Death of a Parent & Guardian – Page 180

Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor

Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor

The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From hereon in she would be known as Sankofa–a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past. Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks–alone, except for her fox companion–searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged; searching for answers. But is there a greater purpose for Sankofa, now that Death is her constant companion?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Child abuse
Smoking mentioned
Malaria & fevers
Dead bodies
Body horror
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a brother
Death of a mother & father, off-page
Death of a grandmother mentioned
Death of a child in a pedestrian-car accident, on- & off-page
Murder & attempted murder
Mass death
Gun violence
Physical assault
Stoning
Carjacking mentioned
Animal death (insects, repeated scenes)

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Malibu: August 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas; the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over–especially as the offspring of the legendary singer Mick Riva.

The only person not looking forward to the party of the year is Nina herself, who never wanted to be the center of attention, and who has also just been very publicly abandoned by her pro tennis player husband. Oh, and maybe Hud–because it is long past time for him to confess something to the brother from whom he’s been inseparable since birth. Jay, on the other hand, is counting the minutes until nightfall, when the girl he can’t stop thinking about promised she’ll be there. And Kit has a couple secrets of her own–including a guest she invited without consulting anyone.

By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come bubbling to the surface.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Sexual harassment
Parental abandonment
Cheating
Alcoholism & recreational drug use
Dieting
Abortion & miscarriage
Death of a parent
Stroke
Drowning
Fire

The Lying Game by Ruth Ware

The Lying Game by Ruth Ware

Isa drops everything, takes her baby daughter and heads straight to Salten. She spent the most significant days of her life at boarding school on the marshes there, days which still cast their shadow over her now.

Something terrible has been found on the beach. Something which will force Isa to confront her past, together with the three best friends she hasn’t seen for years, but has never forgotten. Theirs is no cosy reunion: Salten isn’t a safe place for them, after what they did.

At school the girls used to play the Lying Game. They competed to convince people of the most outrageous stories. But for some, did the boundary between fact and fantasy become too blurred?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Cheating
Alcohol abuse
Recreational drug abuse
Death of a parent
Death of a friend
Animal death

The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware

The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware

On a day that begins like any other, Hal receives a mysterious letter bequeathing her a substantial inheritance. She realizes very quickly that the letter was sent to the wrong person—but also that the cold-reading skills she’s honed as a tarot card reader might help her claim the money.

Soon, Hal finds herself at the funeral of the deceased…where it dawns on her that there is something very, very wrong about this strange situation and the inheritance at the centre of it.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Homomisia
Sex work discussed
Child abuse recounted
Disownment & familial estrangement
Cheating
Anxiety & panic attacks
PTSD
Alcohol consumption
Alcohol abuse recounted
Dubious consent to medication
Teen pregnancy
Miscarriage & abortion mentioned
Infertility mentioned
Emesis
Hospital
Minor blood & gore depiction and physical injuries
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a mother & father
Death of a grandmother
Death of a sister
Murder & attempted murder
Strangulation
Car accident
Disappearance of a loved one
Blackmail
Captivity recounted
Poverty themes & eviction

When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole

When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole

Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she’s known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community’s past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block—her neighbor Theo.

But Sydney and Theo’s deep dive into history quickly becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear. Their neighbors may not have moved to the suburbs after all, and the push to revitalize the community may be more deadly than advertised.

When does coincidence become conspiracy? Where do people go when gentrification pushes them out? Can Sydney and Theo trust each other—or themselves—long enough to find out before they too disappear?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism, including aversive racism
Gentrification
Attempted genocide
Racial profiling
Cheating
Alcohol abuse
Alcohol consumption
Drug use, mentioned
Death of a friend
Death of a mother
Grief depiction
Arrest and incarceration, mentioned
Dead body, on page

The Initial Insult by Mindy McGinnis

Tress Montor knows that her family used to mean something—until she didn’t have a family anymore. When her parents disappeared seven years ago while driving her best friend home, Tress lost everything. She might still be a Montor, but the entire town shuns her now that she lives with her drunken, one-eyed grandfather at what locals refer to as the “White Trash Zoo,” – a wild animal attraction featuring a zebra, a chimpanzee, and a panther, among other things. Felicity Turnado has it all – looks, money, and a secret that she’s kept hidden. She knows that one misstep… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Rape & dubious consent scenes, implied
Alcohol consumption & recreational drug use
Graphic blood & injury depiction, including influenza epidemic, emesis, and seizures
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a friend & parents
Kidnapping & captivity
Death of a pet
Animal attack

Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz

Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz

Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel M. Moniz book cover

Set among the cities and suburbs of Florida, each story in Milk Blood Heat delves into the ordinary worlds of young girls, women, and men who find themselves confronted by extraordinary moments of violent personal reckoning. These intimate portraits of people and relationships scour and soothe and blast a light on the nature of family, faith, forgiveness, consumption, and what we may, or may not, owe one another.

A thirteen-year-old meditates on her sadness and the difference between herself and her white best friend when an unexpected tragedy occurs; a woman recovering from a miscarriage finds herself unable to let go of her daughter—whose body parts she sees throughout her daily life; a teenager resists her family’s church and is accused of courting the devil; servers at a supper club cater to the insatiable cravings of their wealthy clientele; and two estranged siblings take a road-trip with their father’s ashes and are forced to face the troubling reality of how he continues to shape them.

Wise and subversive, spiritual and seductive, Milk Blood Heat forms an ouroboros of stories that bewitch with their truth.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Cheating
Parental abandonment
Adult-minor relationship between a teacher and student
Paedophilia, implied
Parental sexual abuse, implied
Abortion, mentioned
Pregnancy
Terminal cancer
Physical assault
Suicidal ideation
Suicide
Strangulation
Death of a friend
Death of a child
Death of a father
Death from a fall
Drowning
Graphic near-drowning
Robbery
Cannibalism, implied
Hanging, mentioned

Between by Jessica Warman

Between by Jessica Warman

Elizabeth Valchar-pretty, popular, and perfect-wakes up the morning after her eighteenth birthday party on her family’s yacht, where she’d been celebrating with her six closest friends. A persistent thumping noise has roused her. When she goes to investigate, what she finds will change everything she thought she knew about her life, her friends, and everything in between.

As Liz begins to unravel the circumstances surrounding her birthday night, she will find that no one around her, least of all Liz herself, was perfect-or innocent.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Eating disorder (anorexia)
Drug use
Murder
Emesis
Death of a mother recounted

Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters

Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters

If I could have a fiddle made of Daddy’s bones, I’d play it. I’d learn all the secrets he kept.

Shady Grove inherited her father’s ability to call ghosts from the grave with his fiddle, but she also knows the fiddle’s tunes bring nothing but trouble and darkness.

But when her brother is accused of murder, she can’t let the dead keep their secrets.

In order to clear his name, she’s going to have to make those ghosts sing.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableist language
Attempted rape recounted (chp. 23)
Child abuse recounted, including being locked in the attics for extended periods of tie
Agoraphobia
Panic attack (chp. 24)
Death of a mother to suicide recounted
Recreational drug use (on-page in chp. 5 & mentioned otherwise)
Hospital (chp. 5 & 24)
Grief & loss (theme)
Death of a father recounted
Death of a stepfather (off-page)
Death of a sister recounted
Gun violence (chp. 28)
Police violence (chp. 28)
Hanging mentioned (chp. 9)
Near-drowning incident
Car accident (on-page, chp. 23-24)
Death of a child to a wasp attack recounted

The Conductors by Nicole Glover

The Conductors by Nicole Glover

As a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Hetty Rhodes helped usher dozens of people north with her wits and magic. Now that the Civil War is over, Hetty and her husband Benjy have settled in Philadelphia, solving murders and mysteries that the white authorities won’t touch. When they find one of their friends slain in an alley, Hetty and Benjy bury the body and set off to find answers. But the secrets and intricate lies of the elites of Black Philadelphia only serve to dredge up more questions. To solve this mystery, they will have to face ugly truths all around them, including the ones about each other.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Slavery & human trafficking
Racism & colourism
Domestic abuse & violence
Infertility, miscarriage & mentions of pregnancy
Physical injury, including burns & scars
Blood and gore depiction
Death of a mother & father, friend, husband, sister & son
Disappearance of a sister
Torture
Knife violence
Fire
Kidnapping
Incarceration & captivity mentioned
Hanging/lynching (implied)