Fallen by Karin Slaughter

Fallen by Karin Slaughter

Special Agent Faith Mitchell returns home to a nightmare. Her baby daughter Emma has been locked outside, and there’s a trail of blood to the front door. Without waiting for back-up, Faith enters the house. Inside a man lies dead in a pool of blood. Most worrying of all, her own mother is missing.

When the Atlanta police arrive, Faith has some difficult questions to answer. But she has some desperate questions of her own. What were the killers searching for? And where is her mother?… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child abuse
  • Abusive relationship
  • Domestic violence
  • Self harm recounted
  • Drug abuse
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Gun violence
  • Physical assault
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter

Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter

Andrea Oliver’s mother, Laura, is the perfect small-town mum. Laura lives a quiet but happy life in sleepy beachside Belle Isle. She’s a pillar of the community: a speech therapist, business owner and everybody’s friend. And she’s never kept a secret from anyone. Or so Andrea thinks.

When Andrea is caught in a random violent attack at a shopping mall, Laura intervenes and acts in a way that is unrecognisable to her daughter. It’s like Laura is a completely different person – and that’s because she was. Thirty years ago. Before Andrea. Before Belle Isle… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia
  • Domestic abuse
  • Suicide
  • Drug abuse
  • Loss of a pregnancy
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • AIDS
  • Emesis
  • Death of a sibling
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Explosions
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Dreamland by Sarah Dessen

Dreamland by Sarah Dessen

Ever since she started going out with Rogerson Biscoe, Caitlin seems to have fallen into a semiconscious dreamland where nothing is quite real. Rogerson is different from anyone Caitlin has ever known. He’s magnetic. He’s compelling. He’s dangerous. Being with him makes Caitlin forget about everything else–her missing sister, her withdrawn mother, her lackluster life. But what happens when being with Rogerson becomes a larger problem than being without him?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape
  • Abusive relationship
  • Intimate partner abuse & violence
  • Substance addiction
  • Recreational drug use & abuse
  • Psychiatric hospitalisation
  • Physical injuries
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The Dry by Jane Harper

The Dry by Jane Harper

In the grip of the worst drought in a century, the farming community of Kiewarra is facing life and death choices daily when three members of a local family are found brutally slain.

Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk reluctantly returns to his hometown for the funeral of his childhood friend, loath to face the townsfolk who turned their backs on him twenty years earlier.
But as questions mount, Falk is forced to probe deeper into the deaths of the Hadler family because Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret. A secret Luke’s death now threatens to bring to the surface.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child physical & sexual abuse
  • Rape & sexual assault of a child
  • Incest (father-daughter)
  • Domestic violence
  • Gambling addiction
  • Depression mentioned
  • Suicide & murder-suicide (theme)
  • Attempted suicide by immolation, on-page
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Smoking
  • Graphic dead bodies
  • Blood & gore depiction, including burns
  • Hospitalisation
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a son, daughter-in-law & grandson
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a father from bowel cancer mentioned
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Fire
  • Drought (theme)
  • Mugging & home invasion recounted
  • Animal death & hunting
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs all its members are happy consumers. Bernard Marx seems alone in feeling discontent, harbouring an ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations, where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his distress…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Queermisia
  • Misogyny
  • Eugenics
  • Cheating
  • Suicide
  • Self harm, including self-flagellation
  • Domestic abuse & violence
  • Child abuse
  • Recreational drug use & abuse
  • Overdose mentioned
  • Emesis
  • Death of a parent
  • Hanging
  • Electrocution
  • Animal neglect
  • Animal death & dead bodies
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry

The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry

The Willoughby children—Timothy, twins Barnaby A and Barnaby B, and their sister Jane—are fond all old-fashioned things, but especially old-fashioned adventures. What they aren’t fond of, however, are their parents. Truth be told, their parents aren’t the fondest of them, either, and they’re concocting an evil plan to get rid of their children once and for all!

Both parents and children have plenty of dastardly ideas and tricks up their sleeves. The only thing they don’t have is any idea of what lies between them and a happily-ever-after.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Parental abandonment
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Death from exposure to the cold
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Gossamer by Lois Lowry

Gossamer by Lois Lowry

Where do dreams come from? What stealthy nighttime messengers are the guardians of our most deeply hidden hopes and our half-forgotten fears?

In a haunting story that tiptoes between reality and imagination, two people—a lonely, sensitive woman and a damaged, angry boy—face their own histories and discover what they can be to one another, renewed by the strength that comes from a tiny, caring creature they will never see.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child abuse
  • Domestic abuse
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racist language
  • Domestic abuse
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Miscarriage
  • Blood depiction
  • Cancer
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a son
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The Last to Let Go by Amber Smith

The Last to Let Go by Amber Smith

Junior year for Brooke Winters is supposed to be about change. She’s transferring schools, starting fresh, and making plans for college. But all of her dreams are shattered one hot summer afternoon when her mother is arrested for killing Brooke’s abusive father. No one really knows what happened that day, if it was premeditated or self-defense, whether it was right or wrong. And now Brooke and her siblings are on their own.

In a year of firsts—the first year without parents, first love, first heartbreak, and her first taste of freedom—Brooke must confront the shadow of her family’s violence and dysfunction, as she struggles to finds her true place in the world, and learns how to let go.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Queermisia
  • Domestic abuse & violence
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Smoking mentioned
  • Overdose discussed
  • Death of a father
  • Murder
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Incarceration (parent)
  • Bullying
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All by Laura Ruby

Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All by Laura Ruby

It’s hard to be a 13-year-old girl. But it’s even harder when your father’s a drunk. It adds an extra layer to everything — your family’s reactions to things, the people you’re willing to bring home, the way you see yourself and the world. For Samantha, it’s something that’s been going on for so long that she’s almost used to it. Only, you never get used to it. Especially when it starts to get worse…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Racism
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Sexual harassment
  • Domestic abuse
  • Depression
  • Attempted suicide mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Miscarriage mentioned
  • Death of a mother
  • Murder
  • Whipping
  • World War Two
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com