Tag Archives: Drowning

Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart And Other Stories by GennaRose Nethercott

The stories in Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart are about the abomination that resides within us all. That churning, clawing, hungry the desire to be loved, and seen, and known. And the terror of those things to be loved too well, or not enough, or for long enough. To be laid bare before your sweetheart, to their horror. To be known and recognized as the monstrous thing you are.  Two young women working at a sinister roadside attraction called the Eternal Staircase explore its secrets—and their own doomed summer love. A group of witchy teens concoct the perfect plan to induce the hated new girl into their ranks. A woman… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Infidelity
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Blood & gore depiction including decapitation & body horror
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Death of a child
  • Drowning
  • Animal death
  • Bestiality

Reckless by Lauren Roberts

The kingdom of Ilya is in turmoil… After surviving the Purging Trials, Ordinary-born Paedyn Gray has killed the King, and kickstarted a Resistance throughout the land. Now she’s running from the one person she had wanted to run to. Kai Azer is now Ilya’s Enforcer, loyal to his brother Kitt, the new King. He has vowed to find Paedyn and bring her to justice. Across the deadly Scorches, and deep into the hostile city of Dor, Kai pursues the one person he wishes he didn’t have to. But in a city without Elites, the balance between the hunter and hunted shifts, and the battle between… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Physical child abuse recounted
  • Gambling & smoking mentioned
  • Graphic blood & injury depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a sister & friend recounted
  • Murder
  • Knife, sword, spear & weapons violence
  • Physical assault (fistfights, cage fighting)
  • Near-drowning incident

Twilight Hauntings by Angie Sage

Alex has a set of Enchanted cards. When she flutters her fingers above them, something magical happens: the cards come alive and create moving pictures of what is now and what is yet to come. But Enchantment is illegal in the city of Luma, and those who practice it are imprisoned forever in the Vaults—dark dungeons deep below the city. When Alex is betrayed by her foster sister Zerra, she knows she is in great danger. With the help of her little foster brother, Louie, she makes a daring escape. But Alex is betrayed by her… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a mother in incarceration
  • Attempted murder by strangulation
  • Near-drowning incident
  • Animal death by gunshot (bird)
  • Animal attack (hawk, eel)

PathFinder by Angie Sage

Tod has grown up a PathFinder, one of an ancient seafaring tribe. Her mother, who died when Tod was young, had a very different history. She was from a mysterious magykal desert-dwelling family. When Tod’s father disappears she is not only alone, but soon finds herself swept into the path of an evil sorcerer. Now Tod must choose which of her pasts will help her to survive: PathFinder or Magician. Magyk will allow her to fight like with like, but her PathFinder heritage gives Tod something special – the edge.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Threats of murder by drowning
  • Kidnapping
  • Disappearance of a parent
  • Fire

Be With Me by Samantha Young

While Arran Adair might have followed the call of wanderlust in his younger years, it isn’t the reason he stayed away from Ardnoch. Home now, desperate to put the sins of his past behind him, and rebuild his life in the Scottish Highlands, Arran could never have predicted Eredine Willows. The Ardnoch Estate Pilates instructor is a complicated mystery and one Arran can’t help but want to solve. Eredine has spent the last eight years hiding in Scotland and building walls between her and the people she cares about. Arran is the first Adair who doesn’t treat her as if she’s fragile and demands a genuine friendship. Yet, the attraction… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape & sexual assault mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent mentioned
  • Knife violence
  • Drowning
  • Stalking

The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center

Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. She’s spent her life studying, obsessing over, and writing romantic comedies―good ones! That win contests! But she’s also been the sole caretaker for her kind-hearted dad, who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to re-write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates―The Charlie Yates! Her personal writing god!―it’s a break too big to pass up. Emma’s younger sister steps in for caretaking duties, and Emma moves to L.A. for six weeks for the writing gig of a lifetime. But what is it they say… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Divorce mentioned
  • Parent with Meniere’s disease & hemiplegia from a traumatic brain injury
  • Death of a parent in a rock climbing accident recounted
  • Near drowning incident recounted
  • Car accident (on-page)

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counsellor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found. As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Statutory rape mentioned
  • Domestic violence
  • Death of children
  • Murder recounted
  • Drowning

Penance by Eliza Clark

It’s been nearly a decade since the horrifying murder of sixteen-year-old Joan Wilson rocked Crow-on-Sea, and the events of that terrible night are now being published for the first time. That story is Penance, a dizzying feat of masterful storytelling, where Eliza Clark manoeuvres us through accounts from the inhabitants of this small seaside town. Placing us in the capable hands of journalist Alec Z. Carelli, Clark allows him to construct what he claims is the ‘definitive account’ of the murder – and what led up to it. Built on hours of interviews with witnesses and family members, painstaking historical research, and most… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & lesbophovia
  • Sexual assault of a child recounted (protagonist)
  • Necrophilia & hybristophilia discussed
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Death of a daughter from suicide mentioned
  • Death of a classmate from drowning mentioned
  • Murder by being burned alive (on-page)
  • School shooting mentioned
  • Bullying

Sula by Toni Morrison

Sula and Nel are two young black girls: clever and poor. They grow up together sharing their secrets, dreams and happiness. Then Sula breaks free from their small-town community in the uplands of Ohio to roam the cities of America. When she returns ten years later much has changed. Including Nel, who now has a husband and three children. The friendship between the two women becomes strained and the whole town grows wary as Sula continues in her wayward, vagabond and uncompromising ways.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racial slurs (n slur)
  • Infidelity mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse mentioned
  • Smoking mentioned
  • Death of a mother from suicide by fire (self-immolation)
  • Death of a man from being set on fire by his mother
  • Death of a child from an accidental drowning including further mentions of people drowning during a tunnel collapse
  • Physical assault of children mentioned
  • Battle scene recounted with mentions of the bloody death of a solider from gun violence

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to better the family’s social position. What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain’s king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical misogyny, antisemitism & religious bigotry
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of parents recounted
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction including body horror and emesis
  • Torture indcuding waterboarding
  • Imprisonment
  • Fire
  • Animal cruelty & death (squirrel)