Tag Archives: Death of a Parent & Guardian

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

Becoming the Dark Prince by Kerri Maniscalco 

Becoming the Dark Prince by Kerri Maniscalco

Enigmatic, brooding, and darkly handsome, Thomas Cresswell has always been the one mystery Audrey Rose has never been able to fully solve. As brilliant partners in crime investigation, they understand each other perfectly…but as young lovers, their passionate natures have led to both euphoria and heartbreak throughout the Stalking Jack the Ripper series.

This novella features a collection of scenes that takes place during and after the pair’s horrifying Atlantic voyage in Escaping From Houdini. Experience new and familiar scenes from Thomas’s unique point of view, including an intensely personal look into his plea for Audrey Rose’s hand in marriage.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Blood & physical injury depiction
  • Death of a mother mentioned
  • Murder

Capturing the Devil by Kerri Maniscalco 

Audrey Rose Wadsworth and Thomas Cresswell have landed in America, a bold, brash land unlike the genteel streets of London they knew. But like London, the city of Chicago hides its dark secrets well. When the two attend the spectacular World’s Fair, they find the once-in-a-lifetime event tainted with reports of missing people and unsolved murders. Determined to help, Audrey Rose and Thomas begin their investigations, only to find themselves facing a serial killer unlike any they’ve heard of before. Identifying him is one thing, but capturing him and getting dangerously lost in the infamous Murder Hotel he constructed… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Blood depiction
  • Medical procedures (autopsies)
  • Death of a mother mentioned
  • Graphic murder
  • Poisoning
  • Animal butchery

For Your Own Good by Samantha Downing 

For Your Own Good by Samantha Downing

Teddy Crutcher has won Teacher of the Year at the esteemed Belmont Academy, home to the best and brightest. He says his wife couldn’t be more proud—though no one has seen her in a while.

Teddy really can’t be bothered with the death of a school parent that’s looking more and more like murder or the student digging a little too deep into Teddy’s personal life. His main focus is on pushing these kids to their full academic potential. All he wants is for his colleagues—and the endlessly meddlesome parents—to stay out of his way. It’s really too bad that sometimes excellence can come at such a high cost.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Drug use
  • Murder
  • Death of a parent
  • Stalking

What You Wish For by Katherine Center 

What You Wish For by Katherine Center

Samantha Casey is a school librarian who loves her job, the kids, and her school family with passion and joy for living. But she wasn’t always that way.

Duncan Carpenter is the new school principal who lives by rules and regulations, guided by the knowledge that bad things can happen. But he wasn’t always that way.

And Sam knows it. Because she knew him before—at another school, in a different life. Back then, she loved him—but she was invisible. To him. To everyone. Even to herself. She escaped to a new school, a new job, a new chance at living. But when Duncan, of all people, gets hired… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Panic attacks
  • Seizures described
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father recounted
  • School shooting
  • Car accident
  • Disappearance of a child