Tag Archives: Drowning

The Whispering Dark by Kelly Andrew

Delaney Meyers-Petrov is tired of being seen as fragile just because she’s Deaf. So when she’s accepted into a prestigious program at Godbole University that trains students to slip between parallel worlds, she’s excited for the chance to prove herself. But her semester gets off to a rocky start as she faces professors who won’t accommodate her disability, and a pretentious upperclassman fascinated by Delaney’s unusual talents. Colton Price died when he was nine years old. Quite impossibly, he woke several weeks later at the feet of a green-eyed little girl. Now, twelve years later, Delaney Meyers-Petrov has stumbled back… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Parental abandonment & child neglect
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use mentioned
  • Death of a child
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping & stalking
  • Drowning
  • Fire
  • Car accident mentioned

Your Blood, My Bones by Kelly Andrew

Wyatt Westlock has one plan for the farmhouse she’s just inherited — to burn it to the ground. But during her final walkthrough of her childhood home, she makes a shocking discovery in the basement — Peter, the boy she once considered her best friend, strung up in chains and left for dead. Unbeknownst to Wyatt, Peter has suffered hundreds of ritualistic deaths on her family’s property. Semi-immortal, Peter never remains dead for long, but he can’t really live, either. Not while he’s bound to the farm, locked in a cycle of grisly deaths and painful rebirths. There’s only one way for him to break free. He needs to end the Westlock line… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Self-injury
  • Suicide by cutting throat
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Minor body horror
  • Torture recounted
  • Physical assault (fistfights) & stabbing
  • Drowning mentioned
  • Choking
  • Cult
  • Fire & arson
  • Animal death (chicken)

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Adult-minor relationship
  • Infidelity
  • Death of a spouse from cancer
  • Drowning
  • Wildfire
  • Animal cruelty recounted

Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw

Be careful of the dark, dark wood… Especially the woods surrounding the town of Fir Haven. Some say these woods are magical. Haunted, even. Rumored to be a witch, only Nora Walker knows the truth. She and the Walker women before her have always shared a special connection with the woods. And it’s this special connection that leads Nora to Oliver Huntsman—the same boy who disappeared from the Camp for Wayward Boys weeks ago—and in the middle of the worst snowstorm in years. He should be dead, but here he is alive, and left in the woods with no… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Hypothermia
  • Alcohol consmption
  • Murder by drowning
  • Kidnapping
  • Car accident mentioned
  • Forest fire

Watch Over Me by Nina LaCour

Eighteen-year-old Mila has been in the foster system since her mother abandoned her. Now that she’s graduating high school, she has nothing to do and nowhere to call home. So when she gets an offer to work as an intern on the Farm, she readily accepts. Her main job is to take care of eight-year-old Lee. At first the Farm seems like an idyllic paradise, a remote place on the cliffs with view of the sea far below. But Mila soon realises there’s something more sinister going on. Lee’s recent trauma causes Mila’s own frightening memories to bubble to the surface…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & neglect (theme)
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Emotional, psychological & financial domestic abuse
  • Gaslighting
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Needles & medical treatment mentioned
  • Car accident mentioned
  • Death of grandmother & grandfather mentioned
  • Fire & death from fire
  • Near-drowning incident

Zenobia by Morten Dürr and Lars Horneman

Zenobia was once a great warrior queen of Syria. She was courageous. No one gave her orders. Once she even went to war against the emperor of Rome. When things feel overwhelming for Amina, her mother reminds her to think of Zenobia and be strong. Amina is a Syrian girl caught up in a war that reaches her village. To escape the war she boards a small boat crammed with other refugees. The boat is rickety and the turbulent seas send Amina overboard. In the dark water Amina remembers the journey she had to undertake with her uncle to escape. And she thinks of the brave warrior Zenobia.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a child from drowning in a boating accident
  • War themes
  • Refugee experiences

Morgan Is My Name by Sophie Keetch

When King Uther Pendragon murders her father and tricks her mother into marriage, Morgan refuses to be crushed. Trapped amid the machinations of men in a world of isolated castles and gossiping courts, she discovers secret powers. Vengeful and brilliant, it’s not long before Morgan becomes a worthy adversary to Merlin, influential sorcerer to the king. But fighting for her freedom, she risks losing everything – her reputation, her loved ones and her life.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism & slut-shaming
  • Rape by coercion and involuntary pregnancy*
  • Infidelity
  • Intimate partner violence & physical assault
  • Forced marriage
  • Self-injury (for magic)
  • Emesis
  • Childbirth (secondary character)
  • Infertility & stillbirth
  • Death of a step-father in battle
  • Near-drowning incident (secondary character)
  • Animal death & dead bodies

Context : The protagonist’s mother was raped by coercion as Merlin magically disguised Uther to look like someone else and he impregnated her. The protagonist sets her husband’s face on fire after he attacks her (and has been physically abusive). The protagonist’s father told her mother that her son was stillborn but he lied and gave the child away.

The Other Side of Disappearing by Kate Clayborn

Hairstylist Jess Greene has spent the last decade raising her younger half-sister, Tegan—and keeping a shocking secret. Ever since their reckless mother ran off with a boyfriend she’d known only a few months, Jess has been aware that he’s the same accomplished con man who was the subject of a wildly popular podcast, The Last Con of Lynton Baltimore. Now thirty-one, Jess didn’t bargain on Tegan eventually piecing together the connection for herself. But Tegan plans to do exactly what Jess has always feared—leave their safe, stable home to search for their mother… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Homophobic bullying mentioned
  • Parental abandonment & divorce recounted
  • Minor physical injuries of a child mentioned (secondary character)
  • Death of a friend from suicide by drowning recounted
  • Death of an uncle in a car accident mentioned
  • Death of a mother from heart disease mentioned (secondary character)
  • Death of a secondary character from lung cancer mentioned

The Lotus Empire by Tasha Suri

Malini has claimed her rightful throne as the empress of Parijatdvipa, just as the nameless gods prophesied. Now, in order to gain the support of the priesthood who remain loyal to the fallen emperor, she must consider a terrible Claim her throne and burn in order to seal her legacy—or find another willing to take her place on the pyre. Priya has survived the deathless waters and now their magic runs in her veins. But a mysterious yaksa with flowering eyes and a mouth of thorns lies beneath the waters. The yaksa promises protection for Ahiranya. But in exchange, she needs a sacrifice. And she’s chosen Priya as the one to offer it… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny & sexism
  • Intimate partner violence
  • Forced parent-child separation mentioned
  • Alcoholism
  • Suicidal ideation & self-sacrifice
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use (pipe & hookah smoking)
  • Blood & injury depiction including burns, broken bones, chronic pain, illness (which causes plants to grow through skin) and emesis
  • Death of a brother recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Fire
  • Drowning
  • Imprisonment
  • War themes & battle scenes
  • Animal death

My December Darling by Lauren Asher

Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life. Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff edge the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there. . . but his wife has disappeared. A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible – a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault of a child
  • Suicide
  • Disappearance of a wife (theme)
  • Drowning mentioned