Murder & Attempted Murder – Page 243 – Trigger Warning Database

The Wife and the Widow by Christian White

The Wife & the Widow by Christian White

Set against the backdrop of an eerie island town in the dead of winter, The Wife and the Widow is a mystery/thriller told from two perspectives: Kate, a widow whose grief is compounded by what she learns about her dead husband’s secret life; and Abby, an island local whose world is turned upside down when she’s forced to confront the evidence that her husband is a murderer. But nothing on this island is quite as it seems, and only when these women come together can they discover the whole story about the men in their lives. How well do we really know the people we love?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Homomisic slurs
Blood depiction
Death of a spouse
Murder

The One by John Marrs

The One by John Marrs

How far would you go to find The One? A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab and soon you’ll be matched with your perfect partner–the one you’re genetically made for.

That’s the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance and love.

Now five very different people have received the notification that they’ve been “Matched.” They’re each about to meet their one true love. But “happily ever after” isn’t guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking than others…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Cheating
Suicide
Infertility
Childbirth & death during childbirth
Miscarriages mentioned
Terminal illness & cancer
Coma
Aneurysm
Eyeball trauma
Death of an infant
Death of a spouse
Murder, and attempted murder of a pregnant woman
Strangulation
Kidnapping, including the abduction of an infant
Stalking

Repo Virtual by Corey J. White

Repo Virtual by Corey J. White

The city of Neo Songdo is a Russian doll of realities — augmented and virtual spaces anchored in the weight of the real. The smart city is designed to be read by machine vision while people see only the augmented facade of the corporate ideal. At night the stars are obscured by an intergalactic virtual war being waged by millions of players, while on the streets below people are forced to beg, steal, and hustle to survive.

Enter Julius Dax, online repoman and real-life thief. He’s been hired for a special job: stealing an unknown object from a reclusive tech billionaire. But when he finds out he’s stolen the first sentient AI, his payday gets a lot more complicated.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Transmisia
Deadnaming & misgendering
Blackmailed outing*
Racism & racial slurs
Classism
Alcohol consumption
Recreational drug use mentioned
Blood & gore depiction
Graphic physical injuries & chronic pain
Death of a friend (on-page)
Murder & attempted murder
Torture
Explosions
Gun violence
Strangulation
Kidnapping
Car accident
Fire
Blackmail
Flood
Cults
Animal death mentioned
Poverty themes & homelessness

*Note: the transgender protagonist is blackmailed to investigate a crime by a man with documents that would out her as a trans woman and her past as a secret agent.

Bright We Burn by Kiersten White

Bright We Burn by Kiersten White

Haunted by the sacrifices he made in Constantinople, Radu is called back to the new capital. Mehmed is building an empire, becoming the sultan his people need. But Mehmed has a secret: as emperor, he is more powerful than ever . . . and desperately lonely. Does this mean Radu can finally have more with Mehmed . . . and would he even want it?

Lada’s rule of absolute justice has created a Wallachia free of crime. But Lada won’t rest until everyone knows that her country’s borders are inviolable. Determined to send a message of defiance, she has the bodies of Mehmed’s peace envoy delivered to him, leaving Radu and Mehmed with no choice. If Lada is allowed to continue, only death will prosper. They must go to war against the girl prince.

But Mehmed knows that he loves her. He understands her. She must lose to him so he can keep her safe. Radu alone fears that they are underestimating his sister’s indomitable will. Only by destroying everything that came before–including her relationships–can Lada truly build the country she wants.

Claim the throne. Demand the crown. Rule the world.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Pregnancy & implied childbirth
Murder
War themes, including graphic battle scenes

And I Darken by Kiersten White

And I Darken by Kiersten White

No one expects a princess to be brutal. And Lada Dragwlya likes it that way. Ever since she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their homeland of Wallachia and abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to survival. She and Radu are doomed to act as pawns in a vicious game, an unseen sword hovering over their every move. For the lineage that makes them special also makes them targets.

Lada despises the Ottomans and bides her time, planning her vengeance for the day when she can return to Wallachia and claim her birthright. Radu longs only for a place where he feels safe. And when they meet Mehmed, the defiant and lonely son of the sultan, Radu feels that he’s made a true friend—and Lada wonders if she’s finally found someone worthy of her passion.

But Mehmed is heir to the very empire that Lada has sworn to fight against—and that Radu now considers home. Together, Lada, Radu, and Mehmed form a toxic triangle that strains the bonds of love and loyalty to the breaking point.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Attempted rape & sexual assault
Alcohol consumption
Murder & attempted murder
Knife violence
Strangulation
Torture (off-page)
Near-drowning
Whipping

Illusions of Fate by Kiersten White

Illusions of Fate by Kiersten White

Jessamin has been an outcast since she moved from her island home of Melei to the dreary country of Albion. Everything changes when she meets Finn, a gorgeous, enigmatic young lord who introduces her to the secret world of Albion’s nobility, a world that has everything Jessamin doesn’t—power, money, status…and magic. But Finn has secrets of his own, dangerous secrets that the vicious Lord Downpike will do anything to possess. Unless Jessamin, armed only with her wits and her determination, can stop him.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism & racial slurs
Misogyny
Persecution for witchcraft
Sexual harassment
Parental abandonment
Forced marriage
Nightmares & night terrors
Alcohol consumption
Drugging
Eugenics
Graphic blood and injury depiction
Emesis
Death of parents recounted
Murder & attempted murder
Gun violence
Torture
Fire
Kidnapping & captivity
Colonialism & war themes
Animal death & murder of a pet
Animal injury
Bullying

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankentstein by Kiersten White

Elizabeth Lavenza hasn’t had a proper meal in weeks. Her thin arms are covered with bruises from her “caregiver,” and she is on the verge of being thrown into the streets . . . until she is brought to the home of Victor Frankenstein, an unsmiling, solitary boy who has everything–except a friend.

Victor is her escape from misery. Elizabeth does everything she can to make herself indispensable–and it works. She is taken in by the Frankenstein family and rewarded with a warm bed, delicious food, and dresses of the finest silk. Soon she and Victor are inseparable.

But her new life comes at a price. As the years pass, Elizabeth’s survival depends on managing Victor’s dangerous temper and entertaining his every whim, no matter how depraved. Behind her blue eyes and sweet smile lies the calculating heart of a girl determined to stay alive no matter the cost . . . as the world she knows is consumed by darkness.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism & ableist language
Classism
Misogyny
Slut shaming
Graphic physical, verbal & emotional abuse
Parental abandonment
Intimate partner abuse & violence
Nightmares
Self-sacrifice (on-page) & suicidal ideation mentioned
Alcohol consumption
Nonconsensual drugging
Graphic blood & gore depiction
Graphic dead bodies & body parts
Graphic physical injuries & wound descriptions
Graphic medical procedures & experiments
Emesis
Forced hospitalisation
Body horror
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a mother recounted
Death of an uncle (off-page)
Death of a friend
Death of a child
Death of a brother
Murder & attempted murder
Gun violence
Graphic strangulation
Hanging (off-page)
Fire (multiple scenes)
Kidnapping & captivity
Building collapse
Stalking
Graphic animal abuse (on-page) & animal death

The Underground Railway by Colson Whitehead

The Underground Railway by Colson Whitehead

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. When a recent arrival from Virginia tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.

In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Racism & racial slurs
White supremacy & the Klu Klux Klan
Slavery
Rape & sexual assault
Paedophilia
Domestic violence
PTSD
Suicide & attempted suicide
Sterilization
Murder
Lynching
Whipping

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Dorian Gray is a beautiful yet corrupt man. When he wishes that a perfect portrait of himself would bear the signs of ageing in his place, the picture becomes his hideous secret, as it follows Dorian’s own downward spiral into cruelty and depravity.

Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life; indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Ableism
Misogyny
Suicide
Murder

Are You Listening? by Tillie Walden

Are You Listening? by Tillie Walden

Bea is on the run. And then, she runs into Lou.

This chance encounter sends them on a journey through West Texas, where strange things follow them wherever they go. The landscape morphs into an unsettling world, a mysterious cat joins them, and they are haunted by a group of threatening men. To stay safe, Bea and Lou must trust each other as they are driven to confront buried truths.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Rape recounted
Panic attacks
Death of a parent recounted