Tag Archives: Murder & Attempted Murder

Bonesmith by Nicki Pau Preto

Ready your blade. Defeat the undead. In the Dominions, the dead linger, violent and unpredictable, unless a bonesmith severs the ghost from its earthly remains. For bonesmith Wren, becoming a valkyr—a ghost-fighting warrior—is a chance to solidify her place in the noble House of Bone and impress her frequently absent father. But when sabotage causes Wren to fail her qualifying trial, she is banished to the Border Wall, the last line of defense against a wasteland called the Breach where the vicious dead roam unchecked. Determined to reclaim her family’s… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Pregnancy complications & death during childbirth
  • Blood & gore depiction including dead bodies
  • Death of parents
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping

The Falling Girls by Hayley Krischer

Shade and Jadis are everything to each other. They share clothes, toothbrushes, and even matching stick-and-poke tattoos. So when Shade unexpectedly joins the cheerleading team, Jadis can hardly recognize who her best friend is becoming. Shade loves the idea of falling into a group of girls; she loves the discipline it takes to push her body to the limits alongside these athletes. Most of all, Shade finds herself drawn to The Three Chloes–the insufferable trio that rules the squad–including the enigmatic cheer captain whose dark side is as compelling as it is alarming… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Toxic friendships
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use & abuse including an overdose
  • Physical injury (head injury)
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder

Dexter is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay

Everything’s changing for our friendly neighbourhood serial killer. As if getting married wasn’t enough to complete his nice-guy persona, Dexter is now the proud father of a baby girl. And disconcertingly, he actually seems to care. But even if fatherhood is distracting Dexter from his midnight excursions to rid Miami of a few more lowlifes, there’s no let-up at work. Two young girls are missing – and it’s not long before one of the bodies turns up, partially eaten. But as Dexter and Miami PD’s finest investigate, Dexter can’t shake the feeling that somebody’s watching him…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism (r slur)
  • Antiziganism (g slur)
  • Fatmphobic language
  • Rape mentioned
  • Drugging
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Cannibalism
  • Murder
  • Kidnapping

Sing Me to Sleep by Gabi Burton

Saoirse Sorkova survives on lies. As a soldier-in-training at the most prestigious barracks in the kingdom, she lies about being a siren to avoid execution. At night, working as an assassin for a dangerous group of mercenaries, Saoirse lies about her true identity. And to her family, Saoirse tells the biggest lie of all: that she can control her siren powers and doesn’t struggle constantly against an impulse to kill. As the top trainee in her class, Saoirse would be headed for a bright future if it weren’t for the need to keep her secrets out of the spotlight. But when a mysterious black… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis
  • Murder including murder by poisoning, stabbing, and drowning
  • Kidnapping
  • Loss of autonomy (magical coercion)
  • Genocide recounted

Invisible Son by Keri Beevis

Life can change in an instant. When you’re wrongfully accused of a crime. When a virus shuts everything down. When the girl you love moves on. Andre Jackson is determined to reclaim his identity. But returning from juvie doesn’t feel like coming home. His Portland, Oregon, neighborhood is rapidly gentrifying, and COVID-19 shuts down school before he can return. And Andre’s suspicions about his arrest for a crime he didn’t commit even taint his friendships. It’s as if his whole life has been erased. The one thing Andre is counting on is his relationship  with the Whitaker kids…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger & Content Warnings

Hate, Discrimination & Oppression
  • Racism (theme)
  • Racial slurs recounted
Sex & Sexual Violence

Abuse & Relationships

Mental Health & Suicide
  • Suicide mentioned
Alcohol & Drugs
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Smoking mentioned (cigarettes)
Pregnancy & Childbirth

Medical, Gore & Injury

Death & Loss

Violence & Crime
  • False incarceration of a minor
  • Police violence
    • The protagonist is tackled and held to the ground before his arrest.
    • The murder of George Floyd & Breonna Taylor happens off-page.
War & Genocide
  • Gentrification
Natural Disasters

Animal Death & Cruelty

Deep Dark Secrets by Keri Beevis

Deep Dark Secrets by Keri Beevis

Lizzie Kent wasn’t supposed to babysit the night she was murdered. She was covering for her best friend, Nell. Nell has lived with the guilt ever since. Eighteen years later Nell returns to the area, desperate to escape a bad relationship after inheriting her aunt’s rundown guesthouse. But her return isn’t welcomed by everyone – in particular Sam Kent, who blames Nell for his sister’s death. And after a few unsettling incidents, it becomes apparent that someone is trying to scare her. Is Sam responsible or has Nell’s abusive ex-boyfriend managed to track her down? Or is someone else, with a more sinister agenda, responsible?

Goodreads • The Story Grap

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Abusive relationship recounted
  • Murder of a friend in a home invasion recounted

Need to Know by Karen Cleveland

Need to Know by Karen Cleveland

Vivian Miller is a CIA analyst assigned to uncover Russian sleeper cells in the USA. After accessing the computer of a potential Russian spy, she stumbles on a secret dossier of deep-cover agents living in her own country. Five seemingly normal people living in plain sight. A few clicks later, everything that matters to Vivian is threatened – her job, her husband, even her four children. Vivian has vowed to defend her country against all enemies, foreign and domestic. But now she’s facing impossible choices. Torn between loyalty and betrayal, allegiance and treason… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Grap

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Threats of rape, on-page
  • Suicide, on-page
  • Miscarriage, on-page
  • Cancer
  • Murder, on-page
  • Gun violence, on-page
  • Blackmail

In Bed with the Devil by Lorraine Heath

In Bed with the Devil by Lorraine Heath

They call him the Devil Earl—a scoundrel and accused murderer who grew up on the violent London streets. A proper young lady risks more than her reputation when consorting with the roguishly handsome Lucian Langdon, but Lady Catherine Mabry believes she has no choice. To protect those she loves, she would do anything—even strike a bargain with the devil himself. Lucian desires respectability and a wife above all else, but the woman of his choosing lacks the social graces to be accepted by the aristocracy. Catherine can help Lucian gain everything he wants. But what she asks for in exchange will put their very lives in… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Grap

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape of a child recounted
  • Domestic violence (sc)
  • Cheating*
  • Death of a parent, on- & off-page
  • Murder of an uncle, off-page
  • Murder of parents

*Context : While the hero falls in love with the heroine, he proposes to another woman who does not love him back.

The Killing Lessons by Saul Black

The Killing Lessons by Saul Black

When the two strangers turn up at Rowena Cooper’s isolated Colorado farmhouse, she knows instantly that it’s the end of everything. For the two haunted and driven men, on the other hand, it’s just another stop on a long and bloody journey. And they still have many miles to go, and victims to sacrifice, before their work is done. For San Francisco homicide detective Valerie Hart, their trail of victims–women abducted, tortured and left with a seemingly random series of objects inside them–has brought her from obsession to the edge of physical and psychological… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Grap

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Slut-shaming
  • Sexism
  • Rape
  • Child abuse
  • Alcoholism
  • Miscarriage
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Kidnapping
  • Stalking

The Diamond Keeper by Jeannie Mobley

The Diamond Keeper by Jeannie Mobley

Eighteen-year-old Claudie Durand’s future is planned. She’ll take over the family inn, watch her much prettier younger sister, Mathilde, married off to the butcher’s son, and live out her days alone, without the hope of finding a love of her own. Her mother ran off to the cloister when she was young, and her gruff, abusive father has deemed her unmarriageable, a nuisance, and only good for hard labour. But outside their small village in Brittany, a revolution is brewing. When the Army of the Republic seizes their town, and Claudie finds herself at the center of the… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Grap

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence recounted
  • Dead bodies
  • Gun violence
  • Murder by stabbing & bayonet
  • Physical assault
  • Riots