Tag Archives: Drowning

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of drowning.

See also Murder & attempted murder and Asphyxia.

Mercury Boys by Chandra Prasad

After her life is upended by divorce and a cross-country move, 16-year-old Saskia Brown feels like an outsider at her new school—not only is she a transplant, she’s biracial in a population of mostly white students. One day while visiting her only friend at her part-time library job, Saskia encounters a vial of liquid mercury, then touches an old daguerreotype—the precursor of the modern-day photograph—and makes a startling discovery. She is somehow able to visit the man in the portrait: Robert Cornelius… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Drug abuse
  • Overdose
  • Amputation
  • Drowning
  • Arson

The Marvels by Brian Selznick

The journey begins at sea in 1766, with a boy named Billy Marvel. After surviving a shipwreck, he finds work in a London theatre. There, his family flourishes for generations as brilliant actors until 1900, when young Leontes Marvel is banished from the stage.

Nearly a century later, runaway Joseph Jervis seeks refuge with an uncle in London. Albert Nightingale’s strange, beautiful house, with its mysterious portraits and ghostly presences, captivates Joseph and leads him on a search for clues about the house, his family, and the past… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Child abuse
  • Parental abandonment
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use
  • HIV & AIDs
  • Terminal illness
  • Attempted murder
  • Drowning
  • Fire (theme)
  • Car accident
  • Shipwreck
  • Poverty
  • Animal death
  • Bullying

The Boneless Mercies by April Genevieve Tucholke

Frey, Ovie, Juniper, and Runa are Boneless Mercies – death-traders, hired to kill quickly, quietly and mercifully. It is a job for women, and women only. Men will not do this sad, dark work.
Frey has no family, no home, no fortune, and yet her blood sings a song of glory. So when she hears of a monster slaughtering men, women, and children in a northern jarldom, she decides this the Mercies’ one chance to change their fate… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Child abuse
  • Attempted forced child sex work mentioned
  • Suicide & assisted voluntary euthanasia, on-page
  • Suicidal ideation & attempted suicide recounted
  • Self-flagellation, on-page
  • Dead bodies & body parts
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Eyeball trauma
  • Serious physical injury & illness
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child, on-page
  • Death of a sister recounted
  • Death of a girlfriend recounted
  • Death of a mentor recounted
  • Death of a parent from illness recounted
  • Death of a friend, on-page
  • Graphic murder & attempted murder (theme)
  • Knife, axe & attempted murder
  • Hanging, off-page
  • Poisoning
  • Graphic drowning
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • War themes & battle scenes
  • Animal attack
  • Graphic animal death
  • Animal abuse

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again. But 18-year-old Iris Winnow just wants to hold her family together. Her mother is suffering from addiction and her brother is missing from the front lines. Her best bet is to win the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette. To combat her worries, Iris writes letters to her brother and slips them beneath her wardrobe door, where they vanish—into the hands of Roman Kitt, her cold and handsome rival at the paper. When he anonymously writes Iris back, the two of them forge a connection that will follow Iris all the way to the front lines of battle: for her brother, the fate of mankind, and love.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Parent with alcoholism
  • Panic attack
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Cigarette & cigar smoking mentioned
  • Medical treatment including needles
  • Blood, gore and physical injury
  • Emesis
  • Death of a sister from drowning recounted
  • Death of a mother from being hit by a train
  • Military service discussed
  • Graphic war themes & battle scenes including bombings and chemical gassing, on-page
  • Poverty

The Merciless Ones by Namina Forna

It’s been six months since Deka freed the goddesses in the ancient kingdom of Otera and discovered who she really is… but war is waging across the kingdom, and the real battle has only just begun. For there is a dark force growing in Otera—a merciless power that Deka and her army must stop. Yet hidden secrets threaten to destroy everything Deka has known. And with her own gifts changing, Deka must discover if she holds the key to saving Otera… or if she might be its greatest threat.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Sex work-shaming
  • Parental abuse mentioned
  • Panic attacks
  • Body horror & gore depiction including dead bodies
  • Murder
  • Grief depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a father
  • Torture
  • Immolation (burning alive) & fire mentioned
  • Hanging mentioned
  • Drowning mentioned
  • Death from falling discussed
  • Loss of autonomy (mind control)

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.
Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Panic attack mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption with implications of alcohol abuse, on- & off-page
  • Pregnancy mentioned (prologue)
  • Graphic body horror
  • Detailed blood and injury depiction including eye trauma and an on-page arm amputation
  • Surgery and medical treatment, off-page
  • Hospitalisation, on-page
  • Needles, on-page
  • Grief and loss depiction (theme)
  • Death of a mother and father in a car accident, off-page
  • Death of a child from lockjaw mentioned
  • Death of a child and brother from drowning mentioned including a near-drowning incident recounted
  • Gun violence
  • Physical assault including assault with a hammer
  • Fire
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)
  • Animal attack (dog)
  • Animal dead bodies and taxidermy discussed (squirrels)

Whalefall by Daniel Kraus

Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool’s errand—to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it’s a long shot, but Jay feels it’s the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad’s death by suicide the previous year. The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid’s tentacles and drawn into the whale’s mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Emotional child abuse discussed (on-page)
  • Hallucinations (protagonist)
  • Physical injury & illness (on-page)
  • Emesis
  • Death of a father from suicide by drowning after terminal cancer discussed (off-page)
  • Graphic animal death & injury (theme) including the protagonist being swallowed alive by a sperm whale

*Context : The protagonist’s father uses dive weights to drown after his terminal cancer diagnosis. A general warning for content sensitive for readers with claustrophobia.

Bone China by Laura Purcell

Consumption has ravaged Louise Pinecroft’s family, leaving her and her father alone and heartbroken. But Dr Pinecroft has plans for a revolutionary experiment: convinced that sea air will prove to be the cure his wife and children needed, he arranges to house a group of prisoners suffering from the same disease in the cliffs beneath his new Cornish home. While he devotes himself to his controversial medical trials, Louise finds herself increasingly discomfited by the strange tales her new maid tells of the fairies that hunt the land, searching for those they can steal away to their realm. Forty years later, Hester Why arrives at… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Ableism
  • Classism
  • Alcoholism
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Pregnancy
  • Miscarriage
  • Infertility
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood depiction
  • Emesis
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Drowning
  • Kidnapping

Sing Me to Sleep by Gabi Burton

Saoirse Sorkova survives on lies. As a soldier-in-training at the most prestigious barracks in the kingdom, she lies about being a siren to avoid execution. At night, working as an assassin for a dangerous group of mercenaries, Saoirse lies about her true identity. And to her family, Saoirse tells the biggest lie of all: that she can control her siren powers and doesn’t struggle constantly against an impulse to kill. As the top trainee in her class, Saoirse would be headed for a bright future if it weren’t for the need to keep her secrets out of the spotlight. But when a mysterious black… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis
  • Murder including murder by poisoning, stabbing, and drowning
  • Kidnapping
  • Loss of autonomy (magical coercion)
  • Genocide recounted

Words on Fire by Jennifer Nielsen

Words on Fire by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Danger is never far from Audra’s family farm in Lithuania. She always avoids the occupying Russian Cossack soldiers, who insist that everyone must become Russian — they have banned Lithuanian books, religion, culture, and even the language. But Audra knows her parents are involved in something secret and perilous. When Cossacks arrive abruptly at their door, Audra’s parents insist that she flee, taking with her an important package and instructions for where to deliver it. But escape means abandoning her parents to a terrible fate. As Audra embarks on a…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Grap

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Parental separation (theme)
  • Gun violence
  • Physical assault
  • Drowning & attempted drowning
  • Fire
  • Military violence