Tag Archives: Death of a Mother

He Sees You When You’re Sleeping by Alta Hensley

It’s the night before Christmas and I’m alone in the house… Popular jewelry influencer Chloe Hallman is steeling herself to spend another holiday on her own. Instead, she finds herself drawn to two different guys… a smoldering hot fan of her secret, seductive online persona, and a sexy fireman named Jack who looks out for her in their NYC neighborhood. She has no idea that I know her better than she knows herself. Her deepest secrets, her darkest desires—she’s careful, but I’ve been watching, never leaving footprints in the snow outside her home. Jack was the first responder to… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of parents recounted
  • Stalking (theme)

Breaking Rosalind by Gigi Styx

I wove a deadly web, but it became my trap. Rosalind: I’m a cold-blooded killer, a femme fatale with a long list of victims. My latest target being Cesare Montesano. I must kill him and his brothers to protect my innocent young daughter. He catches me in the middle of the mission, but I’m not scared. I might be his prisoner yet I’m not without weapons. And I will use every trick in the book to disarm him and escape. Cesare: She tried to inject me with a poisonous syringe. Now, she’s my captive with a head full of secrets. Secrets that threaten my brother’s lives and rob our family’s power. She’s a betrayer, just like all the others, but I won’t… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Workplace sexual harassment
  • Child abuse & grooming recounted
  • Stockholm Syndrome & dubious consent (‘dubcon’)
  • Self-harm (cutting)
  • Drugging
  • Forced pregnancy & teen pregnancy recounted
  • Body modification, scars & branding, including tracker insertion
  • Genital mutilation (castration, stitching)
  • Dismemberment & evisceration
  • Murder & mass murder
  • Murder of a mother & father
  • Graphic torture, Russian roulette & sensory deprivation
  • Kidnapping
  • Blackmail
  • Animal cruelty recounted

Context : Depiction of BDSM & kink, including bondage, temperature play, pet play, breath play, candle play, gun play, hebephilia, knife play, and medical play

The Fix by Mia Sheridan

Eleven years ago, Cami Cortlandt’s mother and sister died cruelly in a violent home invasion. The trauma and notoriety still linger, but Cami has managed to build a life in her hometown despite everything she’s lost. Then one day it all comes rushing back. A distorted voice on the phone: Would you like a do-over? A disturbing video of a room with bars on the window, trapping a young boy inside who looks achingly, impossibly familiar. Four days to find him. With the help of Rex Lowe, an old classmate whose past is inextricably tied to her own, Cami races to uncover everything she can about the boy—where he is, who he is, and why… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape (multiple by captor, on-page & discussed)
  • Teen pregnancy & adoption
  • Drugging
  • Murder of a mother & sister in a home invasion (on-page)
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping & captivity

Life, and Death, and Giants by Ron Rindo

Gabriel Fisher was born an orphan, weighing eighteen pounds and measuring twenty-seven inches long. No one in Lakota, Wisconsin, knows what to make of him. He walks at eight months, communicates with animals, and seems to possess extraordinary athletic talent. But when the older brother who has been caring for him dies, Gabriel is taken in by his devout Amish grandparents who disapprove of all the attention and hide him away from the English world. But it’s hard to hide forever when you’re nearly eight feet tall. At seventeen, Gabriel is spotted working in a hay field by the local football coach. What happens… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Incest & child sexual abuse
  • Suicide
  • Miscarriage mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother in childbirth recounted
  • Bullying
  • Animal death

Where He Left Me by Nicole Baart

College professors Sadie Sheridan and Felix Graham are on sabbatical at Hemlock House, located on a remote mountain homestead established years ago by Felix’s family. When Felix leaves on a work trip but doesn’t return, effectively stranding Sadie on the mountain, her world collapses. Alone at Hemlock House, frantic Sadie struggles to make sense of what her missing astronomer husband left behind. Forced to confront two mysterious trespassers just as a powerful storm bears down, Sadie and the strangers have no choice but to ride it out together. As conditions worsen and shocking secrets are revealed, Sadie must face… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Familial estrangement
  • Domestic abuse
  • Dementia
  • Death of a mother mentioned
  • Disspearance
  • Gun violence

The Survival Kit by Donna Freitas

When Rose’s mom dies, she leaves behind a brown paper bag labeled Rose’s Survival Kit. Inside the bag, Rose finds an iPod, with a to-be-determined playlist; a picture of peonies, for growing; a crystal heart, for loving; a paper star, for making a wish; and a paper kite, for letting go. As Rose ponders the meaning of each item, she finds herself returning again and again to an unexpected source of comfort. Will is her family’s gardener, the school hockey star, and the only person who really understands what she’s going through. Can loss lead to love?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction (theme)
  • Death of a mother from cancer

The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano by Donna Freitas

Rose Napolitano is fighting with her husband, Luke, about prenatal vitamins. She promised she’d take them, but didn’t. He promised before they got married that he’d never want children, but now he’s changed his mind. Their marriage has come to rest on this one question: Can Rose find it in herself to become a mother? Rose is a successful professor and academic. She’s never wanted to have a child. The fight ends, and with it their marriage. But then, Rose has a fight with Luke about the vitamins–again. This time the fight goes slightly differently, and so does Rose’s future as she grapples with whether she can indeed... Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Divorce
  • Pregnancy & pregnancy coercion discussed (theme), including death from childbirth
  • Miscarriage & abortion
  • Death of a mother from cancer

We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes

Lila Kennedy has a lot on her plate. A broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart, and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in. Her career is in freefall, and her love life is . . . complicated. So when her real dad—a man she has barely seen since he ran off to Hollywood thirty-five years ago—suddenly appears on her doorstep, it feels like the final straw. But it turns out even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach you: about love, and what it actually means to be family.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a mother mentioned
  • Bullying mentioned

Braving the Storm by Elliott Rose

I’m not supposed to feel this way… I never wanted to disappear more than while around my family. Briar Lane, the girl only useful for one thing: my surname. A business handshake and pawn to be traded. My father’s chess piece shuffled between empires. That was my life back in L.A. but all it took was finding the dirty secret stuffed in a jacket pocket, and my entire world unraveled. So, I fled to the one place I knew they could never find me. Crimson Ridge. Arriving in this snowy, harsh world, I thought I’d be starting over on my own, but it turns out I couldn’t have been… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Statutory assault & rape, child prostitution & grooming mentioned (secondary characters)
  • Internalised victim-blaming by a rape survivor mentioned (secondary character)
  • Child abandonment & foster care system experiences mentioned (secondary character)
  • Verbal & emotional intimate partner abuse & gaslighting by ex-partner mentioned
  • Forced arranged marriage mentioned
  • Threats of disownment recounted
  • Infidelity by ex-partner discussed
  • Anxiety (protagonist) & nightmares recounted
  • Restrictive eating mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption & mentions of alcoholism
  • Suicide of a pregnant side character by overdose mentioned
  • Infertility
  • Physical head injury (on-page) & mentions of past bull-riding injuries
  • Death of parents mentioned including death during childbirth (off-page)
  • Home invasion (off-page)
  • Blackmail & nonconsensual surveillance
  • Animal abuse mentioned

*Context : A romance between an adopted uncle and his estranged niece.

The Dagger and the Flame by Catherine Doyle

In Fantome, a kingdom of cobbled streets, flickering lamplight, beautiful buildings, and secret catacombs, Shade-magic is a scarce and deadly commodity controlled by two enemy the Cloaks and the Daggers – the thieves and the assassins. On the night of her mother’s murder, 17-year-old Seraphine runs for her life. Seeking sanctuary with the Cloaks, Sera’s heart is set on revenge. But are her secret abilities a match for the dark-haired boy whose quicksilver eyes follow her around the city? Nothing can prepare Sera for the moment she finally comes face-to-face… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Poisoning mentioned