Tag Archives: Death of a Parent & Guardian

Fable by Adrienne Young

Fable by Adrienne Young

For seventeen-year-old Fable, the daughter of the most powerful trader in the Narrows, the sea is the only home she has ever known. It’s been four years since the night she watched her mother drown during an unforgiving storm. The next day her father abandoned her on a legendary island filled with thieves and little food. To survive she must keep to herself, learn to trust no one, and rely on the unique skills her mother taught her. The only thing that keeps her going is the goal of getting off the island, finding her father, and demanding her rightful place beside him and his crew. To do so Fable enlists the help of a young trader named West to get her off the island and across the Narrows to her father.

But her father’s rivalries and the dangers of his trading enterprise have only multiplied since she last saw him, and Fable soon finds that West isn’t who he seems. Together, they will have to survive more than the treacherous storms that haunt the Narrows if they’re going to stay alive.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis
  • Death of a parent, off-page
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Drowning
  • Fire

Much Ado About You by Samantha Young

Much Ado About You by Samantha Young

At thirty-three years old Evangeline Starling’s life in Chicago is missing that special something. And when she’s passed over for promotion at work, Evie realizes she needs to make a change. Some time away to regain perspective might be just the thing. In a burst of impulsivity, she plans a holiday in a quaint English village. The holiday package comes with a temporary position at Much Ado About Books, the bookstore located beneath her rental apartment. There’s no better dream vacation for the bookish Evie, a life-long Shakespeare lover.

Not only is Evie swept up in running the delightful store as soon as she arrives, she’s drawn into the lives, loves and drama of the friendly villagers. Including Roane Robson, the charismatic and sexy farmer who tempts Evie every day with his friendly flirtations. Evie is determined to keep him at bay because a holiday romance can only end in heartbreak, right?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism mentioned
  • Homomisia
  • Sexual harassment
  • Alcoholism
  • Emotional, verbal & physical abuse mentioned
  • Death of a parent

Before Jamaica Lane by Samantha Young

Before Jamaica Lane by Samantha Young

Despite her outgoing demeanour, Olivia is painfully insecure around the opposite sex—usually, she can’t get up the nerve to approach guys she’s interested in. But moving to Edinburgh has given her a new start, and, after she develops a crush on a sexy postgrad, she decides it’s time to push past her fears and go after what she wants.

Nate Sawyer is a gorgeous player who never commits, but to his close friends, he’s as loyal as they come. So when Olivia turns to him with her relationship woes, he offers to instruct her in the art of flirting and to help her become more sexually confident… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Death of a parent from cancer
  • Death of a girlfriend to cancer

Falling into Place by Amy Zhang 

Falling into Place by Amy Zhang

On the day Liz Emerson tries to die, they had reviewed Newton’s laws of motion in physics class. Then, after school, she put them into practice by running her Mercedes off the road. Why did Liz Emerson decide that the world would be better off without her? Why did she give up? The nonlinear novel pieces together the short and devastating life of Meridian High’s most popular junior girl. Mass, acceleration, momentum, force—Liz didn’t understand it in physics, and even as her Mercedes hurtles toward the tree, she doesn’t understand it now. How do we impact one another? How do our actions reverberate? What does it mean to be a friend? To love someone? To be a daughter? Or a mother? Is life truly more than cause and effect?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child neglect
  • Depression
  • Eating disorders mentioned
  • Suicide
  • Death of a parent
  • Bullying

Born in Shame by Nora Roberts

Born in Shame by Nora Roberts

A talented graphic artist, Shannon Bodine’s life revolved around her job at a prestigious New York advertising agency. But her world was turned upside down when she learned the identity of her real father: Thomas Concannon. Respecting her late mother’s last wish, Shannon reluctantly travelled to County Clare. There, her loneliness and shame melted away in the embrace of the family she never knew existed. And amid the lush Irish landscape steeped in mysticism and legend, she discovered the possibility of a love that was meant to be… 

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother & father

The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds

The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds

Just when seventeen-year-old Matt thinks he can’t handle one more piece of terrible news, he meets a girl who’s dealt with a lot more—and who just might be able to clue him in on how to rise up when life keeps knocking him down—in this wry, gritty novel from the author of When I Was the Greatest. Matt wears a black suit every day. No, not because his mom died—although she did, and it sucks. But he wears the suit for his gig at the local funeral home, which pays way better than the Cluck Bucket, and he needs the income since his dad can’t handle the bills (or anything, really) on his own. So while Dad’s snagging bottles of whiskey… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parent with alcoholism
  • Drug use mentioned (smoking)
  • Death from cancer mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Intimate partner murder by gunshot (on-page)
  • Physical assault recounted (fistfight resulting in bloodied lip)
  • Death from gang violence mentioned
  • Homelessness

Long Way Down: The Graphic Novel by Jason Reynolds

Long Way Down: The Graphic Novel written by Jason Reynolds and illustrated by Danica Novgoorodoff

After Will’s brother is shot in a gang crime, he knows the next steps. Don’t cry. Don’t snitch. Get revenge. So he gets in the lift with Shawn’s gun, determined to follow The Rules. Only when the lift door opens, Buck walks in, Will’s friend who died years ago. And Dani, who was shot years before that. As more people from his past arrive, Will has to ask himself if he really knows what he’s doing.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption & abuse mentioned (secondary character)
  • Smoking & mentions of drug use (secondary character, on-page)
  • Murder by gun violence (theme, on-page), including depictions of bloodied dead bodies with gunshot wounds
  • Death of a child, sibling, parent, friend & uncle

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Blood depiction
  • Physical injury, including ugnshot wounds
  • Dental medical procedure
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a sibling
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of an uncle
  • Murder
  • Gun violence

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

After Will’s brother is shot in a gang crime, he knows the next steps. Don’t cry. Don’t snitch. Get revenge. So he gets in the lift with Shawn’s gun, determined to follow The Rules. Only when the lift door opens, Buck walks in, Will’s friend who died years ago. And Dani, who was shot years before that. As more people from his past arrive, Will has to ask himself if he really knows what he’s doing.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption & abuse mentioned (secondary character)
  • Smoking & mentions of drug use (secondary character)
  • Blood & injury depiction, including gunshot wounds
  • Dental medical procedure
  • Murder by gun violence
  • Death of a child, sibling, parent, friend & uncle
  • Gun violence (theme)

Writers and Lovers by Lily King 

Writers & Lovers by Lily King

Blindsided by her mother’s sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, mouldy room at the side of a garage, where she works on the novel she’s been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching on to something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey’s fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Workplace sexual harassment
  • Cheating mentioned
  • Anxiety
  • Panic attack
  • Cancer (squamous cell carcinoma)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a wife from cancer mentioned
  • Death of a mother from heart disease
  • Death of a sister mentioned

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd 

Sarah Grimké is the middle daughter. The one her mother calls difficult and her father calls remarkable. On Sarah’s eleventh birthday, Hetty ‘Handful’ Grimké is taken from the slave quarters she shares with her mother, wrapped in lavender ribbons, and presented to Sarah as a gift. Sarah knows what she does next will unleash a world of trouble. She also knows that she cannot accept. And so, indeed, the trouble begins…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Slavery
  • Death of a parent