Death of a Sibling – Page 44 – Trigger Warning Database

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)

Neverland by Shari Arnold

Neverland by Shari Arnold

It’s been four months since seventeen-year-old Livy Cloud lost her younger sister, but she isn’t quite ready to move on with her life — not even close. She’d rather spend her time at the Seattle Children’s hospital, reading to the patients and holding onto memories of the sister who was everything to her and more.

But when she meets the mysterious and illusive Meyer she is drawn into a world of adventure, a world where questions abound.

Is she ready to live life without her sister? Or more importantly, is she brave enough to love again?

In this modern reimagining of Peter Pan, will Livy lose herself to Neverland or will she find what she’s been searching for?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Grief depiction
Death of a child
Death of a sister

Small Spaces by Katherine Arden

Small Spaces by Katherine Arden

After suffering a tragic loss, eleven-year-old Ollie only finds solace in books. So when she happens upon a crazed woman at the river threatening to throw a book into the water, Ollie doesn’t think–she just acts, stealing the book and running away. As she begins to read the slender volume, Ollie discovers a chilling story about a girl named Beth, the two brothers who both loved her, and a peculiar deal made with “the smiling man,” a sinister specter who grants your most tightly held wish, but only for the ultimate price.

Ollie is captivated by the tale until her school trip the next day to Smoke Hollow, a local farm with a haunting history all its own. There she stumbles upon the graves of the very people she’s been reading about. Could it be the story about the smiling man is true? Ollie doesn’t have too long to think about the answer to that. On the way home, the school bus breaks down, sending their teacher back to the farm for help. But the strange bus driver has some advice for the kids left behind in his care: “Best get moving. At nightfall they’ll come for the rest of you.” Nightfall is, indeed, fast descending when Ollie’s previously broken digital wristwatch, a keepsake reminder of better times, begins a startling countdown and delivers a terrifying message: RUN.

Only Ollie and two of her classmates heed the bus driver’s warning. As the trio head out into the woods–bordered by a field of scarecrows that seem to be watching them–the bus driver has just one final piece of advice for Ollie and her friends: “Avoid large places. Keep to small.”

And with that, a deliciously creepy and hair-raising adventure begins.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableist language
Nightmares
Suicide, mentioned
Mild blood and injury
Grief depiction
Death of a mother, mentioned
Death of a husband, mentioned
Death of a father, mentioned
Death of a brother, mentioned
Death of a child, mentioned
Murder
Fire
Plane crash
Disappearance of a loved one, recounted
Bullying

Squared Away by Annabeth Albert

Squared Away by Annabeth Albert

In the wake of tragedy, SEAL Mark Whitley rushed stateside to act as guardian to his sister’s three young children. But a conflicting will could give custody to someone else—someone Mark remembers as a too young, too hot, wild party boy. Even after six years, Mark can’t shake the memory of his close encounter with Isaiah James, or face up to what it says about his own sexuality.

Isaiah’s totally over the crush that made him proposition Mark all those years ago. In fact, he’s done with crushing on the wrong men altogether. For now, he’s throwing himself into proving he’s the best person to care for his cousin’s kids. But there’s no denying there’s something sexy about a big, tough military man with a baby in his arms.

As the legal details get sorted out, their long-buried attraction resurfaces, leading to intimate evenings after the kids are tucked in. A forever future is within reach for all of them, if only Mark can find the courage he needs to trust Isaiah with his secrets—and his heart.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Homomisia
Death of a sibling
Death of a loved one

No Exit by Taylor Adams

Nobody said being the daughter of an army general was easy. But when her dad sends a teenage subordinate to babysit her while he’s away… That’s taking it a step too far. Cade, as beautiful as he is deadly, watches Kori with more than just interest. He looks at her like he knows her very soul. And when he saves her from a seemingly random attack, well, that’s when things get weird. Turns out, Kori’s dad isn’t just an army general—he’s the head of a secret government project that has invented a way to travel between parallel dimensions. Dimensions where there are infinite Koris, infinite… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Fatphobia, racist slur & ableist language
Paedophilia, sexual assault & threats of rape
Child sex trafficking
Child abuse recounted
Alcoholism
Panic attacks recounted & nightmares
Alcohol consumption & abuse
Blood, gore & graphic injury depiction, including terminal cancer & emesis
Minor grief depiction
Death of a mother, brother & cousin
Murder & attempted murder
Torture
Gun violence
Physical assault
Kidnapping & captivity
Animal murder & torture recounted and death of a pet

The Diviners by Libba Bray

The Diviners by Libba Bray

SOMETHING DARK AND EVIL HAS AWAKENED… Evie O’Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City—and she is pos-i-tute-ly ecstatic. It’s 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult. Evie worries her uncle will discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far. But when the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer. As Evie jumps headlong into a dance with a murderer, other stories unfold in the city that never sleeps. A young man named Memphis is caught between two worlds. A chorus girl named Theta is running from her past. A student named Jericho is hiding a shocking secret. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Homomisia
Racism
White supremacy, including the Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
Slut-shaming
Rape
Domestic violence
Child abuse
Assisted suicide of a disabled character
Alcohol consumption
Drug use
Abortion
Blood and gore depiction
Medical treatment
Death of a sibling
Death of a parent
Murder
Cults
Animal cruelty
Animal sacrifice

Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn’t have the answers to everything. What to eat, where to go, whom to love. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of—she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea.

Then Lea dies in a car accident, and her mother sends her away to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. Now thousands of miles from home, Rumi struggles to navigate the loss of her sister, being abandoned by her mother, and the absence of music in her life. With the help of the “boys next door”—a teenage surfer named Kai, who smiles too much and doesn’t take anything seriously, and an eighty-year-old named George Watanabe, who succumbed to his own grief years ago—Rumi attempts to find her way back to her music, to write the song she and Lea never had the chance to finish.

Aching, powerful, and unflinchingly honest, Summer Bird Blue explores big truths about insurmountable grief, unconditional love, and how to forgive even when it feels impossible.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Grief depiction
Death of a brother

The Leaving by Tara Altebrando

The Leaving by Tara Altebrando

Six were taken. Eleven years later, five come back–with no idea of where they’ve been.

Eleven years ago, six kindergarteners went missing without a trace. After all that time, the people left behind moved on, or tried to.

Until today. Today five of those kids return. They’re sixteen, and they are . . . fine. Scarlett comes home and finds a mom she barely recognizes, and doesn’t really recognize the person she’s supposed to be, either. But she thinks she remembers Lucas. Lucas remembers Scarlett, too, except they’re entirely unable to recall where they’ve been or what happened to them. Neither of them remember the sixth victim, Max. He doesn’t come back. Everyone wants answers. Most of all Max’s sister Avery, who needs to find her brother–dead or alive–and isn’t buying this whole memory-loss story.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism
Child abuse
Absent parent
Cheating
Alcoholism
Depression
Asthma
Grief depiction
Death of a friend
Death of a child
Death of a sibling
Murder
Kidnapping

The Second Life of Ava Rivers by Faith Gardner

The Second Life of Ava Rivers by Faith Gardner

Ava’s disappearance was the crack in the Rivers family glacier. I wish I could explain to you how we were before, but I can’t, because the before is so filmy and shadowed with the after.

The after is all Vera remembers. When her twin sister, Ava, disappeared one Halloween night, her childhood became a blur of theories, tips, and leads, but never any answers. The case made headlines, shocked Vera’s Northern California community, and turned her family into tragic celebrities.

Now, at eighteen, Vera is counting down the days until she starts her new life at college in Portland, Oregon, far away from the dark cloud she and family have lived under for twelve years. But all that changes when a girl shows up at the local hospital.

Her name is Ava Rivers and she wants to go home.

Ava’s return begins to mend the fractures in the Rivers family. Vera and Ava’s estranged older brother returns. Vera reconnects with Max, the sweet, artistic boy from her childhood. Their parents smile again. But the questions remain: Where was Ava all these years? And who is she now?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Child sexual abuse
Child sexual assault
Child rape
Disappearance of a loved one
Kidnapping
Death of a child
Death of a sibling