Tag Archives: Drug Use & Abuse

The Rose Bargain by Sasha Peyton Smith

Every citizen of England is granted one bargain from their immortal fae queen. High society girls are expected to bargain for qualities that will win them suitors: a rare talent for piano in exchange for one’s happiest childhood memory. A perfect smile for one’s ability to taste. But Ivy Benton’s debut season arrives with a shocking twist: a competition to secure the heart of the Queen’s fae son, Prince Bram. A prize that could save Ivy’s family from ruin… and free her sister from the bargain that destroyed her. Yet every glittering fae deal has a rotting heart—and at the center of this contest is a plot that could destroy everything…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Physical & verbal child abuse mentioned (secondary character)
  • Memory loss
  • Suicide (implied)
  • Self-injury & loss of limb/appendages for magic
  • Alcohol consumption & mentions of smoking
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Emesis
  • Murder by stabbing
  • Drowning mentioned
  • Animal death (swan)
  • Bullying mentioned (secondary character)

Wild Side by Elsie Silver

I’d always dreamed of my wedding day. But not like this. Not looking into the eyes of the man who betrayed me. But when my nephew’s guardianship is contested, I decide I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him in Rose Hill. Even if it means marrying the enemy. Rhys Dupris. A man who is secretive, broody, and completely infuriating. A man whose work takes him away for weeks on end and brings him back covered in mysterious bruises—ones he won’t talk about. In fact, we barely talk at all. Which would be fine, except when he’s not talking, he’s staring. And the way he looks at me is borderline indecent. The tension between us has.. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a sibling from a drug overdose

The Bitter End by Alexa Donne

When a winter storm traps eight teens in a remote ski cabin, they find themselves stranded with a killer—who may be one of their own. The trip of a lifetime might be the death of them all. The students of LA’s elite Warner Prep can’t wait for their Senior Excursion—five days of Instagrammable adventure in one of the world’s most exclusive locations. This is not your average field trip. Which is why eight students can’t believe their bad luck when they end up on a digital detox in an isolated Colorado ski chalet. Their epic trip is panning out to be an epic bore . . . until their classmates start dropping in a series of disturbing deaths. The message… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Emesis
  • COVID-19 pandemic
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Bullying & cyberbullying

Max in the House of Spies by Adam Gidwitz

Max Bretzfeld doesn’t want to move to London. Leaving home is hard and Max is alone for the first time in his life. But not for long. Max is surprised to discover that he’s been joined by two unexpected traveling companions, one on each shoulder, a kobold and a dybbuk named Berg and Stein. Germany is becoming more and more dangerous for Jewish families, but Max is determined to find a way back home, and back to his parents. He has a plan to return to Berlin. It merely involves accomplishing the impossible – becoming a British spy.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Eugenics discussed
  • Period-typical Nazism, racial slurs & antisemitism
  • Suicide discussed
  • Alcohol consumption & smoking mentioned
  • Physical assault of a child by a teacher (protagonist)
  • World War Two (theme) including depiction of the Holocaust, Kristallnacht, the Kindertransport & the Blitz
  • Bullying

Max in the Land of Lies by Adam Gidwitz

Max was on a mission. Well, two missions. One mission his British spymasters knew about: infiltrating the Funkhaus, the center of Nazi radio and propaganda. The other, they did not: finding his parents. Max Bretzfeld was willing to do anything to return to Germany, even become a British spy. Training complete and forged papers in hand, the radio wunderkind’s mission has begun—gain access to the legendary Funkhaus, the base of operations for the Ministry of Propaganda and Popular Enlightenment headed by Joseph Goebbels.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical Nazism, racial slurs & antisemitism
  • Slavery & colonialism discussed
  • Alcohol consumption & smoking mentioned
  • Murder & torture
  • Physical assault & hand-to-hand combat
  • World War Two (theme) including imprisonment & concentration camp
  • Bullying

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

The Other Lola by Ripley Jones

In the months after Cam and Blair broke their small hometown’s legendary missing-girl story and catapulted to accidental fame, they vowed never to do it again. No more mysteries, no more podcasts, and no more sticking their heads where they don’t belong. Until Mattie Brosillard, a freshman at their high school, shows up on their doorstep, begging Cam and Blair for help. Mattie’s sister Lola disappeared mysteriously five years ago. No trace of her was ever found. Now, she’s back–but Mattie is convinced the girl who returned is an impostor. Nobody believes Mattie’s wild story–not Mattie’s brother, not Mattie’s mother, and… Read more,

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Adult-minor relationship mentioned
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) & panic attack
  • Child abuse
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Catfishing
  • Bullying

Nobody’s Fool by Harlan Coben

Sami Kierce, a young college grad backpacking in Spain with friends, wakes up one morning, covered in blood. There’s a knife in his hand. Beside him, the body of his girlfriend. Anna. Dead. He doesn’t know what happened. His screams drown out his thoughts—and then he runs. Twenty-two years later, Kierce, now a private investigator, is a new father who’s working off his debts by doing low level surveillance jobs and teaching wannabe sleuths at a night school in New York City. One evening, he recognizes a familiar face at the back of the classroom. Anna. It’s unmistakably her. As… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Human trafficking
  • Drug use (off-page)

Save the Game by J.J. Mulder

After a traumatizing event and rough sophomore year, Max Kuemper does his best to keep his head down and not draw attention to himself. School and hockey are the only two things he can handle; it’s all he can do to keep himself afloat. He wants to forget about what happened to him and bring the secret to his grave. Confident and flirty Luke Kelly likes to play the field—dating as well as baseball. When he meets Max during a night shift at work, he takes an instant liking to him, despite the other man’s reserved exterior and shy personality. But secrets have a way… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Drug-facilitated rape recounted (protagonist)
  • Panic attacks (on-page)
  • Emesis (on-page)

Out of the Woods by Hannah Bonam-Young

High school sweethearts Sarah and Caleb Linwood have always been a sure thing. For the past seventeen years, they have had each other’s backs through all of life’s ups and downs, achievements, losses, stages, and phases. But Sarah has begun to wonder… Who is she without her other half? When she decides to take on a project of her own, a fundraising gala in memoriam of her late mother, Sarah wants nothing more than to prove to herself—and to everyone else—that she doesn’t need Caleb’s help to succeed. She’s still her mother’s daughter, after all. Independent and capable. That is until the event fails and Caleb uninvitedly…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a parent from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
  • Medical treatments & hospitalization
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use mentioned (marijuana)