Tag Archives: Gun Violence

Claimed by Elle Kennedy

After a devastating war decimated most of the world, Hudson Lane has only known the oppressive life under her own father’s tyranny. She finally escapes, branding herself an outlaw and hunted by the Enforcers. Her best chance at survival is Connor Mackenzie, an aggressively sensual fugitive who opens her eyes to the wicked possibilities of a world without rules. As the leader of a band of outlaw fighters, Connor can’t resist the beautiful stranger who asks for his protection. Despite his reservations, he agrees to introduce her to a whole new way of life. But when Connor discover… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Murder
  • Gun & knife violence
  • War themes recounted

Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (On a Dead Man) by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Ever since a man was found dead in Vera’s teahouse, life has been good. For Vera that is. She’s surrounded by loved ones, her shop is bustling, and best of all, her son, Tilly, has a girlfriend! All thanks to Vera, because Tilly’s girlfriend is none other than Officer Selena Gray. The very same Officer Gray that she had harassed while investigating the teahouse murder. Still, Vera wishes more dead bodies would pop up in her shop, but one mustn’t be ungrateful, even if one is slightly…bored. Then Vera comes across a distressed young woman who is obviously in need of her kindly guidance… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Human trafficking
  • Suicide
  • Dieting discussed
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis
  • Murder
  • Gun violence

The Last Final Girl by Stephen Graham Jones

Life in a slasher film is easy. You just have to know when to die. Aerial View: A suburban town in Texas. Everyone’s got an automatic garage door opener. All the kids jump off a perilous cliff into a shallow river as a rite of passage. The sheriff is a local celebrity. You know this town. You’re from this town. Zoom In: Homecoming princess, Lindsay. She’s just barely escaped death at the hands of a brutal, sadistic murderer in a Michael Jackson mask. Up on the cliff, she was rescued by a horse and bravely defeated the killer, alone, bra-less. Her story is already a legend. She’s this town’s heroic final girl, their virgin angel. Monster… Read more,

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol abuse
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Decapitation
  • Death of a child & sibling recounted
  • Graphic murder & stalking
  • Gun violence
  • Fire
  • Animal death & cruelty

Twisted Kingdom by Rina Kent

The truth screws you over before it sets you free. Masks drop. Secrets unravel. Elsa’s race after the past blinds her from the present. I’ll fight for her. I’ll bring her back. I’ll protect her even if it’s the last thing I do. We made a promise. She’s mine. Are you ready for one final game, sweetheart?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parent in a coma from a gunshot wound
  • Torture & whipping
  • Kidnapping & captivity

Kiss the Villain by Rina Kent

I’m a golden boy. A genius law student, the heir to the Carson empire, and the dutiful son. Or, at least, that’s what it looks like from the outside. Deep inside, I have the urge to set the world on fire. I keep these impulses in check, rarely indulging in mayhem. Until one night of debauchery backfires, and I’m caught by a villain. I bury the entire ordeal with the rest of my skeletons. That is, until that night walks into my classroom in the form of my new professor. Kayden Lockwood. A criminal who’s teaching criminal law. I can’t expose what he’s done without unmasking my secret life. What I can do, however, is force him to taste the poison… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape (protagonist) including dubious consent scenarios, consensual non-consent (cnc), mentions of the protagonist’s wife being gang-raped and murdered, and mentions of the rape of the protagonist’s high school girlfriend by her father
  • Intimate partner abuse including one partner shooting the other with an arrow (twice)
  • Teacher-student relationship
  • Self-harm
  • Drugging
  • Murder of a wife recounted
  • Torture
  • Gun & knife violence
  • Kidnapping

Killer Potential by Hannah Deitch

A scholarship kid with straight As and big dreams, Evie Gordon always thought she was special, that she’d be someone. But after graduating from an elite university, she finds herself drowning in debt and working as an SAT tutor for the super-rich of Los Angeles. Everything changes one Sunday, when she arrives for her weekly lesson at the Victors’ Beverly Hills estate and, in lieu of a bored teenager, finds the bloody remains of the parents strewn through their beautiful back garden, and a woman crying for help within a closet. As Evie works to free her, the two are spotted—and within… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Gun & knife violence
  • Imprisonment & captivity

Not Our Daughter by Chad Zunker

Thirteen years ago, Cole and Lisa Shipley were fostering an infant with hopes of adopting her. Overnight everything was turned upside down, when the child’s mother bled to death on their front doorstep. Her last He’s coming here…for her! Save her. Afraid, bewildered, and with a baby in their arms, they fled. The longer they hid, the guiltier they looked. Now in a small Colorado town under assumed identities, they’ve been seemingly safe. But when a tip exposes them and Cole is framed for another murder, they take it on the run again, barreling across the western US—this time with a confused and resistant teenage girl… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping mentioned

Count My Lies by Sophie Stava

Sloane Caraway is a liar. Harmless lies, mostly, to make her self-proclaimed sad, little life a bit more interesting. So when Sloane sees a young girl in tears at a park one afternoon, she can’t help herself—she tells the girl’s (very attractive) dad she’s a nurse and helps him pull a bee stinger from the girl’s foot. With this lie, and chance encounter, Sloane becomes the nanny for the wealthy, and privileged Jay and Violet Lockhart. The perfect New York couple, with a brownstone, a daughter in private school, and summers on Block Island. But maybe Sloane isn’t the only one lying, and all that’s picture-perfect harbors a much more… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Gun violence
  • Stalking

The Champions by Kara Thomas

It was the deaths of five cheerleaders that made the town of Sunnybrook infamous. Eleven years later, the girls’ killer has been brought to justice, and the town just wants to move on. By the time Hadley moves to Sunnybrook, though, the locals are more interested in the Tigers, the high school’s championship-winning football team. The Tigers are Sunnybrook’s homegrown heroes–something positive in a town with so much darkness in its past. Hadley could care less about football, but shortly after she gets assigned to cover the team’s latest championship bid for the school newspaper, one of the Tigers is poison… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault & gang rape
  • Domestic violence
  • Infidelity
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drugging
  • Hospitalisation
  • Emesis
  • Gun violence
  • Bullying & hazing mentioned

Stay Dead by April Henry

In the aftermath of a car accident that claimed the life of her senator father, sixteen-year-old Milan finds herself adrift, expelled from her third boarding school. Milan’s mother, who has assumed the senate seat, diverts her private plane to pick up her daughter. But on their way home, a bomb rips off a wing and the plane crashes in the mountains. In her final moments, Milan’s mother entrusts her with a key. She reveals it will unlock the evidence that so many people have already died for—including Milan’s father. The only way Milan can survive, her mom tells her, is to let everyone believe she died with the other passengers.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Cancer
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Death of a father in a car accident
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Plane crash
  • Animal death