Tag Archives: Death of a Parent & Guardian

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of death of a parent or guardian.

See also Death of a mother, Death of a father, and Grief & loss depiction.

Bloom by Robbie Couch

Morris Warner is withering away. After the sudden death of his husband, Fred, he has shut himself off from the world. No more going to movies with friends, or swims in Lake Michigan, instead preferring the quiet loneliness of his history books and Jeopardy episodes with only the cat to hear his answers. Morris’s stepdaughter, Sloan, feels like she has nowhere to grow. She’s about to get married to the man of her dreams, if only her mother will let her actually plan her own wedding and trust her to build her own life after her father’s death. Jade is drying out. Literally. As a plant in… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction (theme)
  • Death of a husband & father

The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan

In 1785, Professor Sebastian Grave receives the news he fears most: the terrible Beast of Gévaudan has returned, and the French countryside runs red in its wake. Sebastian knows the Beast. A monster-slayer with centuries of experience, he joined the hunt for the creature twenty years ago and watched it slaughter its way through a long and bloody winter. Even with the help of his indwelling demon, Sarmodel – who takes payment in living hearts – it nearly cost him his life to bring the monster down. Now, two decades later, Sebastian has been recalled to the hunt… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Graphic blood & injury depiction
  • Animal death (dogs)

On Sundays She Picked Flowers by Yah-Yah Scholfield

When Judith Rice fled her childhood home, she thought she’d severed her abusive mother’s hold on her. She didn’t have a plan or destination, just a desperate need to escape. Drawn to the forests of southern Georgia, Jude finds shelter in a house as haunted by its violent history as she is by her own. Jude embraces the eccentricities of the dilapidated house, soothing its ghosts and haints, honoring its blood-soaked land. And over the next thirteen years, Jude blossoms from her bitter beginnings into a wisewoman, a… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical racism
  • Rape
  • Physical child abuse (on-page)
  • Emesis
  • Death of a parent

The Rebel Girls of Rome by Jordyn Taylor

NOW: Grieving the loss of her mother, college student Lilah is hoping to reconnect with her ever-distant grandfather who refuses to talk about his past. When a fellow student in Italy brings a long-lost family heirloom to her attention, Lilah travels to Rome with her grandfather in the hopes of unlocking his history as a survivor of the Holocaust once and for all. But as they get closer to the truth—and the possibility of healing through new connections—she begins to realize that some secrets may be too painful to unbury… THEN: It’s 1943, and nineteen-year-old Bruna and… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical antisemitism & Nazism
  • Intergenerational trauma & survivor’s guilt
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother
  • World War Two & the Holocaust (on-page)

A Grim and Sunken Vow by Ashley Shuttleworth

The die is cast. The era of Spring is over. Riadne’s bloody coup on the Summer Solstice changed Arlo’s life forever. In one fell swoop and a fool’s bargain, she lost both her family and free will to the newly crowned High Queen. Now, with Arlo forced to use her powers as Luck’s Hollow Star to help summon the rest of the seven deadly sins, Riadne stands closer than ever to achieving her dark goals. And Arlo isn’t the only one trapped in a frightening new role. Her ex-Fury girlfriend, Nausicaä, is determined to do whatever it takes to stay by Arlo’s side, even if that means becoming… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child trafficking
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Depression
  • Suicide recounted (off-page) & suicidal ideation mentioned
  • Self-harm
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a sister, mother & father
  • Murder & torture
  • Arson

Son of the Morning by Akwaeke Emezi

Tenderhearted Galilee was raised by the Kincaids, a formidable clan of Black women sequestered deep in the weeping willows and dark rushing creeks of their land. Galilee has always known that she’s different—that there is an old and unknowable secret around her very existence. It has been a hollow ache inside her since her childhood, something she assumes she will always have to live with. Until she meets Lucifer Helel. He’s fronting as the head of security for her wealthy friend Oriaku’s family, protecting a mysterious, ancient artifact, but from the moment she lays eyes on him… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slut-shaming
  • Improper BDSM practice recounted (not respecting safe words)
  • Intimate partner violence (on-page, protagonist slaps her love interest)
  • Parental infertility & miscarriage mentioned
  • Alochol consumption
  • Physical injury, including temporary loss of vision and gunshot wounds
  • Murder of a father by a mother mentioned (protagonist)
  • Attempted murder & physical assailt
  • Torture
  • Kidnapping & stalking
  • Fire
  • Loss of autonomy (memory manipulation, angelic possession with the intent to impregnate another)
  • Battle scene

For the Bride by Becca Grischow

On the surface, Alice has her life together. She’s got a job in music she loves; she’s firmly sober; and she’s grateful to be back in the good graces of her ex-girlfriend-once-best-friend-now-literal-only-friend Gin. Just in time, too, because Gin’s getting married this summer! And Alice gets to be a bridesmaid. If only the maid-of-honor wasn’t Renee Type-A, the opposite of her in every way, and a long-time Alice-hater who’s clung to her animosity like a leech. Every second Alice spends around Renee makes her feel like who she used to be, rather than the person she’s spent… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol abuse discussed & recounted
  • Death of a father from alcoholism

A Murder Most Camp by Nicolas DiDomizio

Mikey Hartford IV has coasted through his twenties in a distracted blur of yachts and sex and partying. But when his father discovers his latest million-dollar impulse buy and changes the terms of his trust, the party’s finally over. Now, unless Mikey can make a positive contribution to the world before his thirtieth birthday—one that doesn’t involve throwing cash at his problems—he’ll never see another yacht again. (Or even so much as a canoe.) Camp Lore, a struggling summer camp in upstate New York where Mikey has to work as the oldest, least-qualified staffer to prove… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Adult-minor relationship
  • Toxic friendship
  • Alcohol abuse mentioned
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder

Strikeout by Millie Perez

Mateo Martínez is many things. The starting pitcher of the New York Monarchs, a devoted single father, and most recently, my new boss. When the opportunity to finally move out of my parent’s cramped apartment and into his swanky home to nanny for his daughter arose, I simply couldn’t pass it up. Until I made the silly suggestion for him to keep me on a three strikes system, and I’m racking them up at lightning speed. I should know better than to fantasize about silly things like love, but curiosity is getting the best of me, and our stolen touches don’t feel so innocent anymore. When the three strikes are up, I wonder… will I… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Image-based sexual assault recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Pregnancy (epilogue)
  • Death of a parents recounted

Her Dark Lies by J.T. Ellison

Jutting from sparkling turquoise waters off the Italian coast, Isle Isola is an idyllic setting for a wedding. In the majestic cliff-top villa owned by the wealthy Compton family, up-and-coming artist Claire Hunter will marry handsome, charming Jack Compton, surrounded by close family, intimate friends…and a host of dark secrets. From the moment Claire sets foot on the island, something seems amiss. Skeletal remains have just been found. There are other, newer disturbances, too. Menacing texts. A ruined wedding dress. And one troubling shadow hanging over Claire’s… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcoholism & drug use
  • Death of a parent
  • Car accident
  • Home invasion