For readers everywhere
This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of cults.
See also Kidnapping, Forced marriage, and Child abuse & neglect.
Run Away by Harlan Coben
Your daughter is missing. You’ll risk anything to find her. And then you see her, frightened and clearly in trouble. You approach her, beg her to come home. She runs. You follow her into a dark, dangerous world where no one is safe and murder is commonplace. Now it’s your life on the line…
Trigger & Content Warnings
Agnes at the End of the World by Kelly McWilliams
Agnes loves her home of Red Creek–its quiet, sunny mornings, its dusty roads, and its God. There, she cares tirelessly for her younger siblings and follows the town’s strict laws. What she doesn’t know is that Red Creek is a cult, controlled by a madman who calls himself a prophet. Then Agnes meets Danny, an Outsider boy, and begins to question what is and isn’t a sin. Her younger brother, Ezekiel, will die without the insulin she barters for once a month, even though medicine is considered outlawed. Is she a sinner for saving him? Is her sister, Beth, a sinner for dreaming of the world beyond Red Creek? As the Prophet grows more… Read more.
Trigger & Content Warnings
Seed by Lisa Heathfield
Seed loves you. Seed will never let you go. Fifteen-year-old Pearl has lived her whole life protected within the small community at Seed, where they worship Nature and idolise their leader, Papa S. When some outsiders arrive everything changes. Pearl experiences feelings that she never knew existed and begins to realise that there is darkness at the heart of Seed. A darkness from which she must escape before it’s too late.
Trigger & Content Warnings
The Liar’s Daughter by Megan Cooley Peterson
Seventeen-year-old Piper knows that Father is a Prophet. Infallible. The chosen one. She would do anything for Father. That’s why she takes care of all her little sisters. That’s why she runs end-of-the-world drills. That’s why she never asks questions. Because Father knows best. Until the day he doesn’t. Until the day the government raids the compound and separates Piper from her siblings, from Mother, from the Aunts, from all of Father’s followers–even from Caspian, the boy she loves. Now Piper is living Outside… Read more.
Trigger & Content Warnings
The Fascinators by Andrew Eliopulos
Living in a small town where magic is frowned upon, Sam needs his friends James and Delia—and their time together in their school’s magic club—to see him through to graduation. But as soon as senior year starts, little cracks in their group begin to show. Sam may or may not be in love with James. Delia is growing more frustrated with their amateur magic club. And James reveals that he got mixed up with some sketchy magickers over the summer, putting a target on all their backs. With so many fault lines threatening to derail his hopes for the year, Sam is forced to face…. Read more.
Trigger & Content Warnings
Heart Recaptured by Tillie Cole
A few long weeks after being reluctantly ripped from the comforting embrace of her sacred prophet’s religious commune—the only life she has ever known—a terrified Delilah is thrust into a world enveloped by evil and swimming in sin. Steadfastly devout in her faith, and retaining the deep belief that her soul is innately tarnished as a branded ‘Cursed woman of Eve’, Delilah is determined to find her way home to her people in The Order and away from the corrupt and damned outlaw motorcycle club—The Hades Hangmen—who hold her at their secluded compound for her protect.... Read more.
Trigger & Content Warnings
The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams
Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated community without questioning the fact that her father has three wives and she has twenty brothers and sisters. That is, without questioning it much – if you don’t count her visits to the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels to read forbidden books, or her secret meetings with Joshua, the boy she hopes to choose for herself instead of having a man chosen for her. But when the Prophet decrees that Kyra must marry her sixty-year-old uncle – who already has six wives – she must make a desperate choice in the face of violence and her own fears of losing her family forever.
Trigger & Content Warnings
The Hell You Say by Josh Lanyon
In the third in the popular Adrien English series, the “ill-starred and bookish” mystery writer has to contend with a Satanic cult, a handsome university professor and his on-again/off-again relationship with the eternally conflicted LAPD Detective Jake Riordan. And, oh, yes, murder…
Trigger & Content Warnings
The Omega Objection by Gail Carriger
Tank is working as a bouncer when he notices something odd about the new sexy-as-sin bartender. He’s odourless, he’s amazingly popular with shifters, and he’s terrified. Isaac is trying to escape his past. He hides in San Francisco because everyone knows that there are no werewolves in the Bay Area. Until one walks into his bar. Can Tank figure out Isaac’s secrets in time to save him? And can Isaac forgive Tank for being a wolf in time to learn how to love?
Trigger & Content Warnings
The Sumage Solution by Gail Carriger
Max fails at magic, relationships, and life. So he works as a sumage, cleaning up other mages’ messes. The job sucks and he’s in no mood to cope with redneck biker werewolves. Unfortunately, there’s something irresistible about the sexy muscled Beta visiting his office for processing. Bryan is gay but he’s not out. There’s a good chance Max might be reason enough to leave the closet, if he can only get the man to go on a date. Bryan is gay but he’s not out. There’s a good chance Max might be reason enough to leave the closet, if he can only get the man to go on a date.
Trigger & Content Warnings
Trigger Warning Database