Tag Archives: Mental Illness

A Soul to Heal by Opal Reyne

All Delora ever wanted was to disappear. Thrown into the Veil for a crime she committed, Delora was discarded by the world. Although afraid of her oncoming demise, she accepts it as it would be a worldly escape from her problems. She didn’t expect that she would wake up from her deadly fall, nor that the person who saved her would be a Duskwalker. She’s wary about him at first, but Delora begins to realise there’s more to him than just a faceless monster. All he ever wanted was a name. After discovering that humans can be kept as companions, he begins planning for the day he finds his own bride. He still lacks humanity and… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Spousal infidelity
  • Depression
  • Pregnancy & childbirth
  • Murder of a husband and his mistress

Fire and Ice by Shannon Hale

Strange things are happening at the frozen edge of the world. Conor, Abeke, Meilin, and Rollan have crisscrossed Erdas in their quest to stop the ruthless Conquerors. Only the four of them, supported by the gifts of their legendary spirit animals, have the power to defeat an evil takeover. While chasing down a lead in the cold north, the heroes arrive at a quiet village where not everything is as it seems. Rooting the truth out of this deceptively beautiful place won’t be easy – and the team is already out of time. The Conquerors are right behind them.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grandparent with alcoholism mentioned
  • Physical injury & illness including frostbite
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Death from a fall
  • Knife, sword and arrow violence
  • Fire
  • Animal attack
  • Animal death & hunting (seal)

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

Actress and divorced mother Chris MacNeil starts to experience ‘difficulties’ with her usually sweet-natured eleven-year-old daughter Regan. The child becomes afflicted by spasms, convulsions and unsettling amnesiac episodes; these abruptly worsen into violent fits of appalling foul-mouthed curses, accompanied by physical mutation. Medical science is baffled by Regan’s plight and, in her increasing despair, Chris turns to troubled priest and psychiatrist Damien Karras, who immediately recognises something profoundly malevolent in Regan’s distorted fetures and speech. On Karras’s recommendation, the Church summons Father Merrin, a specialist in the exorcism of demons . . .

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism
  • Homomisia (f slur)
  • Medical misdiagnosis of schizophrenia and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)

This Pact Is Not Ours by Zachary Sergi

The summer before college Luca Piccone returns to Copper Cove, the idyllic campsite he and his closest friends have visited every year since they were kids. To Luca, Copper Cove is like the setting of the fantasy movies he loves, a sanctuary, protected from the dangers of the outside world, where nothing goes wrong and everything stays the same. But this year things are changing. Desperate to make this summer the best one yet, Luca tries to ignore the freshly torn rifts within his tight friend group, the pangs of unrequited love, the anxiety attacks he thought he’d left back at school, and the shadows at the edge of the forest… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Forced outing, recounted & off-page
  • Panic attacks
  • Suicide
  • Murder
  • Fire

The Summer of Songbirds by Kristy Woodson Harvey

Nearly thirty years ago, in the wake of a personal tragedy, June Moore bought Camp Holly Springs and turned it into a thriving summer haven for girls. But now, June is in danger of losing the place she has sacrificed everything for, and begins to realize how much she has used the camp to avoid facing difficulties in her life. June’s niece, Daphne, met her two best friends, Lanier and Mary Stuart, during a fateful summer at camp. They’ve all helped each other through hard things, from heartbreak and loss to substance abuse and unplanned pregnancy, and the three are inseparable even in their thirties. But… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcoholism

VenCo by Cherie Dimaline

Lucky St. James, a Métis millennial living with her cantankerous but loving grandmother Stella, is barely hanging on when she discovers she will be evicted from their tiny Toronto apartment. Then, one night, something strange and irresistible calls out to Lucky. Burrowing through a wall, she finds a silver spoon etched with a crooked-nosed witch and the word SALEM, humming with otherworldly energy. Hundreds of miles away in Salem, Myrna Good has been looking for Lucky. Myrna works for VenCo, a front company fueled by vast resources of dark money.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transmisia & deadnaming
  • Coming out scene
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Dementia
  • Parent with alcoholism
  • Smoking
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Murder
  • Home invasion

Things You Won’t Say by Sarah Pekkanen

Every morning, as her husband Mike straps on his SIG Sauer and pulls on his heavy Magnum boots, Jamie Anderson tenses up. Then comes the call she has always dreaded: There’s been a shooting at police headquarters. Mike isn’t hurt, but his long-time partner is grievously injured. As weeks pass and her husband’s insomnia and disconnectedness mount, Jamie realizes he is an invisible casualty of the attack. Then the phone rings again. Another shooting but this time Mike has pulled the trigger. But the shooting does more than just alter Jamie’s world. It’s about to change everything for two other women. Christie Simmons, Mike.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity discussed
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Attempted murder of a police partner by gun violence
  • Police shooting of an unarmed latinx teen in a gang fight

Gone Tonight by Sarah Pekkanen

Catherine Sterling thinks she knows her mother. Ruth Sterling is quiet, hardworking, and lives for her daughter. All her life, it’s been just the two of them against the world. But now, Catherine is ready to spread her wings, move from home, and begin a new career. And Ruth Sterling will do anything to prevent that from happening. Ruth Sterling thinks she knows her daughter. Catherine would never rebel, would never question anything about her mother’s past or background. But when Ruth’s desperate quest to keep her daughter by her side begins to reveal… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racial slur
  • Sexual assault of a minor
  • Parental abandonment
  • Child abuse
  • Self-harm mentioned
  • Alcoholism
  • Unplanned teen pregnancy
  • Terminal illness
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder

The Block Party by Jamie Day

The residents of the exclusive cul-de-sac on Alton Road are entangled in a web of secrets and scandal utterly unknown to the outside world, and even to each other. On the night of the annual Summer block party, there has been a murder. But, who did it and why takes readers back one year earlier, as rivalries and betrayals unfold—discovering that the real danger lies within their own block and nothing—and no one—is ever as it seems.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Rape, off-page
  • Alcoholism
  • Murder

No Place Like Here by Christina June

Ashlyn Zanotti has big plans for the summer. She’s just spent a year at boarding school and can’t wait to get home. But when Ashlyn’s father is arrested for tax evasion and her mother enters a rehab facility for “exhaustion,” a.k.a. depression, her life is turned upside down. The cherry on top? Ashlyn’s father sends her to work with a cousin she doesn’t even know at a rustic team-building retreat center in the middle of nowhere. A self-proclaimed “indoor girl,” not even Ash’s habit of leaving breadcrumb quotes—inspirational sayings she scribbles everywhere—can help her cope… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Incarcerated parent
  • Depression
  • Anaphylaxis
  • Near-drowning