Tag Archives: Dubious Consent (DubCon)

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of dubious consent scenarios.

See also Rape, Sexual assault, Improper BDSM practices, and Sex work.

Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park

Young is a cynical yet fun-loving Korean student who pinballs from home to class to the beds of recent Tinder matches. He and Jaehee, his female best friend and roommate, frequent nearby bars where they push away their anxieties about their love lives, families, and money with rounds of soju and ice-cold Marlboro Reds that they keep in their freezer. Yet over time, even Jaehee leaves Young to settle down, leaving him alone to care for his ailing mother and to find companionship in his relationships with a series of men, including one whose handsomeness is matched by his coldness, and another who might end up being the great love of his life… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Dubious consent scenario
  • Depression
  • Suicide
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Cancer
  • Sexually transmitted diseases, specifically HIV & AIDS

The Mermaid and the Fisherman by Johannes T Evans

A young man fleeing home has taken up residence in an old fishing cabin on the west coast of Scotland. He is observed, very closely, by a mermaid from beyond the maerl beds nearby.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transmisia mentioned
  • Misogyny mentioned
  • Dubious consent scenario

Context: Dubious consent due to the intoxicating effects of the merman’s secretions

The Words by Ashley Jade

The Words by Ashley Jade

He was the talented bad boy everyone wanted. I was the irrelevant geek everyone hated. He was the sun, drawing all of us in. I was a black hole, taking up space. He was destined to be a star. I was destined to remain an insignificant no one. Until he made me believe I was special… And then he destroyed me. I never thought I’d see Phoenix Walker again after he broke my heart, but fate had other plans. One tour. Eight weeks. Forty shows. Countless opportunities to make him pay. The world thought he was a God… But I knew the truth.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Fatmisia & body-shaming (theme)
  • Dubious consent scenario, on-page
  • Child abuse
  • Abusive & toxic relationship
  • Recovery from substance abuse issues
  • Parent with early-onset dementia
  • Disordered eating as a coping mechanism for grief mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse recounted
  • Drug abuse & use recounted
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother during childbirth recounted
  • Bullying*

*Context : The heroine is hired as the hero’s sober companion. The heroine was bullied for her weight in high school.

Sweet Solitude by Sav Miller

Sweet Solitude by Sav R. Miller

In the wake of her father’s death, lonely Juliet Harrison struggles with the guilt over her loss. She deals with it the way she deals with everything: by burying her feelings beneath impulsive decisions and desecrating the local graveyard. But Juliet isn’t as invisible as she believes. Hiding out from the ghosts of his past, Kieran Ivers is known in King’s Trace as a homicidal hermit. But the rumours don’t stop him from visiting the cemetery to taunt his late brother’s remains. It’s there he first spots a woman engaging in lascivious acts on her father’s grave and becomes enraptured by… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Human trafficking
  • Sexual assault, voyeurism & dubious consent scenario
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Alcohol abuse
  • Emesis
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Torture
  • Organised crime
  • Erotic asphyxiation

Vipers and Virtuosos by Sav Miller

Vipers and Virtuosos by Sav R. Miller

Aiden. From the second I saw her, I knew she’d be my ruin. Sitting all alone at the bar, she looked like an angel. Eurydice in human form; her beauty eclipsed by demons. Now, I’m one of them. The ghost she’s tried for years to escape. Thinking I wouldn’t be able to find her. But I never stopped trying, and now that I have, Her past sins should be the least of her worries. Riley. From the moment he saw me, I knew I’d ruin his life. Alone at the bar, I dared the monster to come and play. Orpheus in the flesh, with his sad songs and strange obsessions. I became one of them. The siren who calls… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Human trafficking mentioned
  • Adult-minor relationship*
  • Sexual assault & dubious consent scenarios
  • Physical, psychological & sexual child abuse mentioned
  • Suicide & attempted suicide mentioned
  • Self-harm discussed
  • Death of a parent mentioned
  • Murder mentioned
  • Stalking

*Context : The heroine is an eighteen-year-old high school student and the hero is a twenty-two-year-old man.

The Heir by Sophie Lark

The Heir by Sophie Lark

Mafia families from around the world send their children to Kingmakers Academy to learn the skills of criminal enterprise. Under the rules of Sanctuary, students are forbidden to fight or kill. But rivalries are high, tensions inflamed, and forbidden love arises in the most unlikely places… Welcome to Kingmakers.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault
  • Dubious consent scenario
  • Drugging
  • Organised crime (mafia)

The Magpie Lord by KJ Charles

The Magpie Lord by K.J. Charles

Exiled to China for twenty years, Lucien Vaudrey never planned to return to England. But with the mysterious deaths of his father and brother, it seems the new Lord Crane has inherited an earldom. He’s also inherited his family’s enemies. He needs magical assistance, fast. He doesn’t expect it to turn up angry. Magician Stephen Day has good reason to hate Crane’s family. Unfortunately, it’s his job to deal with supernatural threats. Besides, the earl is unlike any aristocrat he’s ever met, with the tattoos, the attitude… and the way Crane seems determined to get him into... Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism
  • Homomisia
  • Dubious consent scenario
  • Sexual assault mentioned
  • Incest mentioned
  • Suicide, off-page
  • Attempted suicide, on-page
  • Self harm
  • Animal abuse
  • Animal death

The Warlord Wants Forever by Kresley Cole

The Warlord Wants Forever by Kresley Cole

Nikolai Wroth, a ruthless Vampire general, will stop at nothing to find his Bride, the one woman who can “blood” him, making his heart beat and filling him with strength. Coldly interested only in the power his Bride will bring, he can hardly believe when Myst the Coveted awakens him body—and soul. Famed throughout the world as the most beautiful Valkyrie, Myst has devoted her life to protecting a magical jewel and to fighting the vampires. Wroth provides her with the perfect opportunity to torment her sworn enemy—for with his new heartbeat comes a consuming sexual desire that can only be slaked by her. Denying him… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault & dubious consent scenario
  • Murder

No Rest for the Wicked by Kresley Cole

No Rest for the Wicked by Kresley Cole

Centuries ago, Sebastian Wroth was turned into a vampire—a nightmare in his mind—against his will. Burdened with hatred and alone for ages, he sees little reason to live. Until an exquisite, fey creature comes to kill him, inadvertently saving him instead. When Kaderin the Cold Hearted lost her two beloved sisters to a vampire attack long ago, a benevolent force deadened her sorrow—accidentally extinguishing all of her emotions. Yet whenever she encounters Sebastian, her feelings—particularly lust—emerge multiplied. For the first time, she’s unable to complete a kill… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Dubious consent scenario
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of parents & siblings

A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole

After enduring years of torture from the vampire horde, Lachlain MacRieve, leader of the Lykae Clan, is enraged to find the predestined mate he’s waited millennia for is a vampire. Or partly one. This Emmaline is a small, ethereal half Valkyrie/half vampire, who somehow begins to soothe the fury burning within him. Sheltered Emmaline Troy finally sets out to uncover the truth about her deceased parents—until a powerful Lykae claims her as his mate and forces her back to his ancestral Scottish castle. There, her fear of the Lykae—and their notorious dark desires—ebbs as he begins a slow, wicked seduction to sate her own… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault & dubious consent (on-page)
  • Murder (on-page)
  • Torture recounted
  • Kidnapping & captivity (on-page)