Paedophilia, Grooming & CSA – Page 38 – Trigger Warning Database

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city centre, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia’s regimented world step two outsiders—Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumoured Rebel on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.

In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other’s lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Child sexual abuse recounted
Domestic abuse mentioned
Suicide mentioned
Childbirth
Stillborn & miscarriage
Blood & gore depiction
Hospitalisation
Pandemic

Room by Emma Donoghue

Room by Emma Donoghue

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it’s where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it’s not enough … not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son’s bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Child sexual abuse
Kidnapping & captivity

The Glass Castle by James Dashner

The Glass Castle by James Dashner

Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity was both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all, how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted and wrote and couldn’t stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an “excitement addict.” Cooking a meal that would be consumed in fifteen… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Sexual assault of a child
Child abuse & neglect
Alcohol abuse

Bitter Eden by Tatamkhulu Afrika

Bitter Eden by Tatamkhulu Afrika

This frank and beautifully written novel draws heavily on the author’s World War II experiences as a captive in North Africa and a prisoner of war in Italy and Germany. Three men who see themselves as “straight” must negotiate the emotions that are brought to the surface by the physical closeness of survival in the male-only camps. The complex rituals of camp life and the strange loyalties and deep bonds between the men are compellingly depicted in this tender, bitter, powerful tale of lives inexorably changed and a war whose ending does not bring peace.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Homomisia
Child sexual abuse, implied

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church’s double standards and their own needs and passions

Goodreads • The Sto r y Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Homomisia
Body shaming
Racism
Misogyny
Infidelity
Domestic abuse
Child abuse mentioned
Paedophilia mentioned
Emotional and physical abuse
Adult-minor relationship
Dementia
Abortion
Religious bigotry
Death of a child
Death of a parent

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life. She dreams of greater things: a house with its own front door and a life bought and paid for outright (like her perfect, but false, teeth). But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and soon she and her three children find themselves trapped in a decimated mining town. As she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Homophobia
Rape, paedophilia & child sexual abuse
Physical & emotional child abuse
Domestic abuse
Alcoholism
Infidelity
Death of a parent

His and Hers by Alice Feeney

His & Hers by Alice Feeney

There are two sides to every story: yours and mine, ours and theirs, His & Hers. Which means someone is always lying. When a woman is murdered in Blackdown, a quintessentially British village, newsreader Anna Andrews is reluctant to cover the case. Detective Jack Harper is suspicious of her involvement until he becomes a suspect in his own murder investigation. Someone isn’t telling the truth, and some secrets are worth killing to keep.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

Infidelity
Rape, sexual assault & grooming
Dementia
Alcoholism
Suicide & self harm
Death of a child from SIDS
Blackmail
Animal abuse & cruelty
Bullying

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

Sooner or later the dead catch up. When Judas Coyne heard someone was selling a ghost on the internet, there was no question. It was perfect for his collection of the macabre: the cannibal’s cookbook, the witch’s confession, the authentic snuff movie. As an ageing death-metal rock-god, buying a poltergeist almost qualifies as a business expense.

Besides, Jude thinks he knows all about ghosts. Jude has been haunted for years… by the spirits of bandmates dead and gone, the spectre of the abusive father he fled as a child, and the memory of the suicidal girl he abandoned. But this ghost, delivered to his doorstep in a black heart-shaped box, is different. It makes the house feel cold. It makes the dogs bark. And it means to chase Jude from his home and make him run for his life.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Rape of a child
Death of a parent
Animal death (dog)

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

Hidden in the depths of eighteenth-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to an unusual kind of clientele. Women across the city whisper of a mysterious figure named Nella who sells well-disguised poisons to use against the oppressive men in their lives. But the apothecary’s fate is jeopardized when her newest patron, a precocious twelve-year-old, makes a fatal mistake, sparking a string of consequences that echo through the centuries.

Meanwhile, in present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, running from her own demons. When she stumbles upon a clue to the unsolved apothecary murders that haunted London two hundred years ago, her life collides with the apothecary’s in a stunning twist of fate—and not everyone will survive… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Child sexual assault
Abusive relationship
Suicide
Pregnancy
Miscarriage
Murder
Poisoning

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher.

2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager—and who professed to worship only her—may be far different from what she has always believed? … Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

Slut-shaming
Fatmisia & body shaming
Adult-minor relationship
Student-teacher relationship
Paedophilia, grooming & child sexual abuse
Rape, including statutory rape
Sexual assault
Child pornography
Emotional abuse & gaslighting
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Dissociation
Suicide
Substance addiction
Alcoholism
Alcohol consumption & abuse
Recreational drug use
Disordered eating
Death of a dog