Tag Archives: Sex Work & Sex Slavery

Deliver by Pam Godwin

His name was Joshua Carter. Now it’s whatever she wants it to be. She is a Deliverer. She lures young men and delivers them to be sold. She delivers the strikes that enforce their obedience. She delivers the sexual training that determines their purchase price. As long as she delivers, the arrangement that protects her family will hold. Delivering is all she knows. The one thing she can’t deliver is a captive from slavery. Until him. And her stubborn slave thinks he can deliver her…from herself.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape, sexual assault & dubious consent scenes
  • Sex trafficking & sexual slavery (theme)
  • Kidnapping & captivity (on-page)

Context : The female protagonist kidnaps men for sex trafficking and ‘trains’ them to be sex slaves. Her love interest is her latest victim.

Dark Notes by Pam Godwin

They call me a slut. Maybe I am. Sometimes I do things I despise. Sometimes men take without asking. But I have a musical gift, only a year left of high school, and a plan.
With one obstacle. Emeric Marceaux doesn’t just take.
He seizes my will power and bangs it like a dark note.
When he commands me to play, I want to give him everything. I kneel for his punishments, tremble for his touch, and risk it all for our stolen moments. He’s my obsession, my master, my music. And my teacher…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sibling abuse (protagonist)
  • Rape of a minor (multiple, protagonist)
  • Underrage sex work mentioned
  • Adult-minor teacher-student relationship (theme) between a 17-year-old high school student and her 27-year-old music teacher & mentor
  • Parent with substance addiction (protagonist)
  • Poverty (protagonist)

You, Me, U.S. by Brigitte Bautista

Best friends Jo and Liza are as opposite as night and day. Sex worker Jo swears by the worry-free, one-day-at-a-time dance through life. Salesclerk Liza has big plans for her family’s future, and there is nothing bigger than a one-way trip to the U.S. But an almost-kiss, a sex dare, and news of Liza’s engagement to her American boyfriend unveil feelings Jo and Liza never thought they had. Deciding between staying together and drifting apart puts Liza’s best-laid plans and Jo’s laidback life in jeopardy. When love clashes with lifelong ambitions and family expectations, someone has to give in. Question is: who?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic abuse mentioned
  • Infidelity
  • Sexual harassment
  • Sex work & sex work shaming

One for the Road by Katia Rose

It’s the phrase on the tip of everyone’s tongues. For three years, every staff member and regular at Taverne Toulouse has watched Zach and DeeDee edge their way closer to the grand finale of a ‘will they, won’t they’ dance that feels like it’s lasted for decades. Bets have been placed. Wagers have been drawn. The whole of Montreal’s most famous dive bar is holding its breath. Will the small town boy with a heart of gold finally make a move on the wild, pink-haired bartender he’s been in love with for years, or will the moment pass them by and leave Zach and DeeDee insisting they’re ‘just friends’ yet again?… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Violence against sex workers mentioned
  • Drug use mentioned

A Shadow Crown by Melissa Blair

To the kingdom, Keera is the king’s Blade, his most feared and trusted spy and assassin. But in the shadows, she works with Prince Killian and his Shadow—the dark, brooding Fae, Riven, who sets her blood on fire. Together, they plot to kill a tyrant king. In Myrelinth, the lush, secret city of trees, Fae, Elves, and Halflings like Keera live in harmony. But Keera cannot escape her past: her crimes against her own people have followed her all the way to the Faeland. There is a traitor in their midst, and Keera is the top suspect. Keera finds comfort in the allies that have become her family… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slut-shaming
  • Slavery & sex slavery mentioned (secondary character)
  • Intimate partner abuse (on-page)
  • Suicidal ideation recounted
  • Self-injury & self-harm (cutting)
  • Alcoholism (recovery/sobriety) & alcohol consumption (secondary character)
  • Pregnancy & death during childbirth mentioned (secondary characters)
  • Death of an ex-partner recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder including patricide
  • Physical assault
  • Imprisonment

Quicksilver by Callie Hart

Do not touch the sword. Do not turn the key. Do not open the gate. In the land of the unforgiving desert, there isn’t much a girl wouldn’t do for a glass of water. Twenty-four-year-old Saeris Fane is good at keeping secrets. No one knows about the strange powers she possesses, or the fact that she has been picking pockets and stealing from the Undying Queen’s reservoirs for as long as she can remember. But a secret is like a knot. Sooner or later, it is bound to come undone. When Saeris comes face-to-face with Death himself, she inadvertently reopens a… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape of the protagonist’s mother & sex work mentioned
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Forced sterilization recounted
  • Blood, injury & gore depiction including decapitation & emesis
  • Murder & torture
  • War themes
  • Extreme childhood poverty recounted

Jack Addison vs. Centaur Pimps by K.A. Merikan

Jack Addison’s career as a monster hunter is blossoming, and so is his experience in dealing with all kinds of interesting species. But one creature still remains a mystery to Jack—the feline-like Roux Chat-Bonnes. His fellow venator has been avoiding Jack since their successful werewolf hunt in Bohemia, but a man can only pine for so long, which is why Jack decides to vacation on a Greek island famous for its centaur population. Eager to get intimately acquainted with one of the hooved beauties, Jack instead uncovers a cruel plot that will change his view of human-centaur relations for good.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Human trafficking & sex work
  • Kidnapping

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick. What Lou doesn’t know is she’s about to lose her job or that knowing what’s coming is what keeps her sane. Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he’s going to put a stop to that. What Will doesn’t know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they’re going to change the other for all time.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Fatphobia & body-shaming from relatives
  • Gang rape recounted
  • Paraplegia due to a motorcycle accident
  • Depression & suicidal ideation including discussions of a planned suicide and death by physician-assisted suicide
  • Alcohol consumption

On the Savage Side by Tiffany McDaniel

Arcade and Daffodil are twins born one minute apart. With their fiery red hair and thirst for escape, they form an unbreakable bond nurtured by their grandmother’s stories. Together, they disappear into their imaginations and forge a world all their own. But what the two sisters can’t escape are the generational ghosts that haunt their family. Growing up in the shadow of their rural Ohio town, the sisters cling tightly to one another. Years later, Arcade wrestles with the memories of her early life, just as a local woman is discovered drowned in the river. Soon, more bodies are found. As her… Read More.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sex work
  • Graphic drug use
  • Death of a parent mentioned
  • Murder & torture
  • Animal cruelty

All Men of Genius by Lev A.C. Rosen

Violet Adams wants to attend Illyria College, a widely renowned school for the most brilliant up-and-coming scientific minds, founded by the late Duke Illyria, the greatest scientist of the Victorian Age. The school is run by his son, Ernest, who continues his father’s policy that the small, exclusive college remain male-only. Violet sees her opportunity when her father departs for America. She disguises herself as her twin brother, Ashton, and gains entry. But keeping the secret of her sex won’t be easy, not with her friend Jack’s constant habit of pulling pranks, and especially not… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape & sex work mentioned
  • Animal experimentation