Tag Archives: Gun Violence

To Steal a Heart by KC Bateman

Forced to do the bidding of a corrupt government minister, Marianne de Bonnard agrees to plant incriminating evidence in the offices of France’s most notorious spymaster. Under cover of night, the tightrope-walking thief puts her skills to good use—until her aerial stunt is foiled when her target appears in the window and, with consummate poise, helps Marianne off the wire and into his lair. The tremors that run through her body are not just from fear; there’s an unwanted frisson of desire there, too. But is it because of her elegant, wickedly handsome host… or his proposition? Nicolas Valette has had plans… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault & dubious consent scenes recounted
  • Death of a parent & sibling recounted
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Fire

*Context : The romance is between a nineteen-year-old heroine and a 35-year-old hero.

The Measure by Nikki Erlick

Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice. It seems like any other day. You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out. But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds your fate inside: the answer to the exact number of years you will live. From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise? As society comes together and pull apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Suicide
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of both parents in a car accident
  • Bombing
  • Workplace mass shooting
  • Bullying

The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen

Hart is a marshal, tasked with patrolling the strange and magical wilds of Tanria. It’s an unforgiving job, and Hart’s got nothing but time to ponder his loneliness.

Mercy never has a moment to herself. She’s been single-handedly keeping Birdsall & Son Undertakers afloat in defiance of sullen jerks like Hart, who seems to have a gift for showing up right when her patience is thinnest… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Pregnancy & childbirth mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Physical injuries including gunshot wounds
  • Emesis
  • Heart attack recounted*
  • Dead bodies
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Death of a mother from cancer recounted
  • Death of a grandparent from a stroke
  • Attempted murder
  • Animal death recounted & discussed (dog)

*Context: Female protagonist’s father had a heart attack within the past year.

Truelife by Jay Kristoff

Best friends have become enemies. Lovers have become strangers. And deciding whose side you’re on could be the difference between life and death. For Eve and Lemon, discovering the truth about themselves–and each other–was too much for their friendship to take. But with the country on the brink of a new world war–this time between the BioMaas swarm at CityHive and Daedalus’s army at Megopolis, loyalties will be pushed to the brink, unlikely alliances will form and with them, betrayals. But the threat doesn’t stop there, because the lifelikes are determined to access the program that will set every robot free… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Suicide
  • Poisoning
  • Explosion
  • Gun violence

The Cabin by Natasha Preston

There may only be one killer, but no one is innocent.

When Mackenzie treks to a secluded cabin in the woods with six friends, she expects a fun weekend of partying, drinking, and hookups. But when they wake to find two of their own dead and covered in blood, it’s clear there’s a killer among them.

As the police try to unravel the case, Mackenzie launches her own investigation. Before long secrets start to emerge, revealing a sinister web of sins among the original seven friends… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug abuse
  • Abortion
  • Blood depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Stabbing
  • Blackmail
  • Fatal car accident recounted

Thieves’ Gambit by Kayvion Lewis

At only seventeen years old, Ross Quest is already a master thief, especially adept at escape plans. Until her plan to run away from her legendary family of thieves takes an unexpected turn, leaving her mother’s life hanging in the balance. In a desperate bid, she enters the Thieves’ Gambit, a series of dangerous, international heists where killing the competition isn’t exactly off limits, but the grand prize is a wish for anything in the world–a wish that could save her mom. When she learns two of her competitors include her childhood nemesis and a handsome, smooth-talking… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Death of a parent
  • Knife & gun violence
  • Kidnapping

Songs of Irie by Asha Shanti Bromfield

It’s 1976 and Jamaica is on fire. The country is on the eve of important elections and the warring political parties have made the divisions between the poor and the wealthy even wider. And Irie and Jilly come from very different backgrounds: Irie is from the heart of Kingston, where fighting in the streets is common. Jilly is from the hills, where mansions nestled within lush gardens remain safe behind gates. But the two bond through a shared love of Reggae music, spending time together at Irie’s father’s record store, listening to so-called rebel music that opens Jilly’s mind to a sound and a way of thinking she’s never heard… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & colourism
  • Homomisia
  • Colonialism
  • Drugging
  • Gun violence
  • Explosion (bombing)
  • Kidnapping

Among the Innocent by Mary Alford

When Leah Miller’s entire Amish family was murdered ten years ago, the person believed responsible took his own life. Since then, Leah left the Amish and joined the police force. Now, after another Amish woman is found murdered with the same MO, it becomes clear that the wrong man may have been blamed for her family’s deaths.
As Leah and the new police chief, Dalton Cooper, work long hours struggling to fit the pieces together in order to catch the killer, they can’t help but grow closer. When secrets from both of their pasts begin to surface, an unexpected connection between them is revealed… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape, implied
  • Recreational drug use mentioned
  • Blood depiction
  • Murder by cutting their throats with a knife
  • Gun & knife violence

Mirage by Somaiya Daud

In a star system dominated by the brutal Vathek empire, eighteen-year-old Amani is a dreamer. She dreams of what life was like before the occupation; she dreams of writing poetry like the old-world poems she adores; she dreams of receiving a sign from Dihya that one day, she, too, will have adventure, and travel beyond her isolated moon.
But when adventure comes for Amani, it is not what she expects: she is kidnapped by the regime and taken in secret to the royal palace, where she discovers that she is nearly identical to the cruel half-Vathek Princess Maram… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Cheating
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Nightmares
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Physical injury & illness
  • Medical procedures
  • Needles
  • Death of a grandfather & grandmother
  • Death of a mother
  • Death of a sister
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Torture
  • Gun violence
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Hostage situation
  • Fire
  • Colonialism (theme)
  • Poverty
  • Animal attack

The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig

Nix has spent her entire life aboard her father’s ship, sailing across the centuries, across the world, across myth and imagination.
As long as her father has a map for it, he can sail to any time, any place, real or imagined: nineteenth-century China, the land from One Thousand and One Nights, a mythic version of Africa. Along the way they have found crewmates and friends, and even a disarming thief who could come to mean much more to Nix.
But the end to it all looms closer every day… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Colonialism
  • Bipolar disorder
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use & abuse
  • Parent with substance addiction
  • Gun violence
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Attempted murder