Tag Archives: Death of a Parent & Guardian

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.

As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band–and meeting the man who would become her husband–her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Addiction
  • Alcoholism
  • Abortion
  • Cancer
  • Death of a parent
  • Depiction of grief

A Choice Cocktail of Death by Christine Zane Thomas

A Choice Cocktail of Death by Christine Zane Thomas

When food blogger and restaurant reviewer, Allie Treadwell, is invited to the grand opening of Lanai’s newest attraction, a murder mystery dinner party, she expects a night of fun, good food, and mystery. What she didn’t expect is an actual murder.

What seems an open and shut case is anything but as Allie uncovers clues that lead to a conspiracy. With an innocent man framed, Allie can’t just sit by and watch. She uses the only power she has to help set the story straight, her words. But the real killer is out to silence the loudmouth foodie for good.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent mentioned
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Fire

The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite

The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite

As Lucy Muchelney watches her ex-lover’s sham of a wedding, she wishes herself anywhere else. It isn’t until she finds a letter from the Countess of Moth, looking for someone to translate a groundbreaking French astronomy text, that she knows where to go. Showing up at the Countess’ London home, she hoped to find a challenge, not a woman who takes her breath away.

Catherine St Day looks forward to a quiet widowhood once her late husband’s scientific legacy is fulfilled. She expected to hand off the translation and wash her hands of the project—instead, she is intrigued by the young woman who turns up at her door, begging to be allowed to do the work, and she agrees to let Lucy stay… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Colonialism mentioned
  • Abusive relationship recounted
  • Death of a parent mentioned

Friday Brown by Vikki Wakefield

Friday Brown by Vikki Wakefield

Friday, 17, flees memories of her mother, granddad, and the family curse. She joins Silence in a street gang led by beautiful charismatic Arden, and escapes to a ghost town in the outback. In Murungal Creek, the town of never leaving, Friday faces the ghosts of her past. Sometimes you have to stay to finish what you started, and before you can find out who you are, you have to become someone you never meant to be.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Death of a mother

Ballad for a Mad Girl by Vikki Wakefield

Ballad for a Mad Girl by Vikki Wakefield

Everyone knows seventeen-year-old Grace Foley is a bit mad. She’s a prankster and a risk-taker, and she’s not afraid of anything—except losing. As part of the long-running feud between two local schools in Swanston, Grace accepts a challenge to walk the pipe. That night she experiences something she can’t explain. The funny girl isn’t laughing anymore. She’s haunted by voices and visions—but nobody believes a girl who cries wolf.

As she’s drawn deeper into a twenty-year-old mystery surrounding missing girl Hannah Holt, the thin veil between this world and the next begins to slip. She can no longer tell what’s real or imagined—all she knows is the ghosts of Swanston… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Death of a parent recounted

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

This is the story of a serial killer. A stolen child. Revenge. Death. And an ordinary house at the end of an ordinary street.

All these things are true. And yet they are all lies…

You think you know what’s inside the last house on Needless Street. You think you’ve read this story before. That’s where you’re wrong.

In the dark forest at the end of Needless Street, lies something buried. But it’s not what you think…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child abuse
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Animal death

Crier’s War by Nina Varela

Crier’s War by Nina Varela

After the War of Kinds ravaged the kingdom of Rabu, the Automae, Designed to be the playthings of royals, took over the estates of their owners and bent the human race to their will. Now, Ayla, a human servant rising the ranks at the House of the Sovereign, dreams of avenging the death of her family… by killing the Sovereign’s daughter, Lady Crier. Crier, who was Made to be beautiful, to be flawless. And to take over the work of her father.

Crier had been preparing to do just that—to inherit her father’s rule over the land. But that was before she was betrothed to Scyre Kinok, who seems to have a thousand secrets. That was before she discovered her father isn’t as benevolent as she thought. That was before she met Ayla.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slavery
  • Abandonment
  • Self-harm
  • Blood depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a sibling
  • Murder
  • Animal death

The Princess Stakes by Amalie Howard

The Princess Stakes by Amalie Howard

Born to an Indian maharaja, Princess Sarani Rao has it all: beauty, riches, and a crown. But with a British mother, her mixed-blood makes her a pariah and a target. And when Sara’s father is murdered, her only hope of survival is to escape on the next ship out―captained by the boy she once loved…and spurned.

Captain Rhystan Huntley, the reluctant Duke of Embry, has a place in the English fleet, which he’s loathe to give up. But duty is calling him home, and this is his final voyage. Leave it to fate that the one woman he’s ever loved must escape India on his ship. 

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Colourism
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a sibling recounted
  • Murder
  • Colonialism

The Beast of Beswick by Amalie Howard

The Beast of Beswick by Amalie Howard

Lord Nathaniel Harte, the disagreeable Duke of Beswick, spends his days smashing porcelain, antagonizing his servants, and snarling at anyone who gets too close. With a ruined face like his, it’s hard to like much about the world. Especially smart-mouthed harpies—with lips better suited to kissing than speaking—who brave his castle with indecent proposals.

But Lady Astrid Everleigh will stop at nothing to see her younger sister safe from a notorious scoundrel, even if it means offering herself up on a silver platter to the forbidding Beast of Beswick himself. And by offer, she means what no highborn lady of sound and sensible mind would ever dream of—a tender of marriage with her as his bride.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slut-shaming
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Facial & body scarring
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Military service in the Napoleonic War recounted

Ghost by A Zavarelli 

Ghost by A. Zavarelli

I have always been a bird. Caged by one prison or another. Then the only thing I ever wanted was to fly away. Sold. Beaten. Starved. Drugged. Nothing scares me anymore. Until him. He makes the numbness go away. He is hazardous to me. It has nothing to do with his mafia lifestyle, and everything to do with what he offers. A gilded prison. A retreat from everything that I once knew. The reality I have no desire to return to. He thinks he’s caged me, but soon… I’m going to fly.

I live by a code. The Vory code. In this mafiya world, there are traditions. Expectations. She does not care for these things. She does not care about anything. She thinks she has me fooled with her haunted eyes. What she can’t know is that I see her better than most. She wants to fly but I’m going to clip her wings. And make her my wife.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Human sex trafficking
  • Rape
  • Child sexual abuse by a foster parent recounted
  • Cheating recounted
  • Pregnancy
  • Drug use
  • Death of a parent from suicide, off-page
  • Death of a sibling
  • Murder & attempted murder