Tag Archives: Rape

Tehanu by Ursula Le Guin

Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin

In this fourth novel in the Earthsea series, we rejoin the young priestess the Tenar and powerful wizard Ged. Years before, they had helped each other at a time of darkness and danger. Together, they shared an adventure like no other. Tenar has since embraced the simple pleasures of an ordinary life, while Ged mourns the powers lost to him through no choice of his own.
Now the two must join forces again and help another in need-the physically, emotionally scarred child whose own destiny has yet to be revealed….

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Sexual assault of a child
  • Child abuse
  • Death of a child
  • Torture
  • Home invasion

The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin

The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin

Centuries ago, the moon Anarres was settled by utopian anarchists who left the Earthlike planet Urras in search of a better world, a new beginning. Now a brilliant physicist, Shevek, determines to reunite the two civilizations that have been separated by hatred since long before he was born.

The Dispossessed is a penetrating examination of society and humanity — and one man’s brave undertaking to question the unquestionable and ignite the fires of change.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Attempted rape

King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

To reach greatness you must step on bodies, and many brothers lie trodden in my wake. I’ve walked from pawn to player and I’ll win this game of ours, though the cost of it may drown the world in blood…

The land burns with the fires of a hundred battles as lords and petty kings fight for the Broken Empire. The long road to avenge the slaughter of his mother and brother has shown Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath the hidden hands behind this endless war. He saw the game and vowed to sweep the board. First though he must gather his own pieces, learn the rules of play, and discover how to break them… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Cannibalism
  • Death of a child
  • Torture

Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

Before the thorns taught me their sharp lessons and bled weakness from me I had but one brother, and I loved him well. But those days are gone and what is left of them lies in my mother’s tomb. Now I have many brothers, quick with knife and sword, and as evil as you please. We ride this broken empire and loot its corpse. They say these are violent times, the end of days when the dead roam and monsters haunt the night. All that’s true enough, but there’s something worse out there, in the dark. Much worse.

From being a privileged royal child, raised by a loving mother, Jorg Ancrath has become the Prince of Thorns, a charming, immoral boy leading a grim band of outlaws in a series of raids and atrocities. The world is in chaos: violence is rife, nightmares everywhere… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • War themes

Strange Girls: Women in Horror Anthology edited by Azzurra Nox

Strange Girls: Women in Horror Anthology edited by Azzurra Nox

Strange Girls: Women in Horror Anthology by Azzurra Nox

You know them. Those girls that aren’t quite like everyone else. Those girls who stand out in the crowd. Those girls that dare to be different. Those girls are dangerous.

In Strange Girls, twenty-one authors dare to tackle what makes the girls in this collection different. Vampires, selkies, murderous mermaids, succubus, and possessed dolls take center stage in these short stories that are sure to invoke feelings of quiet terror and uneasiness in the reader. Following the successful debut of Women in Horror anthology with My American Nightmare, Strange Girls is the sophomore effort to showcase these talented women in a genre that is often dominated by the male gaze.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault
  • Toxic relationship
  • Rape
  • Death
  • Murder
  • Stalking
  • Forced outing
  • Bullying
  • Necrophilia

The Boy at the Top of the Mountain by John Boyne

The Boy at the Top of the Mountain by John Boyne

When Pierrot becomes an orphan, he must leave his home in Paris for a new life with his Aunt Beatrix, a servant in a wealthy household at the top of the German mountains. But this is no ordinary time, for it is 1935 and the Second World War is fast approaching; and this is no ordinary house, for this is the Berghof, the home of Adolf Hitler.

Quickly, Pierrot is taken under Hitler’s wing, and is thrown into an increasingly dangerous new world: a world of terror, secrets and betrayal, from which he may never be able to escape.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism
  • Attempted rape
  • Domestic violence
  • Parent with alcoholism & military-related PTSD
  • Death by train
  • World War One & Two
  • The Holocaust
  • Bullying

The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne

The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Slut shaming
  • Hate crimes
  • Paedophilia
  • Rape
  • Incest
  • Child abuse
  • Depression
  • Anxiety
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Bullying

My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fifth grade, when they bonded over a shared love of E.T., roller-skating parties, and scratch-and-sniff stickers. But when they arrive at high school, things change. Gretchen begins to act….different. And as the strange coincidences and bizarre behaviour start to pile up, Abby realizes there’s only one possible explanation: Gretchen, her favourite person in the world, has a demon living inside her. And Abby is not about to let anyone or anything come between her and her best friend. With help from some unlikely allies, Abby embarks on a quest to save Gretchen. But is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableist language
  • Date rape mentioned
  • Attempted suicide
  • Body horror
  • Emesis
  • Death of a baby
  • Animal death (dog)
  • Kidnapping

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

Patricia Campbell had always planned for a big life, but after giving up her career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor and become a mother, Patricia’s life has never felt smaller. The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they’re more likely to discuss the FBI’s recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.

But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighbourhood, the book club’s meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Classism
  • Victim blaming
  • Graphic rape
  • Cheating
  • Domestic violence
  • Suicide & attempted suicide
  • Drug use
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Body horror & eyeball trauma
  • Nonconsensual psychiatric hospitalisation
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a spouse
  • Lynching mentioned
  • Home invasion
  • Animal death

To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo

To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo

Princess Lira is siren royalty and the most lethal of them all. With the hearts of seventeen princes in her collection, she is revered across the sea. Until a twist of fate forces her to kill one of her own. To punish her daughter, the Sea Queen transforms Lira into the one thing they loathe most—a human. Robbed of her song, Lira has until the winter solstice to deliver Prince Elian’s heart to the Sea Queen or remain a human forever. The ocean is the only place Prince Elian calls home, even though he is heir to the most powerful kingdom in the world. Hunting sirens is more than an unsavoury hobby—it’s his calling. When he rescues a… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slavery mentioned
  • Sexual assault & threats of rape
  • Child abuse
  • Disownment
  • Arranged marriage
  • Nightmares
  • Self-injury
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a mother
  • Murder, torture & physical assault
  • Knife and gun violence & stabbing
  • Kidnapping, captivity & imprisonment
  • Drowning
  • Cyclones
  • Avalanche
  • Hunting
  • War themes