Tag Archives: Death of a Child

Blazewrath Games by Amparo Ortiz

Lana Torres has always preferred dragons to people. In a few weeks, sixteen countries will compete in the Blazewrath World Cup, a tournament where dragons and their riders fight for glory in a dangerous relay. Lana longs to represent her native Puerto Rico in their first ever World Cup appearance, and when Puerto Rico’s Runner—the only player without a dragon steed—is kicked off the team, she’s given the chance.

But when she discovers that a former Blazewrath superstar has teamed up with the Sire—a legendary dragon who’s cursed into human form—the safety of the Cup is jeopardized… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic & child abuse recounted
  • Alcoholism mentioned
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Fire
  • Death of a partner from cancer mentioned
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Kidnapping
  • Bullying

Court of Lions by Somaiya Daud

After being swept up into the brutal Vathek court, Amani, the ordinary girl forced to serve as the half-Vathek princess’s body double, has been forced into complete isolation. The cruel but complex princess, Maram, with whom Amani had cultivated a tenuous friendship, discovered Amani’s connection to the rebellion and has forced her into silence, and if Amani crosses Maram once more, her identity – and her betrayal – will be revealed to everyone in the court.

Amani is desperate to continue helping the rebellion, to fight for her people’s freedom. But she must make a devastating decision: will she step aside, and watch her people suffer, or continue to aid them, and put herself and her family in mortal danger? Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Colonialism
  • Murder of a child, off-page
  • Kidnapping

The Boneless Mercies by April Genevieve Tucholke

Frey, Ovie, Juniper, and Runa are Boneless Mercies – death-traders, hired to kill quickly, quietly and mercifully. It is a job for women, and women only. Men will not do this sad, dark work.
Frey has no family, no home, no fortune, and yet her blood sings a song of glory. So when she hears of a monster slaughtering men, women, and children in a northern jarldom, she decides this the Mercies’ one chance to change their fate… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Child abuse
  • Attempted forced child sex work mentioned
  • Suicide & assisted voluntary euthanasia, on-page
  • Suicidal ideation & attempted suicide recounted
  • Self-flagellation, on-page
  • Dead bodies & body parts
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Eyeball trauma
  • Serious physical injury & illness
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child, on-page
  • Death of a sister recounted
  • Death of a girlfriend recounted
  • Death of a mentor recounted
  • Death of a parent from illness recounted
  • Death of a friend, on-page
  • Graphic murder & attempted murder (theme)
  • Knife, axe & attempted murder
  • Hanging, off-page
  • Poisoning
  • Graphic drowning
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • War themes & battle scenes
  • Animal attack
  • Graphic animal death
  • Animal abuse

Dear Haiti, Love Alaine by Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite

You might ask the obvious question: What do I, a seventeen-year-old Haitian American from Miami with way too little life experience, have to say about anything?
Actually, a lot.
Thanks to “the incident” (don’t ask), I’m spending the next two months doing what my school is calling a “spring volunteer immersion project.” It’s definitely no vacation. I’m toiling away under the ever-watchful eyes of Tati Estelle at her new nonprofit. And my lean-in queen of a mother is even here to make sure I do things right… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Colourism
  • Alzheimer’s Disease
  • Miscarriage
  • Smoking
  • Blood depiction
  • Hospitalisation
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a parent mentioned
  • Car accident mentioned
  • Animal death, on-page
  • Slavery & colonialism mentioned

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

You may think you know how the fairytale goes: a mermaid comes to shore and weds the prince. But what the fables forget is that mermaids have teeth. And now, her daughters have devoured the kingdom and burned it to ashes.
On the run, the mermaid is joined by a mysterious plague doctor with a darkness of their own. Deep in the eerie, snow-crusted forest, the pair stumble upon a village of ageless children who thirst for blood, and the three ‘saints’ who control them… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Miscarriage
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Body horror
  • Cannibalism
  • Dismemberment
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Animal death

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture” in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic—including the work of Bird’s mother… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Hate crimes
  • Classism
  • Death of a parent
  • Child death
  • Physical assault
  • Animal cruelty

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.
Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Panic attack mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption with implications of alcohol abuse, on- & off-page
  • Pregnancy mentioned (prologue)
  • Graphic body horror
  • Detailed blood and injury depiction including eye trauma and an on-page arm amputation
  • Surgery and medical treatment, off-page
  • Hospitalisation, on-page
  • Needles, on-page
  • Grief and loss depiction (theme)
  • Death of a mother and father in a car accident, off-page
  • Death of a child from lockjaw mentioned
  • Death of a child and brother from drowning mentioned including a near-drowning incident recounted
  • Gun violence
  • Physical assault including assault with a hammer
  • Fire
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)
  • Animal attack (dog)
  • Animal dead bodies and taxidermy discussed (squirrels)

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him. So it’s a relief when his skill on the basketball court earns him a scholarship to college, far away from his childhood home. He soon meets Julia Padavano, a spirited and ambitious young woman who surprises William with her appreciation of his quiet steadiness. With Julia comes her family; she is inseparable from her three younger sisters: Sylvie, the dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book and imagines a future different from the expected path of wife and mother; Cecelia, the family’s… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Depression
  • Attempted suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Terminal illness
  • Death of a sister and child recounted

The Promised Neverland, Vol. 1 by Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu

Life at Grace Field House has been good for Emma and her fellow orphans. While the daily studying and exams they have to take are tough, their loving caretaker provides them with delicious foods and plenty of playtime. But perhaps not everything is as it seems… Emma, Norman and Ray are the brightest kids at the Grace Field House orphanage. And under the care of the woman they refer to as “Mom,” all the kids have enjoyed a comfortable life. Good food, clean clothes and the perfect environment to learn—what more could an orphan ask for? One day, though, Emma and Norman uncover the dark truth of the outside world they are forbidden from seeing.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Murder of a child

The Day of the Duchess by Sarah MacLean

Malcolm Bevingstoke, Duke of Haven, has lived the last three years in self-imposed solitude, paying the price for a mistake he can never reverse and a love he lost forever. The dukedom does not wait, however, and Haven requires an heir, which means he must find himself a wife by summer’s end. There is only one problem—he already has one. After years in exile, Seraphina, Duchess of Haven, returns to London with a single goal—to reclaim the life she left and find happiness, unencumbered by the man who broke her heart. Haven offers her a deal; Sera can have her freedom, just as soon as she finds her… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical slut-shaming
  • Infidelity recounted
  • Miscarriage, on-page
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of an infant recounted

Context: The male protagonist slept with another woman as ‘revenge’ when he found out his shunned wife was pregnant and hadn’t told him. It is implied the wife caught him with the other woman.