Tag Archives: Death of a Parent & Guardian

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 Kill Clause by Lisa Unger

A hit woman’s work doesn’t stop for the holidays. As the advent calendar winds down, Paige slips into a palatial house, ignoring a blizzard of texts from her ex-husband. No surprise—Julian always gets maudlin this time of year. The real shock comes when the target is not alone. His young daughter is there too. Risking the wrath of her organization, Paige retreats. There are some lines that, for personal reasons, she just won’t cross. But when she returns on Christmas Eve to finish the job, the girl is still there…along with someone even more startling. As the ghosts of her past gather,… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic abuse
  • Overdose
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder by gun violence
  • Home invasion
  • Animal death

More Than Words by Mia Sheridan

The moment she met Callen Hayes, eleven-year-old Jessica Creswell knew he was a broken prince. Her prince. They became each other’s refuge, a safe and magical place far from their troubled lives. Until the day Callen kissed her–Jessica’s first real, dreamy kiss—and then disappeared from her life without a word. Years later, everyone knows who Callen Hayes is. Famous composer. Infamous bad boy. What no one knows is that Callen’s music is now locked deep inside, trapped behind his own inner demons. It’s only,… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse recounted
  • Alcohol abuse
  • Unplanned pregnancy
  • Death of a parent (off-page)

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

Artifice by Sharon Cameron

Isa de Smit was raised in the vibrant, glittering world of her parents’ small art gallery in Amsterdam, a hub of beauty, creativity, and expression, until the Nazi occupation wiped the color from her city’s palette.
The “degenerate” art of the Gallery de Smit is confiscated, the artists in hiding or deported, her best friend, Truus, fled to join the shadowy Dutch resistance.
And masterpiece by masterpiece, the Nazis are buying and stealing her country’s heritage, feeding the Third Reich’s ravenous appetite for culture and art. So when the unpaid taxes threaten her beloved… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical antisemitism & homophobia
  • Child sexual assault (groping) & mentions of underage sex work
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Secondary character with a substance addition (morphine)
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a friend & child at the hands of Nazis
  • Torture
  • Murder by gun violence
  • World War Two (theme), including depiction of the Holocaust & mentions of concentration camps

The Night Guests by Marina Scott

Once a prominent fixture in Omaha’s high society, Nina Wilson is now drowning in debt and disgrace following the untimely death of her father. Her engagement has been broken off, her family’s grand estate has fallen into disrepair, and her mother, consumed by grief, is incapable of running the household. Attempting to bring closure to her grieving mother, Nina invites a mysterious medium, Leroy Marshall, into their home. But Leroy Marshall’s brand of charisma—equal parts alluring and repellent—leaves Nina feeling deeply unsettled. The man’s presence seems to have awakened something otherworldly in the house itself, and now it’s stepping out of the shadows, refusing to leave,

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father

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

Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore by Emily Krempholtz

Guy Shadowfade is dead, and after a lifetime as the dark sorcerer’s right-hand, Violet Thistlewaite is determined to start over—not as the fearsome Thornwitch, but as someone kind. Someone better. Someone good. The quaint town of Dragon’s Rest, Violet decides, will be her second chance—she’ll set down roots, open a flower shop, keep her sentient (mildly homicidal) houseplant in check, and prune dark magic from the twisted boughs of her life. Violet’s vibrant bouquets and cheerful enchantments soon charm the welcoming townsfolk, though nothing seems to impress the prickly yet dashingly handsome… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of parents recounted
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping & imprisonment