Patchwork by Karsten Knight

Patchwork by Karsten Knight

Renata Lake thought her relationship would be the only casualty of prom. Then the bomb went off. It was supposed to be a night to remember—a cruise through Boston Harbor, dancing beneath the stars. But when an explosion tears the ship apart, Renata wakes up in Patchwork, an ethereal world where all her memories have been stitched haphazardly together. In order to catch the assassin who murdered her friends, she’ll have to navigate the twisted landscape of her mind and relive critical moments from her past in search of clues. Can she uncover the killer’s identity and find her way back to the man she once loved before it’s too late?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Near-drowning incident
  • Explosion
  • Boating accident

The Ritual by Shantel Tessier

I vow. You vow. We vow. Barrington University is home of the Lords, a secret society that requires their blood in payment. They are above all—the most powerful men in the world. They devote their lives to violence in exchange for power. And during their senior year, they are offered a chosen one. Barrington University is home of the Lords, a secret society that requires their blood in payment. They are above all—the most powerful men in the world. They devote their lives to violence in exchange for power. And during their senior year, they are offered a chosen one. People think… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Arranged relationship
  • Sex slavery
  • Attempted sexual assault
  • Dubious consent scenarios including consensual somnophilia and rape-play
  • Improper BDSM practices
  • Drugging including nonconsensual manipulation of birth control prescription
  • Depiction of a dead body
  • Branding (consensual)
  • Genital mutilation
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Gun & knife violence
  • Physical assault
  • Drowning
  • Cult
  • Stalking & nonconsensual surveillance

Hooked by AC Wise

Hooked by A.C. Wise

Captain James Hook, the immortal pirate of Neverland, has died a thousand times. Drowned, stabbed by Peter Pan’s sword, eaten by the beast swimming below the depths, yet James was resurrected every time by one boy’s dark imagination. Until he found a door in the sky, an escape. And he took the chance no matter the cost. Now in London twenty-two years later, Peter Pan’s monster has found Captain Hook again, intent on revenge. But a chance encounter leads James to another survivor of Neverland. Wendy Darling, now a grown woman, is the only one who knows how dark a shadow Neverland casts, no matter how… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Blood & gore depiction, including dead body & eye trauma
  • Cannibalism
  • Strangulation
  • Drowning

House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin Craig

House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

Annaleigh lives a sheltered life at Highmoor, a manor by the sea, with her sisters, their father, and stepmother. Once they were twelve, but loneliness fills the grand halls now that four of the girls’ lives have been cut short. Each death was more tragic than the last—the plague, a plummeting fall, a drowning, a slippery plunge—and there are whispers throughout the surrounding villages that the family is cursed by the gods. Disturbed by a series of ghostly visions, Annaleigh becomes increasingly suspicious that the deaths were no accidents. Her sisters have been sneaking… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sex worker slur
  • Hallucinations
  • Suicide
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Drugging
  • Stillbirth
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a sibling
  • Murder
  • Drowning
  • Fire
  • Death from exposure to the cold
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)

Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain

Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain

La Cachette, Louisiana, is the worst place to be if you have something to hide. This tiny town, where seventeen-year-old Grey spends her summers, is the self-proclaimed Psychic Capital of the World–and the place where Elora Pellerin, Grey’s best friend, disappeared six months earlier. Grey can’t believe that Elora vanished into thin air any more than she can believe that nobody in a town full of psychics knows what happened. But as she digs into the night that Elora went missing, she begins to realize that everybody in town is hiding something – her grandmother Honey; her childhood crush Hart; and even her late… Read more,

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Incest (step-siblings)
  • Self-harm mentioned
  • Murder by drowning mentioned
  • Strangulation
  • Arson & immolation

Home Is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo

Home Is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo

Nima doesn’t feel understood. By her mother, who grew up far away in a different land. By her suburban town, which makes her feel too much like an outsider to fit in and not enough like an outsider to feel like that she belongs somewhere else. At least she has her childhood friend Haitham, with whom she can let her guard down and be herself. Until she doesn’t. As the ground is pulled out from under her, Nima must grapple with the phantom of a life not chosen, the name her parents didn’t give her at birth: Yasmeen. But that other name, that other girl, might just be more real… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Islamomisia
  • Hate crime
  • Attempted rape mentioned
  • Cheating mentioned
  • Hospital
  • Death of a parent, off-page
  • Police violence & brutality
  • Drowning

The Storm Runner by Jennifer Cervantes

The Storm Runner by J.C. Cervantes

Zane has always enjoyed exploring the dormant volcano near his home in New Mexico, even though hiking it is challenging. He’d much rather hang out there with his dog, Rosie, than go to middle school, where kids call him Sir Limps a Lot, McGimpster, or Uno — for his one good leg. What Zane doesn’t know is that the volcano is a gateway to another world and he is at the center of a powerful prophecy. A new girl at school, Brooks, informs him that he’s destined to release an evil god from the ancient Maya relic he is… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism, internalised ableism & ableist language
  • Blood depiction
  • Near-drowning incident
  • Animal death

Dark Triumph by Robin LaFevers

Dark Triumph by Robin LaFevers

The convent has returned Sybella to a life that nearly drove her mad. Her father’s rage and brutality are terrifying, and her brother’s love is equally monstrous. When she discovers an unexpected ally imprisoned in the dungeons, will the daughter of Death find something other than vengeance to live for?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child abuse recounted
  • Sex work shaming
  • Incest (brother-sister & father-daughter)
  • Rape & attempted rape, on-page & recounted (multiple scenes)
  • Paedophilia & child sexual abuse
  • Pregnancy from rape mentioned
  • Childbirth mentioned
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Graphic physical injuries & illness,
  • Facial scars and disfigurement mentioned
  • Death of a sister, off-page
  • Death of a newborn daughter recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Attempted infanticide by drowning mentioned
  • Infanticide by snapping a newborn’s neck recounted, on-page
  • Knife, sword & arrow violence
  • Poisoning
  • Imprisonment
  • Animal death (dog) mentioned
  • Animal hunting
  • War themes & battle scenes including discussions of sieges

New Girl by Paige Harbison

New Girl by Paige Harbison

Welcome to Manderley Academy. I hadn’t wanted to go, but my parents were so excited… So here I am, the new girl at Manderley, a true fish out of water. But mine’s not the name on everyone’s lips. Oh, no. It’s Becca Normandy they can’t stop talking about. Perfect, beautiful Becca. She went missing at the end of last year, leaving a spot open at Manderley— the spot that I got. And everyone acts like it’s my fault that infallible, beloved Becca is gone and has been replaced by not perfect, completely fallible, unknown Me. Then, there’s the name on my lips… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism & ableist slurs
  • Slut-shaming
  • Rape
  • Cheating
  • Abusive relationship
  • Alcohol & drug abuse
  • Drowning

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden

Every day I clean the Winchesters’ beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor. I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Graphic domestic violence & abuse, including captivity, torture, unethical surveillance, and gaslighting (on-page)
  • Infidelity & divorce (on-page)
  • Weight gain discussed (on-page)
  • Infertility mentioned (faked)
  • Incarceration for assault recounted
  • Psychiatric hospitalisation for (perceived) hallucinations recounted
  • Captivity by intimate partner (on-page)
  • Physical & psychological torture, including forcing someone to remove their own tooth, and in a domestic violence context (on-page)
  • Stalking
  • Near-drowning of an infant child recounted

Context : The second narrator, Nina, covertly hired the main protagonist, Millie, as her housemaid in order to trick her into killing her husband. Nina has been abused and tortured by her husband, who even tried to drown their newborn daughter and gaslight her into believing she did it, for years. She is institutionalised after the incident, and convinces herself she hallucinated the abuse & incident, until it begins after her release. Nina believes she can make her husband fall in love & leave her for Millie, possibly even coerce Nina to kill him in self-defence, so she can escape with her daughter. She goes as far as to fake infertility, Millie was incarcerated for nearly fatally assaulted a man she caught sexually assaulting her friend.