When She’s Gone by Sara Sligar

Cora Valentine has her whole life—and a shot at the Olympics—ahead of her. But when she’s kidnapped on Halloween, her name is splashed across headlines not as an athlete but as a victim. Not even her safe return changes that, especially since no one is caught for the crime. Hounded by the public, Cora’s time as a missing girl and member of the Magnificent Eight has its consequences. Years later, when Cora has her own daughter, she’s determined to leave the past behind for a better life. Her daughter will never face those fears. And Cora will never face them again… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Anxiety
  • Kidnapping & mentions of stalking
  • Gun violence

Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

Can you stop a murder after it’s already happened? It is midnight on the morning of Halloween, and Jen anxiously waits up for her 18-year-old son, Todd, to return home. But worries about his broken curfew transform into something much more dangerous when Todd finally emerges from the darkness. As Jen watches through the window, she sees her funny, seemingly happy teenage son stab a total stranger. She doesn’t know who the victim is, or why Todd has committed such a devastating act of violence. All she knows is that her life, and Todd’s, have… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Suicide mentioned
  • Emesis
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder by stabbing
  • Kidnapping of a child
  • Blackmail

The Shack by William Paul Young

Mackenzie Allen Philips’ youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack’s world forever.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse recounted
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Kidnapping & murder of a daughter
  • Near-drowning incident of a child

The Queen’s Spade by Sarah Raughley

The year is 1862, and murderous desires are simmering in England. Nineteen-year-old Sarah Bonetta Forbes (Sally), once a princess of the Egbado Clan, desires one thing above all else: revenge against the British Crown and its system of colonial “humanitarianism,” which stole her dignity and transformed her into royal property. From military men to political leaders, she’s vowed to ruin all who’ve had a hand in her afflictions. The top of her list? Her godmother, Britain’s mighty monarch, Queen Victoria herself. Taking down the Crown means entering into a twisted… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism (on-page)
  • Kidnapping recounted

Inferno by Luna Mason

Are you prepared to participate in the decadence experience? Where your inhibitions must be left at the gates. The rules are simple. You SUBMIT to the challenges in five rooms. Only the surviving contestant shall win a golden ticket to lead them to the Master of Inferno. Be warned, one must be prepared to step into hell to explore both their desires and nightmares. Good luck and may all your erotic dreams come true.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence & abuse including martial rape & sexual assault*
  • Forced marriage*
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Pregnancy
  • Murder & torture
  • Kidnapping of a minor*
  • Organised crime (mafia)
  • Fire, blood & knife play (consensual, on-page)

Context : The female protagonist is kidnapped when she is 18-years-old and forced to marry a man who physically & sexually abuses her.

The Perfect Divorce by Jeneva Rose

It’s been eleven years since high-powered attorney Sarah Morgan defended her husband, Adam, against the charge of murdering his mistress. Sarah has long since moved on, starting a family with her new husband, Bob Miller, and changing careers. Her life is back to being exactly how she always wanted … or is it? After discovering Bob engaged in a one-night stand, Sarah wastes no time filing for divorce. However, amid their ugly separation, new DNA evidence is uncovered in the case against Adam, forcing the police to reopen the investigation and putting Sarah right back in the spotlight. Everyone wants to know… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Divorce
  • Suicide
  • Gun violence
  • Fatal hit-and-run car accident mentioned
  • Kidnapping
  • Blackmail mentioned

Murder by Cheesecake by Rachel Ekstrom Courage

Things are heating up, and not just because of Blanche’s hot flashes. Rose’s cousin is eloping to Miami, and Rose is playing host. If she can’t balance the groom’s family’s snobbery against the traditional St. Olaf wedding week guidelines, her hometown may never accept her cousin again! Dorothy quickly realizes she needs a date with whom she can exchange wedding-related wisecracks. Turning to a newfangled VHS dating service, she believes she’s found the ideal conversationalist. Unfortunately… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Abandonment
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping
  • Fire

Stormfire by Christine Monson

Abducted on her way to boarding school, a terrified Catherine Enderly was brought from England to the coast of Ireland, the prisoner of the angry and powerful young Sean Culhane—a man sworn to vengeance against her family. Frightened but defiant, the young countess met her captor with a strength that belied her fragile loveliness. But even as Sean vowed to have his revenge on Catherine, with each encounter he became more attracted to her. Her fiery innocence was a seduction that lured the passions of long smouldering hostility into a blazing inferno of desire… Read more,

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape & gang-rape
  • Forced starvation
  • Miscarriage
  • Death of a mother
  • Gun & knife violence
  • Physical assault
  • Whipping
  • Poisoning
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Napoleonic War & colonialization

The New Neighbours by Claire Douglas

When Lena helps her teenage son gather sounds for his media studies project, she doesn’t expect her boom-microphone to pick up a conversation between her neighbours, the Morgans. And she’s certain they are planning a crime. Her family and friends tell her that she must have misheard. After all, the Morgans are a well-respected, upstanding couple in their early sixties. They’ve never been in trouble with the law. Yet Lena can’t stop thinking about it. Because what if she hasn’t misheard? What if she can prevent something awful happening? After all, stopping it could help ease her conscience about her own dark past…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Divorce mentioned
  • Drug use & mentions of an overdose
  • Infertility
  • Knife violence
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Blackmail

The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas

Tasha and her older sister Alice may look alike, but they couldn’t be more different. Tasha’s married with two children and still lives in their hometown near Bristol. Alice is a high-flying scientist who travels the world with her equally successful husband. Yet each sister would trust the other with her life. When Tasha and her husband Aaron need a break and Alice offers to stay in their home with the kids, Tasha knows her family is in safe hands. She couldn’t be more wrong. The call from home is devastating. Alice and her husband Kyle have been attacked, leaving Alice in intensive care and Kyle dead. Rushing to the hospital, Tasha… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Home invasion
  • Alcohol concumption
  • Murder mentioned
  • Kidnapping of a child mentioned
  • Drowning
  • Animal death mentioned