Tag Archives: Needles

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of needles.

See also Medical procedures & treatment and Surgery.

Children of Anguish and Anarchy by Tomi Adeyemi

When Zelie seized the royal palace that fateful night, she thought her battles had come to an end. The monarchy had finally fallen. The maji had risen again. Zélie never expected to find herself locked in a cage and trapped on a foreign ship. Now warriors with iron skulls traffic her and her people across the seas, far from their homeland. Then everything changes when Zélie meets King Baldyr, her true captor, the ruler of the Skulls, and the man who has ravaged entire civilizations to find her. Baldyr’s quest to harness Zélie’s strength sends Zélie, Amari, and Tzain searching for allies in unknown lands… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Human trafficking
  • Self-harm (blood magic) & self-sacrifice
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & injury depiction including broken bones, seizures (secondary character) and needles for piercing/tattooing
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Torture & physical assault
  • Imprisonment
  • Volcanic eruption
  • Explosion
  • Animal death, abuse & injury

The Fae Princes by Nikki St. Crowe

I thought Peter Pan was a myth and Neverland a fairytale. A story spun by my mother who had lost her mind a long time ago. But there was no denying the overwhelming shadow cast by Peter Pan when he was standing in my house. Pan took me captive to Neverland and I somehow found my place among him and the Lost Boys. I’ve never looked back. Now I’m entangled right alongside him in a war we can’t seem to escape. We thought we had defeated our enemies. We thought we could finally have our happily ever after. But there was one enemy we never saw… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Child abandonment recounted
  • Alcohol consumption & smoking (cigarettes)
  • Weight gain mentioned
  • Blood & injury depiction including vision impairment
  • Murder and rape of a sister recounted
  • Death of a father & grandmother recounted
  • Death & resurrection of a mother
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Attempted murder by vivisepulture (buried alive)
  • Physical assault & knife violence
  • Drowning
  • Loss of autonomy by possession & mind control (secondary character)

Devourer of Men by Nikki St. Crowe

I have few friends and fewer allies. What I do have on the island of Everland is a lot of people who want me gone. So when the Crocodile and Captain Hook reappear in my life, I am in no mood. And worse, they’re unknowingly endangering themselves by asking for me by a name I long considered dead. Now, not only do I have to save myself, I have to save the two men who I swore I would murder with my bare hands if I ever set eyes on them again considering they abandoned me. Unfortunately for me, Roc and Hook have other plans, and when I find myself caught between them, I have to make a decision: risk my heart or risk my life?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abandonment recounted
  • Physical & emotional child abuse recounted
  • Forced marriage recounted
  • Anxiety & nightmares
  • Alcohol consumption & smoking (cigarettes)
  • Blood & injury depiction including cannibalism, blood-drinking, amputation (hand), and needles
  • Death of a mother from suicide recounted
  • Death of a sister mentioned
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Physical assault (mugging) & stabbing
  • Imprisonment recounted

A Vicious Game by Melissa Blair

A new king is on the throne and the rebellion lies in ruins. Keera spends her days drinking and her nights avoiding the strange dreams that have haunted her since she returned from the capital. Keera’s family in Myrelinth won’t let her go without a fight. With new intelligence about the magical seals left behind by Keera’s ancient kin, the Light Fae, she rallies to face her demons and unleash the formidable powers she inherited from her people. But a shocking truth is hiding in plain sight, one with the power to unravel the entire rebellion…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcoholism (relapse)
  • Blood & gore depiction including dead bodies, emesis & needles
  • Death of a sibling
  • Torture mentioned
  • Kidnapping

Leather & Lark by Brynne Weaver

Contract killer Lachlan Kane wants a quiet life working in his leather studio and forgetting all about his traumatic past. But when he botches a job for his boss’s biggest client, Lachlan knows he’ll never claw his way out of the underworld. At least, not until songbird Lark Montague offers him a deal: use his skills to hunt down a killer and she’ll find a way to secure his freedom. The catch? He has to marry her first.  And they can’t stand each other. Indie singer-songwriter Lark is the sunshine and glitter that burns through every cloud and clings to every crevice that Lachlan Kane tries to… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child sexual abuse recounted
  • Physical child abuse & parental neglect recounted
  • Infidelty recounted
  • Panic attack, insomnia & claustrophobia
  • Blood, injury & gore depiction including concussion, gunshot wounds, the use of needles to sew mouths shut, and the removal of fingers and eyes from dead bodies
  • Death of a mother & father mentioned
  • Murder of a father in a home invasion
  • Murder of a terminally ill great-aunt from injection
  • Murder (theme) including the use of a car accident to kill someone
  • Torture
  • Home invasion, stalking & kidnapping discussed
  • Animal attack & injury

*Context : The female protagonist’s ex-partner cheated on her and messaged underage girls. A secondary character is also cheating on his partner with his children’s nanny. The female protagonist is a serial killer her targets rapists and paedophilias; the male protagonist is a contract killer. A dog bites the antagonist and recovers from an injury sustained when the antagonist kicks it in retaliation.

House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas

Bryce Quinlan never expected to see a world other than Midgard, but now that she has, all she wants is to get back. Everything she loves is in Midgard: her family, her friends, her mate. Stranded in a strange new world, she’s going to need all her wits about her to get home again. And that’s no easy feat when she has no idea who to trust. Hunt Athalar has found himself in some deep holes in his life, but this one might be the deepest of all. After a few brief months with everything he ever wanted, he’s in the Asteri’s dungeons again, stripped of his freedom and without a clue as to Bryce’s fate. He’s desperate to help her, but until he can… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Threats of rape & forced breeding
  • Self-sacrifice & attempted self-sacrifice
  • Self-injury
  • Drugging
  • Blood & gore depiction including cannibalism, emesis & needles
  • Death of a sibling recounted
  • Graphic torture (on-page)

The Prospects by K.T. Hoffman

Hope is familiar territory for Gene Ionescu. He has always loved baseball, a sport made for underdogs and optimists like him. He also loves his team, the minor league Beaverton Beavers, and, for the most part, he loves the career he’s built. As the first openly trans player in professional baseball, Gene has nearly everything he’s ever let himself dream of—that is, until Luis Estrada, Gene’s former teammate and current rival, gets traded to the Beavers, destroying the careful equilibrium of Gene’s life. Gene and Luis can’t manage a civil conversation off the field or a competent play on it, but in the close confines… Read more,

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transphobia mentioned & deadnaming recounted
  • Coming out themes
  • Alcohol consumption & smoking mentioned (secondary character)
  • Parent with alcoholism recounted
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Surgery & needles mentioned
  • Hospitalisation for fainting from dehydration after a panic attack
  • Minor sport injury (secondary character)
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Car accident recounted*

*Context : A protagonist had a panic attack while driving. Mentions of scars from top surgery, and the use of needles for testosterone injections and ear piercings. A protagonist is adopted by his uncle after his alcoholic mother abandoned him as a child.

The Nursery by Szilvia Molnar

Somewhere in New York, in a cramped two-bed apartment that wilts beneath the intense August heat, a young woman stays at home with her baby. Women have done this before now: given birth, nursed their children, held, carried, soothed. But our narrator, a talented translator in another life, doesn’t know what it means to be a mother. This does not feel natural. This doesn’t feel like any of the stories she has heard about parenthood. As she struggles to adjust to her role as a mother, a lifeline appears in the form of Peter, a neighbour who, like her, is confined to this apartment building. But soon his visits start to disturb as much as soothe, leaving her more fragmented than ever.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Postnatal depression & postpartum psychosis
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood depiction, needles & mentions of cancer

A Shot at Normal by Marisa Reichardt

Juniper Jade’s parents are hippies. They didn’t attend the first Woodstock, but they were there for the second one. The Jade family lives an all-organic homeschool lifestyle that means no plastics, no cell phones, and no vaccines. It isn’t exactly normal, but it’s the only thing Juniper has ever known. She doesn’t agree with her parents on everything, but she knows that to be in this family, you’ve got to stick to the rules. That is, until the unthinkable happens. Juniper contracts the measles and unknowingly passes the disease along, with tragic consequences. She is shell-shocked. June.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Discussions of antivaxxers and child neglect
  • Physical illness (measles)
  • Death of an infant

Six Scorched Roses by Carissa Broadbent

Six roses. Six vials of blood. Six visits to a vampire who could be her salvation… or her damnation. Lilith has been dying since the day she was born. But while she long ago came to terms with her own imminent death, the deaths of everyone she loves is an entirely different matter. As her town slowly withers in the clutches of a mysterious god-cursed illness, she takes matters into her own hands. Desperate to find a cure, Lilith strikes a bargain with the only thing the gods hate even more than her village: a vampire, Vale. She offers him six roses in exchange for six vials of vampire blood–the one hope for her town’s salvation. But when… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted sexual assault
  • Graphic blood & illness depiction
  • Needles
  • Plague
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent & child during childbirth
  • Physical assault
  • War themes & battle scenes
  • Animal cruelty mentioned (animal testing)