Tag Archives: Death of a Child

Hello, Transcriber by Hannah Morrissey

Every night, while the street lamps shed the only light on Wisconsin’s most crime-ridden city, police transcriber Hazel Greenlee listens as detectives divulge Black Harbor’s gruesome secrets. As an aspiring writer, Hazel believes that writing a novel could be her only ticket out of this frozen hellscape. And then her neighbour confesses to hiding the body of an overdose victim in a dumpster. The suspicious death is linked to Candy Man, a notorious drug dealer. Now Hazel has a first-row seat to the investigation and becomes captivated by the lead detective, Nikolai… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Abusive relationship
  • Depression
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Death of a child from a drug overdose
  • Animal hunting & dead bodies, off-page

Set Fire to the Gods by Sara Raasch and Kristen Simmons

Set Fire to the Gods by Sara Raasch and Kristen Simmons

Ash is descended from a long line of gladiators, and she knows the brutal nature of war firsthand. But after her mother dies in an arena, she vows to avenge her by overthrowing her fire god, whose temper has stripped her country of its resources. Madoc grew up fighting on the streets to pay his family’s taxes. But he hides a dangerous secret: he doesn’t have the earth god’s powers like his opponents. His elemental gift is something else—something that hasn’t been seen in centuries. When an attempted revenge plot goes dangerously wrong, Ash inadvertently throws the fire and earth gods into a conflict that can… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Grap

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Child homelessness recounted
  • Indentured servitude mentioned
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother, on-page
  • Death of a son mentioned
  • Kidnapping
  • Physical assault
  • Attempted regicide
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Murder & attempted murder

Come Closer by Sara Gran

Come Closer by Sara Gran

A recurrent, unidentifiable noise in her apartment. A memo to her boss that’s replaced by obscene insults. Amanda—a successful architect in a happy marriage—finds her life going off-kilter by degrees. She starts smoking again, and one night for no reason, without even the knowledge that she’s doing it, she burns her husband with a cigarette. At night she dreams of a beautiful woman with pointed teeth on the shore of a blood-red sea.. The new voice in Amanda’s head, the one that tells her to steal things and talk to strange men in bars, is strange and frightening… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Rape
  • Incest
  • Child abuse
  • Infidelity
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Body horror
  • Emesis
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Drowning
  • Animal attack

Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan

Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan

A wry, affecting tale set in a small town on the Indonesian coast, Man Tiger tells the story of two interlinked and tormented families and of Margio, a young man ordinary in all particulars except that he conceals within himself a supernatural female white tiger. The inequities and betrayals of family life coalesce around and torment this magical being. An explosive act of violence follows, and its mysterious cause is unraveled as events progress toward a heartbreaking revelation.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Marital rape
  • Parental abuse
  • Domestic violence
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Death of a child
  • Murder

The Lost Book of the White by Cassandra Clare and Wesley Chu

The Lost Book of the White by Cassandra Clare and Wesley Chu

Life is good for Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood. They’re living together in a fabulous loft, their warlock son, Max, has started learning to walk, and the streets of New York are peaceful and quiet—as peaceful and quiet as they ever are, anyway. Until the night that two old acquaintances break into Magnus’s apartment and steal the powerful Book of the White. Now Magnus and Alec will have to drop everything to get it back. They need to follow the thieves to Shanghai, they need to call some backup to accompany them, and they need a babysitter. Also, someone has stabbed… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Death of a child mentioned
  • Torture
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping

Blood Song by Anthony Ryan

Blood Song by Anthony Ryan

Vaelin Al Sorna is the Sixth Order’s newest recruit. Under their brutal training regime, he learns how to forge a blade, survive the wilds and kill a man quickly and quietly – all in the name of protecting the Realm and the Faith. Now his skills will be put to the test. War is coming. Vaelin must draw upon the very essence of his strength and cunning if he is to survive the coming conflict. Yet as the world teeters on the edge of chaos, Vaelin will learn that the truth can cut deeper than any sword.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & abandonment
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • War themes

My Little Brother by Diane Saxon

My Little Brother by Diane Saxon

Two siblings, both missing for 20 years turn up within one day of each other. One dead. One alive. It was an ordinary school day, the day I lost my little brother.
One moment he was on the roundabout and then was gone. Gone. Missing. They all blamed me. I was in charge. Even though I was only ten years old. They sent me away. The hurt, the shame, the questions. The not knowing. I tried to move on. It’s been nineteen years in exile and now somebody wants me back. Someone with a dark secret. They hold the keys, they know the truth. So, I need to return to my childhood village to find out who, because I have a secret, too… I did something bad.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Familial estrangement
  • Parental infidelity recounted
  • Filicide of an autistic son
  • Murder of a partner
  • Death of a brother
  • Disappearance of a sibling recounted

One Little Lie by Sam Carrington

One Little Lie by Sam Carrington

Deborah’s son was killed four years ago. Alice’s son is in prison for committing that crime. Deborah would give anything to have her boy back, and Alice would do anything to right her son’s wrongs. Driven by guilt and the need for redemption, Alice has started a support group for parents with troubled children. But as the network begins to grow, she soon finds out just how easy it is for one little lie to spiral out of control. They call it mother’s intuition, but can you ever really know your own child?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Death of a son by murder recounted
  • Filicide by suffocation
  • Imprisonment

The Spite House by Johnny Compton

The Spite House by Johnny Compton

Eric Ross is on the run from a mysterious past with his two daughters in tow. Having left his wife, his house, his whole life behind in Maryland, he’s desperate for money–it’s not easy to find safe work when you can’t provide references, you can’t stay in one place for long, and you’re paranoid that your past is creeping back up on you. When he comes across the strange ad for the Masson House in Degener, Texas, Eric thinks they may have finally caught a lucky break. The Masson property, notorious for being one of the most haunted places in Texas, needs a caretaker of sorts. The… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Child neglect
  • Suicide
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Death of a child
  • Lynching mentioned
  • Drowning
  • Arson

Kingdom of Needle and Bone by Mira Grant

Kingdom of Needle and Bone by Mira Grant

We live in an age of wonders. Modern medicine has conquered or contained many of the diseases that used to carry children away before their time, reducing mortality and improving health. Vaccination and treatment are widely available, not held in reserve for the chosen few. There are still monsters left to fight, but the old ones, the simple ones, trouble us no more. Or so we thought. For with the reduction in danger comes the erosion of memory, as pandemics fade from memory into story into fairy tale. Those old diseases can’t have been so bad, people say, or we wouldn’t be… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Epidemics
  • Death of a child
  • Murder