Tag Archives: Death of a Parent & Guardian

The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter

Meet Maggie Chase and Ethan Wyatt: She’s the new Queen of the Cozy Mystery. He’s Mr. Big-Time Thriller Guy. She hates his guts. He thinks her name is Marcie (no matter how many times she’s told him otherwise.) But when they both accept a cryptic invitation to attend a Christmas house party at the English estate of a reclusive fan, neither is expecting their host to be the most powerful author in the world: Eleanor Ashley, the Duchess of Death herself. That night, the weather turns, and the next morning Eleanor is gone. She vanished from a locked room, and Maggie has… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Anxiety & anxiety attacks
  • Infidelity recounted (protagonist’s ex-partner cheated with her best friend)
  • Emotional intimate partner abuse & gaslighting recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of parents in a car accident recounted
  • Attempted murder by an intimate partner by beating (secondary character)
  • Near-death experience from falling off a cliff & long-term recovery from a serious shoulder injury recounted (protagonist
  • Poisoning
  • Arson
  • Kidnapping

A Jingle Bell Mingle by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone

Part-time adult film actress/one-time adult film director/makeup artist Sunny Palmer has accidentally sold her very first screenplay to the Hope Channel. That was six months ago. Fast forward to a looming deadline, an uninspired Sunny has returned to the source of her inspiration in Christmas Notch, Vermont, to immerse herself in the local Christmas miracle on which her fever dream of a movie pitch was based. Isaac Kelly, former boy band heartthrob and the saddest boy in the music biz, is the latest owner of the town’s historic mansion. After his years of heartbreak following his young wife’s death, Isaac’s record label is done waiting… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Depression
  • Death of a wife from pancreatic cancer recounted (protagonist)
  • Death of parents in a drunk hit-and-run accident recounted
  • Minor animal sickness mentioned (secondary character)

Ruthless Demon King by Nikki St. Crowe

The Demon King has started a new monarchy in the United States. It used to be that the president was the most powerful person in the country. That all changed when Wrath crossed over to our world. Nothing could stop him. Nothing can kill him. Eventually we all bowed at his altar. Now there are websites dedicated to worshipping him. Countless internet memes about how ridiculously gorgeous he is. And yeah, I can admit he’s fine as hell. But he’s a villain to end all villains. There’s no way I’m falling prey to that. That is until I accidentally cross paths with the Demon King. Wrath… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobic slur mentioned
  • Misogyny
  • Sexual assault
  • Parental abandonment
  • Infidelity mentioned (protagonist’s ex-partner)
  • Alcoholism recovery mentioned (secondary character)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis
  • Death of a grandmother from lung cancer mentioned
  • Death of a mother from breast cancer mentioned (secondary character)
  • Murder & physical assault
  • Knife & gun violence
  • Kidnapping & captivity (protagonist)
  • Car accident resulting in a chronic spinal injury mentioned (secondary character)

Wedding Dashers by Heather McBreen

Ada’s little sister is getting married. Which should be a happy thought, right? But the once close sisters have been in a year long fight, the wedding is all the way in Ireland, and Ada is so broke that she just barely managed to get a ticket on a budget airline. And as if things couldn’t get worse, said airline just cancelled her connection. Which means Ada is stuck in London with no way to make it to the wedding. Surely she’s hit rock bottom? So, there’s no reason for her not to spill her heart out about the over-the-top wedding, her sister’s worryingly quick engagement, and the womanizing best man she’s dreading meeting to a… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Emotionally abusive relationship mentioned (off-page)
  • Divorce
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a parent mentioned

The Sea in Winter by Christine Day

It’s been a hard year for Maisie Cannon, ever since she hurt her leg and could not keep up with her ballet training and auditions. Her blended family is loving and supportive, but Maisie knows that they just can’t understand how hopeless she feels. With everything she’s dealing with, Maisie is not excited for their family midwinter road trip along the coast, near the Makah community where her mother grew up. But soon, Maisie’s anxieties and dark moods start to hurt as much as the pain in her knee. How can she keep pretending to be strong when on the inside she feels as roiling and cold as the ocean?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Leg injury (theme)
  • Death of a parent recounted

Honey and Spice by Bolu Babalola

Sharp-tongued (and secretly soft-hearted) Kiki Banjo has just made a huge mistake. As an expert in relationship-evasion and the host of the popular student radio show Brown Sugar, she’s made it her mission to make sure the women of the African-Caribbean Society at Whitewell University do not fall into the mess of “situationships”, players, and heartbreak. But when the Queen of the Unbothered kisses Malakai Korede, the guy she just publicly denounced as “The Wastemen of Whitewell,” in front of every Blackwellian on campus, she finds her show on the brink. They’re soon embroiled in… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs including mentions of racial profiling and police harassment
  • Revenge pornography & blackmail
  • Dubious consent scene recounted*
  • Parental abandonment mentioned
  • Parental infidelity & infidelity mentioned
  • Depression (recovery)
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use (marijuana)
  • Emesis
  • Death of a grandfather mentioned
  • Physical assault

Context : The female protagonist’s ex-partner posts a intimate photo of her on social media without consent, and similarly blackmails other women. The protagonist’s best friend’s boyfriend coerced her to have sex while she was drunk.

Homestead by Claire Kent

After losing the last remaining member of my family, I’m left all alone in a dangerous, uncivilized world. A twenty-year-old woman with no skills, no resources, and no protection can’t make it on her own after Impact, so I’m forced to rely on the charity of strangers to survive. My one chance of safety and security comes from an unexpected offer. Jimmy Morgan needs a partner. He wants help in his house and a woman in his bed, and he’d like that partner to be me. In return I get a place to live, plenty of food, and the protection of a competent man and his larger community. It’s a good deal, so of course I accept. It means I have to live… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted rape
  • Minor physical injury & illness and emesis
  • Unplanned pregnancy mentioned (epilogue)
  • Accidental death of child from gun violence
  • Death of a wife & newborn in childbirth recounted (protagonist)
  • Murder of a grandfather & parents recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping

Context : The female protagonist is saved from her assaulter by the male protagonist.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the colour yellow. This improbable story of Christopher’s quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighbourhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental infidelity
  • Presumed death of a mother discussed
  • Murder of a pet dog by stabbing with a garden fork
  • Physical assault & police violence*

Context : The autistic protagonist is grabbed on the arm by a police officer and hits him back in a panic. He is arrested for assaulting police but released. The protagonist believes his mother is dead but his father lied.

Viciously Yours by Jamie Applegate Hunter

When Rennick was thirteen, the gods bestowed upon him the name of his fated mate–a human girl. As the sole heir to the Mountain Kingdom, magic bound him to his kingdom until he ascended the throne on his twenty-fifth birthday, and as a human, she couldn’t cross the magical barrier separating the humans from the fae. Heartsore and consumed with thoughts of her, he did the only thing he could and sent her anonymous letters and gifts. Until he crossed the barrier into her kingdom to claim her as his own… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder & torture
  • Stalking

Throne of Secrets by Kerri Maniscalco

Gabriel Axton—infamous as the Prince of Gluttony, the self-proclaimed rake of rakes—has always lived for indulgence: in delicious food, in tantalizing women, and most of all, in the thrill of the hunt, where his love of danger can take over. But when his favourite adventure takes a deadly turn, he realizes something is very wrong in his demon court. With the clock ticking, he must turn to the only one who might uncover the truth: a journalist he has spent a decade avoiding. Adriana Saint Lucent has been on the hunt for years—if she could just report something damning enough about… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood depiction & self-injury for blood
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Loss of autonomy (magical memory violation)