Tag Archives: Sexual Assault

This page lists books that contain trigger warnings for the depiction of sexual assault. It is also used as an umbrella tag for any form of sexual violence.

See also Rape, Paedophilia & CSA, and Sex work.

Homestead by Claire Kent

After losing the last remaining member of my family, I’m left all alone in a dangerous, uncivilized world. A twenty-year-old woman with no skills, no resources, and no protection can’t make it on her own after Impact, so I’m forced to rely on the charity of strangers to survive. My one chance of safety and security comes from an unexpected offer. Jimmy Morgan needs a partner. He wants help in his house and a woman in his bed, and he’d like that partner to be me. In return I get a place to live, plenty of food, and the protection of a competent man and his larger community. It’s a good deal, so of course I accept. It means I have to live… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted rape
  • Minor physical injury & illness and emesis
  • Unplanned pregnancy mentioned (epilogue)
  • Accidental death of child from gun violence
  • Death of a wife & newborn in childbirth recounted (protagonist)
  • Murder of a grandfather & parents recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping

Context : The female protagonist is saved from her assaulter by the male protagonist.

My December Darling by Lauren Asher

Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life. Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff edge the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there. . . but his wife has disappeared. A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible – a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault of a child
  • Suicide
  • Disappearance of a wife (theme)
  • Drowning mentioned

The Ever Queen by LJ Andrews

The Songbird: Captive. Challenger. Queen. Enemies took her from the man who holds her heart. They might see her as weak, as a pawn in wicked games, but they’re no match for the first Ever Queen. Let them think they’ve won. Her heart belongs to a beautiful monster, and she will never stop fighting until she’s back in his arms. The Serpent: Captor. Villain. King. His enemies stole the woman who claimed his soul. They betrayed him out of greed and desire for the crown, but they won’t die for that betrayal. No. They’ll die for touching… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted sexual assault (on-page, secondary character)
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction
  • Emesis
  • Murder
  • Torture & mutilation
  • Kidnapping

Throne of the Fallen by Kerri Maniscalco

The Prince of Envy has never claimed to be a saint. But when a cryptic note arrives, signalling the beginning of a deadly game, he knows it will take more than a hint of sin to win and save his falling demon court. Riddles, hexed objects, anonymous players, nothing will stand in his way, though none of his meticulous plans prepare him for her, the frustrating artist who ignites his sin like no other. The trouble with scoundrels and blackguards is that they haven’t a modicum of honour, a fact Miss Camilla Antonius learns after one desperate mistake allows Waverly Green’s most notorious rake to blackmail her. To avoid a ruinous… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Abandonment
  • Threats of sexual assault
  • Infertility mentioned
  • Blood & injury depiction including emesis, blood-drinking and minor self-injury for blood
  • Death of parents
  • Blackmail
  • Murder & kidnapping

The Conspiracy of Us by Maggie Hall

Avery West’s newfound family can shut down Prada when they want to shop in peace, and can just as easily order a bombing when they want to start a war. Part of a powerful and dangerous secret society called the Circle, they believe Avery is the key to an ancient prophecy. Some want to use her as a pawn. Some want her dead. To unravel the mystery putting her life in danger, Avery must follow a trail of clues from the monuments of Paris to the back alleys of Istanbul with two boys who work for the Circle — beautiful, volatile Stellan and mysterious, magnetic Jack. But as the clues expose a stunning… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism & homophobia mentioned
  • Attempted rape recounted
  • Forced breeding (implied)
  • Child abuse & parental abandonment
  • Panic attack (on-page)
  • Alcohol consumption & smoking
  • Pregnancy mentioned
  • Miscarriage
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction
  • Emesis
  • Death of a mother & father
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife & gun violence
  • Explosions mentioned
  • Kidnapping, captivity & being held hostage situation at knifepoint
  • Stalking & blackmail
  • Car accident (off-page)
  • Bullying recounted

Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin

In the late 90s, five queer kids, whose parents want them “fixed,” find themselves thrown together at a secretive “tough love” camp deep in the scorching Utah desert. Tormented and worked to the point of collapse by hardline religious zealots intent on straightening them out, they slowly become aware that something in the mountains north of the camp is speaking to them in their dreams, and that the children who return home to their families have… changed.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & racism
  • Child abuse
  • Sexual assault
  • Deadnaming
  • Suicide & self-harm mentioned

Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight

When Cleo, a student at NYU, arrives late for dinner at her childhood home in Brooklyn, she finds food burning in the oven and no sign of her mother, Kat. Then Cleo discovers her mom’s bloody shoe under the sofa. Something terrible has happened. But what? The polar opposite of Cleo, whose “out of control” emotions and “unsafe” behaviour have created a seemingly unbridgeable rift between mother and daughter, Kat is the essence of Park Slope perfection: a happily married, successful corporate lawyer. Or so Cleo thinks. Kat has been lying. She’s not just a lawyer; she’s… Read more,

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape & child sexual abuse mentioned
  • Infidelity
  • Blackmail mentioned

The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean

Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s life is turned upside down when she gets the call Ellie Black, a girl who disappeared years earlier, has resurfaced in the woods of Washington state—but Ellie’s reappearance leaves Chelsey with more questions than answers. It’s been twenty years since Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s sister vanished when they were teenagers, and ever since she’s been searching: for signs, for closure, for other missing girls. But happy endings are rare in Chelsey’s line of work. Then a glimmer: local teenager Ellie Black, who disappeared without a trace two years earlier, has been found alive in the woods of… Read more,

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny, racism & classism
  • Alcohol consumption & alcoholism
  • Murder & torture
  • Kidnapping, rape & abuse of multiple women discussed
  • Cults

Where’s Molly by H.D. Carlton

In my dreams, I never escaped the Oregon woods. Life after death isn’t easy to accept, especially when I still feel like a ghost. Now, I live deep in the mountains of Montana—the paradigm of beauty. But they are also the home of horrors. Horrors that I only unleash at night. When my pigs are allowed to feast.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & neglect including child sexual assault and rape recounted (off-page)
  • Human trafficking
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Drug use & alcohol consumption
  • Murder

A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L. Jensen

Bound in an unwanted marriage, Freya spends her days gutting fish, but dreams of becoming a warrior. And of putting an axe in her boorish husband’s back. Freya’s dreams abruptly become reality when her husband betrays her to the region’s jarl, landing her in a fight to the death against his son, Bjorn. To survive, Freya is forced to reveal her deepest secret: She possesses a drop of a goddess’s blood, which makes her a shield maiden with magic capable of repelling any attack. It was foretold such a magic would unite the fractured nation of Skaland beneath the one who controls the shield maiden’s fate. Believing he’s… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault & Harassment
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Murder
  • Fire
  • War themes