Tag Archives: Murder & Attempted Murder

Sink or Swim by Tessa Bailey

Andrew Prince wakes up before everyone else. He schedules the bar shifts, demands perfection from Long Beach’s lifeguards—most of all himself—and makes sure the family debts are paid. His unfaltering work ethic might leave him exhausted, but it comes with one advantage. It distracts him from the love he’s been harbouring since childhood for the girl next door—who he cannot have. Jiya Dalal has dreams. To fly a plane, see the world below…and prove irresistible to her best friend, Andrew. But she needs to be a good daughter first, which is becoming an increasingly difficult task, since her parents expect a good marriage… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse recounted
  • Parent with alcoholism recounted
  • Murder of a father recounted
  • Physical assault
  • Police violence & corruption

The Leopard King by Ann Aguirre

Until three years ago, those words applied to Dominic Asher, the leader of Ash Valley. His family has ruled the feline branch of the Animari for hundreds of years, guiding the pride through perilous times. Unspeakable loss drove him into seclusion, a feral beast nobody can tame. Now he’s wrecked, a leopard king in exile, and he wants nothing more than to die. Fortunately for Dom, those words still apply to Pru Bristow, his dead mate’s best friend. She’s had her heart broken too, but she never quits. With the conclave approaching, alliances with the Pine Ridge pack and Burnt Amber clans on the verge of collapse, she’s prepared to do… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Nightmares
  • Suicidal ideation recounted
  • Self harm
  • Blood depiction & scars
  • Starvation
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping

Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb

Fitz has survived his first hazardous mission as king’s assassin, but is left little more than a cripple. Battered and bitter, he vows to abandon his oath to King Shrewd, remaining in the distant mountains. But love and events of terrible urgency draw him back to the court at Buckkeep, and into the deadly intrigues of the royal family. Renewing their vicious attacks on the coast, the Red-Ship Raiders leave burned-out villages and demented victims in their wake. The kingdom is also under assault from within, as treachery threatens the throne of the ailing king. In this time of great danger, the fate of the kingdom may rest in Fitz’s hands—and his role in its salvation may require the ultimate sacrifice.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Classism
  • Elder abuse
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Infidelity mentioned
  • Forced political marriage
  • Depressive episode recounted
  • Suicidal ideation mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use
  • Pregnancy & miscarriage discussed
  • Graphic injuries & illness
  • Blood & gore depiction including dead bodies
  • Emesis
  • Seizures
  • Chronic illness
  • Death of a father from medical complications due to chronic alcoholism recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Infanticide
  • Poisoning
  • Physical assault
  • Knife, arrow and axe violence
  • Imprisonment
  • Loss of autonomy (mind control & invasion)
  • War themes & battle scenes
  • Naval warfare
  • Regicide
  • Animal abuse (wolf)
  • Animal death mentioned, including the death of a pet dog.

A Heart in a Body in the World by Deb Caletti

When everything has been taken from you, what else is there to do but run? So that’s what Annabelle does—she runs from Seattle to Washington, DC, through mountain passes and suburban landscapes, from long lonely roads to college towns. She’s not ready to think about the why yet, just the how—muscles burning, heart pumping, feet pounding the earth. But no matter how hard she tries, she can’t outrun the tragedy from the past year, or the person—The Taker—that haunts her. Followed by Grandpa Ed in his RV and backed by her brother and two friends (her self-appoint.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Toxic friendship
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Excessive exercise (self-harm)
  • Murder of a friend by gun violence
  • Stalking

He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected. When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother’s identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Body dysmorphia
  • Rape
  • Graphic self-harm including burning and cutting
  • Dismemberment of hands and fingers, eye trauma, and mutilation like cutting out tongues
  • Murder
  • Torture including whipping, skinning and mentions of foot binding and boiling someone alive
  • Drowning

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected. When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother’s identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misgendering
  • Slavery mentioned
  • Depression
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Plague
  • Nonconsensual castration recounted
  • Emesis mentioned
  • Starvation
  • Cannibalism mentioned
  • Death of children
  • Murder & mass murder
  • Torture, off-page
  • Bombings
  • War themes
  • Animal injury
  • Animal death

King of Wrath by Ana Huang

Ruthless. Meticulous. Arrogant. Dante Russo thrives on control, both personally and professionally. The billionaire CEO never planned to marry—until the threat of blackmail forces him into an engagement with a woman he barely knows. Vivian Lau, jewelry heiress and daughter of his newest enemy. It doesn’t matter how beautiful or charming she is. He’ll do everything in his power to destroy the evidence and their betrothal. There’s only one problem: now that he has her…he can’t bring himself to let her go… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment & neglect
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Gambling
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Gun violence
  • Physical assault
  • Blackmail
  • Car accident mentioned

If We Were Villains by ML Rio

Oliver Marks has just served ten years in jail – for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he’s released, he’s greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago. As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Slut-shaming
  • Antiziganism (g slur)
  • Suicide
  • Drug use
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Overdose
  • Blood depiction
  • Murder

Redemptor by Jordan Ifueko

For the first time, an Empress Redemptor sits on Aritsar’s throne. To appease the sinister spirits of the dead, Tarisai must now anoint a council of her own, coming into her full power as a Raybearer. She must then descend into the Underworld, a sacrifice to end all future atrocities. Tarisai is determined to survive. Or at least, that’s what she tells her increasingly distant circle of friends. Months into her shaky reign as empress, child spirits haunt her, demanding that she pay for past sins of the empire. With the lives of her loved ones on the line assassination attempts from unknown… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use
  • Child abuse & neglect recounted
  • Blood depiction
  • Murder

Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko

Tarisai has always longed for the warmth of a family. She was raised in isolation by a mysterious, often absent mother known only as The Lady. The Lady sends her to the capital of the global empire of Aritsar to compete with other children to be chosen as one of the Crown Prince’s Council of 11. If she’s picked, she’ll be joined with the other Council members through the Ray, a bond deeper than blood. That closeness is irresistible to Tarisai, who has always wanted to belong somewhere. But The Lady has other ideas, including a magical wish that Tarisai is compelled to obey: Kill the Crown Prince once she gains his trust… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Enslavement
  • Rape
  • Parental abandonment
  • Emotional and physical child abuse & neglect
  • Domestic abuse
  • Suicide
  • Death of a child
  • Attempted murder
  • Regicide
  • Fire