Tag Archives: Emotional Abuse & Gaslighting

Evocation by S.T. Gibson

As a teen, David Aristarkhov was a psychic prodigy, operating under the shadow of his oppressive occultist father. Now, years after his father’s death and rapidly approaching his thirtieth birthday, he is content with the high-powered life he’s curated as a Boston attorney, moonlighting as a powerful medium for his secret society. But with power comes a price, and the Devil has come to collect on an ancestral deal. David’s days are numbered, and death looms at his door. Reluctantly, he reaches out to the only person he’s ever trusted, his ex-boyfriend and secret Society rival Rhys, for help. However, the only way to get to Rhys is… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Physical & emotional child abuse discussed
  • Infidelity mentioned
  • Alcoholism discussed & depicted
  • Drug use (smoking)

The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer

Years ago, a reclusive mega-bestselling children’s author quit writing under mysterious circumstances. Suddenly he resurfaces with a brand-new book and a one-of-a-kind competition, offering a prize that will change the winner’s life in this absorbing and whimsical novel.

Lucy Hart knows better than anyone what it’s like to grow up without parents who loved her. In a childhood marked by neglect and loneliness, Lucy found her solace in books, namely the Clock Island series by Jack Masterson… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Child abuse and neglect recounted
  • Foster care experiences
  • Emotionally abusive relationship recounted
  • Munchausen by Proxy mentioned*
  • Alcoholism and substance addiction recovery (love interest)
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Unplanned pregnancy & miscarriage mentioned
  • Sibling with terminal cancer
  • Death of a brother from complications during heart surgery recounted
  • Financial and housing insecurity

*Context: The protagonist learns her sister’s childhood chronic illness was the result of her parents’ attempts to keep her sick. Discussions of children in foster care due to abusive alcoholic parents and parents’ deaths from overdoses.

Hatchet Girls by Diana Rodriguez Wallach

When the parents of the richest family in Fall River are found murdered by axe, the town is quick to blame newcomer Vik. It doesn’t help that he was caught standing over the bodies with blood on his hands and can’t remember anything about the night in question.

But Vik’s sister, Tessa, knows that Vik would never be capable of such a gruesome crime. Haunted by the mistakes she made that led her family to Fall River in the first place, she sets out to prove her brother’s innocence… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Emotional abuse & gaslighting
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Car accident recounted, off-page

Burn the Negative by Josh Winning

Arriving in L.A. to visit the set of a new streaming horror series, journalist Laura Warren witnesses a man jumping from a bridge, landing right behind her car. Here we go, she thinks. It’s started. Because the series she’s reporting on is a remake of a ’90s horror flick. A cursed ’90s horror flick, which she starred in as a child—and has been running from her whole life.

In The Guesthouse, Laura played the little girl with the terrifying gift to tell people how the Needle Man would kill them. When eight of the cast and crew died in ways that… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Physical & psychological child abuse

A Multitude of Dreams by Mara Rutherford

Princess Imogen of Goslind has lived a sheltered life for three years at the boarded-up castle—she and the rest of its inhabitants safe from the bloody mori roja plague that’s ravaged the kingdom. But Princess Imogen has a secret, and as King Stuart descends further into madness, it’s at great risk of being revealed. Rations dwindle each day, and unhappy murmurings threaten to crack the facade of the years-long charade being played within the castle walls… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Anti-semitism
  • Poverty
  • Emotional abuse
  • Self-harm
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Blood drinking
  • Dead bodies
  • Decapitation
  • Pandemic/contagion
  • Starvation
  • Death of parents recounted
  • Mass deaths from pandemic
  • Captivity
  • Murder

Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko

Tarisai has always longed for the warmth of a family. She was raised in isolation by a mysterious, often absent mother known only as The Lady. The Lady sends her to the capital of the global empire of Aritsar to compete with other children to be chosen as one of the Crown Prince’s Council of 11. If she’s picked, she’ll be joined with the other Council members through the Ray, a bond deeper than blood. That closeness is irresistible to Tarisai, who has always wanted to belong somewhere. But The Lady has other ideas, including a magical wish that Tarisai is compelled to obey: Kill the Crown Prince once she gains his trust… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Enslavement
  • Rape
  • Parental abandonment
  • Emotional and physical child abuse & neglect
  • Domestic abuse
  • Suicide
  • Death of a child
  • Attempted murder
  • Regicide
  • Fire

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Lesbomisia
  • Adult-minor relationship
  • Paedophilia
  • Rape
  • Sexual harassment
  • Emotional abuse
  • Depression
  • Schizophrenia
  • Self-harm
  • Suicide & attempted suicide
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Terminal cancer
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent

The Hidden by Melanie Golding

When a small child is found wandering alone, the local shopkeepers call the authorities immediately. Twenty minutes later, the girl’s mother turns up, panicked and distraught. It doesn’t take long to clear things up, and mother and daughter are soon reunited and sent on their way.

Miles away, the body of a man is discovered, floating in a bathtub, but the most surprising discovery of all is that he isn’t dead. Despite his injuries, he is very much alive… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic abuse
  • Emotional abuse & gaslighting

If Only You by Chloe Liese

Ziggy. I’m the youngest player on the National Soccer team, the baby of my family, and thoroughly sick of being underestimated, so I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands. Which is where my brother’s best friend and teammate, the infamous Sebastian Marchand, comes in. Seb needs to rehab his reputation. I want to give mine an edge. So I propose a fake friendship with real benefits: spending time in the public eye, my good-girl image and his bad-boy notoriety rubbing off on each other. He’s my devious, dark-haired fantasy come to life, but his destructive ways make it easy to keep him in the fake… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Emotional child abuse recounted
  • Anxiety
  • Chronic illness & pain (celiac disease)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis

Cry of Metal and Bone by L Penelope

Six weeks after the fall of the Mantle, centuries-old enemies Elsira and Lagrimar struggle to unite. The will of the goddess is that the two nations become one, but while the war may be over, peace is still elusive. As desperate Lagrimari flee their barren land for a chance at a better life in Elsira, a dangerous faction opposed to the unification rises. When a shadowy group with ties to the Elsiran government takes responsibility for the attack and promises more, an unlikely crew is assembled to investigate. Among them are Lizvette Nirall, a disgraced socialite seeking redemption for past mistakes, and Tai Summerhawk, a… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Verbal & emotional child abuse
  • Self-injury for magic & bloodletting
  • Parent with gambling addiction
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Physical injury & illness
  • Emesis
  • Medical experimentation
  • Attempted assassination by poisoning
  • Torture
  • Terrorism (bombing of a religious institution)
  • Kidnapping
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)