Icarus by K. Ancrum

Icarus Gallagher is a thief. He steals priceless art and replaces it with his father’s impeccable forgeries. For years, one man—the wealthy Mr. Black—has been their target, revenge for his role in the death of Icarus’s mother. To keep their secret, Icarus adheres to his own strict rules to keep people, and feelings, at bay: Don’t let anyone close. Don’t let anyone touch you. And, above all, don’t get caught. Until one night, he does. Not by Mr. Black, but by his mysterious son, Helios, now living under house arrest in the Black mansion. Instead of turning Icarus in, Helios bargains for something even more dangerous—a friendship that breaks… Read more,

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & domestic violence
  • Alcohol consumption & drug abuse
  • Substance addiction discussed
  • Overdose mentioned
  • Death of a loved one from terminal cancer
  • False imprisonment
  • Religious self-flagellation mentioned

Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez

Justin has a curse, and thanks to a Reddit thread, it’s now all over the internet. Every woman he dates goes on to find their soul mate the second they break up. When a woman slides into his DMs with the same problem, they come up with a plan: They’ll date each other and break up. Their curses will cancel each other’s out, and they’ll both go on to find the love of their lives. It’s a bonkers idea… and it just might work. Emma hadn’t planned that her next assignment as a traveling nurse would be in Minnesota, but she and her best friend agree that dating Justin is too… Read more,

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abandonment & neglect recounted
  • Foster care experiences mentioned
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Depression
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Emesis
  • Death of a parent in a car accident mentioned
  • Incarceration of a parent

Twilight Hauntings by Angie Sage

Alex has a set of Enchanted cards. When she flutters her fingers above them, something magical happens: the cards come alive and create moving pictures of what is now and what is yet to come. But Enchantment is illegal in the city of Luma, and those who practice it are imprisoned forever in the Vaults—dark dungeons deep below the city. When Alex is betrayed by her foster sister Zerra, she knows she is in great danger. With the help of her little foster brother, Louie, she makes a daring escape. But Alex is betrayed by her… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a mother in incarceration
  • Attempted murder by strangulation
  • Near-drowning incident
  • Animal death by gunshot (bird)
  • Animal attack (hawk, eel)

Archangel’s Storm by Nalini Singh

With wings of midnight and an affinity for shadows, Jason courts darkness. But now, with the Archangel Neha’s consort lying murdered in the jewel-studded palace that was his prison and her rage threatening cataclysmic devastation, Jason steps into the light, knowing he must unearth the murderer before it is too late. Earning Neha’s trust comes at a price—Jason must tie himself to her bloodline through the Princess Mahiya, a woman with secrets so dangerous, she trusts no one. Least of all an enemy spymaster… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Parental infidelity mentioned
  • Graphic injury & gore depiction
  • Murder & torture
  • Imprisonment

Bones of the Sun God by Peter Vegas

Sam heads to Belize to continue his investigation into his parents’ mysterious disappearance and to learn more about secret of the pyramids. But after being kidnapped by crocodile cultists, will he ever be able to find the answers he’s looking for?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Imprisonment
  • Animal attack

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson

Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but it is the truth. Some of us are good, others are bad, and some just unfortunate. I’m Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I’d killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it’s a little more complicated than that. Have I killed someone? Yes. I have. Who was it? Let’s get started. Everyone in my family has killed someone. My brother. My stepsister. My wife. My father. My mother. My sister… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Suicide
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use (on-page)
  • Graphic physical injury & emesis
  • Death of a child recounted
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Torture (off-page)
  • Kidnapping
  • Incarceration recounted (secondary character)

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to better the family’s social position. What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain’s king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical misogyny, antisemitism & religious bigotry
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of parents recounted
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction including body horror and emesis
  • Torture indcuding waterboarding
  • Imprisonment
  • Fire
  • Animal cruelty & death (squirrel)

The Perfect Son by Freida McFadden

Erika Cass has a perfect family and a perfect life. Until the evening when two detectives show up at her front door A high school girl has vanished from Erika’s quiet suburban neighbourhood. The police suspect the worst–murder. And Erika’s teenage son, Liam, was the last person to see the girl alive. Erika has always sensed something dark and disturbed in her seemingly perfect older child. She wants to believe he’s innocent, but as the evidence mounts, she can’t deny the truth–Liam may have done the unthinkable. Now she must ask herself: How far will she go to protect her son?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Hospitalisation
  • Starvation & dehydration
  • Death of parents
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping
  • Incarceration
  • Fire
  • Animal death & cruelty

The Inmate by Freida McFadden

There are three rules Brooke Sullivan must follow as a new nurse practitioner at a men’s maximum-security 1) Treat all prisoners with respect. 2) Never reveal any personal information. 3) Never EVER become too friendly with the inmates. But none of the staff at the prison knows Brooke has already broken the rules. Nobody knows about her intimate connection to Shane Nelson, one of the penitentiary’s most notorious and dangerous inmates. And they certainly don’t know that Shane was Brooke’s high school sweetheart―the star quarterback who is now spending the rest of his life in prison for a series of grisly murders. Or… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Foster care experiences mentioned
  • Murder of a friend & attempted murder by an ex-boyfriend recounted
  • Incarceration (theme)
  • Car accident

The Housemaid’s Secret by Freida McFadden

Freddie Makin is a spy for hire. For a year he’s been watching Jiang Cheng, an academic whose life seems suspiciously normal. To Freddie it’s just a job: he never asks who’s paying him and why—until the day someone is sent to kill him, and suddenly the watcher becomes the watched. On the run from whoever wants him dead, Freddie knows he must have seen something incriminating. The only trouble is, he has no idea what. Is the CIA behind all this—or does it go higher than that? Have his trackers uncovered his own murky past? As he’s forced into a lethal dance across… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Fatmisia and body-shaming
  • Classism
  • Attempted rape
  • Infidelity (on-page)
  • Discussions of domestic abuse and violence
  • Disordered eating & food thoughts including calorie counting and food shaming
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Infertility mentioned
  • Blood depiction
  • Emesis
  • Death of a mother from a stroke mentioned
  • Murder by gun & knife violence
  • Physical assault
  • Stalking
  • Incarceration for physical assault mentioned
  • Poverty & financial difficulties discussed

Context : The protagonist’s employee has her gigolo pretend to be an abusive, violent husband. This includes physical abuse, attempted strangulation, electronic monitoring, and food deprivation. Mentions of the protagonist working to free previous clients from domestic abuse situations, including murdering the abuser when necessary. Her neighbour attempts to rape her and she pushes him down the stairs. The police do not believe her and victim-blame. Her ex-boyfriend hides illegal drugs in his apartment in revenge, and her neighbour goes to jail for drug possession. The protagonist was in jail for assaulting her friend’s rapist because he died from his injuries. Wendy, the protagonist’s employer, also didn’t tell her real husband that she was could not get pregnant, even though he believed they were trying to have a child.