Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across by Mary Lambert

Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across by Mary Lambert

Beautiful and brutally honest, Mary Lambert’s poetry is a beacon to anyone who’s ever been knocked down–and picked themselves up again. In verse that deals with sexual assault, mental illness, and body acceptance, Ms. Lambert’s Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across emerges as an important new voice in poetry, providing strength and resilience even in the darkest of times.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Incest
  • Self-harm
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson 

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

Mr. and Mrs. Fang called it art. Their children called it mischief.

Performance artists Caleb and Camille Fang dedicated themselves to making great art. But when an artist’s work lies in subverting normality, it can be difficult to raise well-adjusted children. Just ask Buster and Annie Fang. For as long as they can remember, they starred (unwillingly) in their parents’ madcap pieces. But now that… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Incest mentioned
  • Animal death mentioned
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly 

Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly

It is 1914 and the world has been on the brink of war so many times, many New Yorkers treat the subject with only passing interest. Eliza Ferriday is thrilled to be traveling to St. Petersburg with Sofya Streshnayva, a cousin of the Romanov’s. The two met years ago one summer in Paris and became close confidantes. Now Eliza embarks on the trip of a lifetime, home with Sofya to see the splendors of Russia. But when Austria declares war on Serbia and Russia’s Imperial dynasty begins to fall, Eliza escapes back to America, while Sofya and her family flee to their country estate. In need of domestic help, they hire. …. Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Incestuous sexual assault of a minor (half-siblings)
  • Sexual harassment
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping
  • World War I
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Later by Stephen King

Later by Stephen King

The son of a struggling single mother, Jamie Conklin just wants an ordinary childhood. But Jamie is no ordinary child. Born with an unnatural ability his mom urges him to keep secret, Jamie can see what no one else can see and learn what no one else can learn. But the cost of using this ability is higher than Jamie can imagine – as he discovers when an NYPD detective draws him into the pursuit of a killer who has threatened to strike from beyond the grave.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Incest
  • Rape
  • Drug use
  • Torture
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Mr Mercedes by Stephen King

Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

In the predawn hours, in a distressed American city, hundreds of unemployed men and women line up for the opening of a job fair. They are tired and cold and desperate. Emerging from the fog, invisible until it is too late, a lone driver plows through the crowd in a stolen Mercedes, running over the innocent, backing up, and charging again. Eight people are killed; fifteen are wounded. The killer escapes… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Incest (mother-son)
  • Parent with alcoholism
  • Murder
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky

Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky

Christopher is seven years old. Christopher is the new kid in town. Christopher has an imaginary friend. We can swallow our fear or let our fear swallow us.

Single mother Kate Reese is on the run. Determined to improve life for her and her son, Christopher, she flees an abusive relationship in the middle of the night with her child. Together, they find themselves drawn to the tight-knit community of Mill Grove, Pennsylvania… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Incest
  • Paedophilia
  • Child abuse
  • Domestic abuse
  • Alcoholism
  • Dementia
  • Schizophrenia & psychosis
  • Suicide
  • Self-harm
  • Pregnancy
  • Blood depiction
  • Body horror
  • Death of a child
  • Torture
  • Gun violence
  • Bullying
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Shiner by Amy Jo Burns

Shiner by Amy Jo Burns

An hour from the closest West Virginia mining town, fifteen-year-old Wren Bird lives in a cloistered mountain cabin with her parents. They have no car, no mailbox, and no visitors-except for her mother’s lifelong best friend. Every Sunday, Wren’s father delivers winding sermons in an abandoned gas station, where he takes up serpents and praises the Lord for his blighted white eye, proof of his divinity and key to the hold he has over the community, over Wren and her mother… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Incest
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins 

The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins

All of London is abuzz with the scandalous case of Frannie Langton, accused of the brutal double murder of her employers, renowned scientist George Benham and his eccentric French wife, Marguerite. Crowds pack the courtroom, eagerly following every twist, while the newspapers print lurid theories about the killings and the mysterious woman being held in the Old Bailey.

The testimonies against Frannie are damning. She is a seductress, a witch, a master manipulator… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Lesbomisia
  • Rape
  • Incest
  • Emotional & physical abuse
  • Alcoholism
  • Pregnancy
  • Miscarriage
  • Abortion
  • Torture
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

The Binding by Bridget Collins 

The Binding by Bridget Collins

Books are dangerous things in Collins’s alternate universe, a place vaguely reminiscent of 19th-century England. It’s a world in which people visit book binders to rid themselves of painful or treacherous memories. Once their stories have been told and are bound between the pages of a book, the slate is wiped clean and their memories lose the power to hurt or haunt them.

After having suffered some sort of mental collapse and no longer able to keep up with his farm… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Paedophilia & child sexual abuse
  • Rape & rape of a minor
  • Incest mentioned
  • Suicide
  • Animal cruelty
  • Animal death
  • Fire
Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com

Voyeur by Fiona Cole 

Voyeur by Fiona Cole

I didn’t know she was my student the first time I paid to watch her at Voyeur. Once she walked into my classroom, another smiling college freshman, I knew I should stop going. Stop watching. But I couldn’t do it. Everything about her makes me want more, and once I realize she wants me too, the temptation becomes irresistible. The worst part is that she has no idea her professor is the one watching behind the glass. I just have to hope that once she finds out the truth, she wants the same thing I do. Because now that I’ve seen all of her, I can’t look away.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Bimisia
  • Sex work shaming
  • Slut-shaming
  • Sex work
  • Sexual harassment
  • Incestuous child sexual abuse recounted*
  • Teacher-student relationship
  • Panic attacks, on-page & recounted
  • Alcoholism & alcohol abuse

* Note : The male protagonist recounts the trauma of his male cousin sexually abusing him as a child.

Support Us at Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com