune. They exchanged gifts and stories and believed they would live happily ever after–and in exchange for her love, Indigo extracted a promise: that her bridegroom would never pry into her past. But when Indigo learns that her estranged aunt is dying and the couple is forced to return to her childhood home, the House of Dreams, the bridegroom will soon find himself unable to resist. For within the crumbling manor’s extravagant rooms and musty halls, there… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Paedophilia
  • Sexual harassment
  • Child abuse
  • Animal death

The Shadowglass by Rin Chupeco

The Shadowglass by Rin Chupeco

Tea is a bone witch with the dark magic needed to raise the dead. She has used this magic to breathe life into those she has loved and lost…and those who would join her army against the deceitful royals. But Tea’s quest to conjure a shadowglass—to achieve immortality for the one person she loves most in the world—threatens to consume her heart. Tea’s black heartsglass only grows darker with each new betrayal. And when she is left with new blood on her hands, Tea must answer to a power greater than the elder asha or even her conscience…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misgendering
  • Child abuse mentioned
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Body horror
  • Murder
  • War themes

The Heart Forger by Rin Chupeco

The Heart Forger by Rin Chupeco

No one knows death like Tea. A bone witch who can resurrect the dead, she has the power to take life…and return it. And she is done with her self-imposed exile. Her heart is set on vengeance, and she now possesses all she needs to command the mighty daeva. With the help of these terrifying beasts, she can finally enact revenge against the royals who wronged her–and took the life of her one true love. But there are those who would use Tea’s dark power for their own nefarious ends. Because you can’t kill someone who can never die… War is brewing among the kingdoms, and when dark magic is at play, no one is safe.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Transmisia
  • Sexism
  • Child abuse
  • Blood & gore depiction including dead bodies and body horror
  • Death of a brother discussed
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Torture
  • Imprisonment
  • Exile
  • War themes

Their Vicious Darling by Nikki St. Crowe

Their Vicious Darling by Nikki St. Crowe

The Dark One has finally accepted me…just in time for everything to change. Because Vane’s brother, The Crocodile, has just arrived on Neverland soil and he’s not alone. He’s brought with him members of the royal Darkland family and they want Vane’s Death Shadow back at any cost. Of course, Peter Pan, Vane, Kas and Bash, they’re all familiar with war. But war isn’t easy when love is on the line. I know those vicious Lost Boys would do anything to protect me. But what if I’m not the one that needs saving? As power shifts on the island and shadows are claimed, all five of us have to let go of who we were, if we have any chance of becoming who we are destined to be.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Slut-shaming
  • Threats of rape
  • Parental infidelity mentioned
  • Physical child abuse recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Smoking mentioned
  • Drugging recounted
  • Cannibalism and blood-drinking
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Physical assault
  • Battle scene
  • Death of a pet recounted (wolf)