Tag Archives: Sexual Assault

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. At the core of this rich, expansive, layered novel, Lauren Groff presents the story of one such marriage over the course of twenty-four years.
At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault
  • Sex work
  • Family estrangement
  • Agoraphobia
  • Depression
  • Eating disorder
  • Suicide
  • Drug use & overdose
  • Cancer

Matrix by Lauren Groff

Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, 17-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease.
At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. In this crucible, Marie steadily supplants her desire for family, for her homeland, for the passions of her youth with something new to her… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Religious persecution
  • Sexual assault
  • Emotional abuse
  • Childbirth
  • Miscarriage
  • Decapitation
  • Physical assault

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world’s center for translation and, more importantly, magic.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism, including slurs & cultural appropriation
  • Classism
  • Colourism
  • Misogyny & sexism
  • Islamophobia
  • Violent hate crime
  • Slavery, including child labour
  • Sexual assault
  • Suicide discussed
  • Self-harm
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drug use
  • Blood depiction
  • Emesis
  • Feet binding discussed
  • Plague
  • Death of mother
  • Grief depiction
  • Murder
  • Police brutality
  • Genocide
  • Gun violence
  • Torture
  • Physical assault
  • Colonization
  • War themes

The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. Schwab

France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Homomisia mentioned
  • Sexual assault
  • Prostitution
  • Intimate domestic abuse
  • Depression
  • Attempted suicide
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Drug & alcohol abuse
  • Starvation
  • Cancer recounted
  • Death of a loved one
  • Grief depiction
  • Physical assault
  • Imprisonment
  • War themes

The Nightmare Man by J.H. Markert

Blackwood mansion looms, surrounded by nightmare pines, atop the hill over the small town of New Haven. Ben Bookman, bestselling novelist and heir to the Blackwood estate, spent a weekend at the ancestral home to finish writing his latest horror novel, The Scarecrow. Now, on the eve of the book’s release, the terrible story within begins to unfold in real life. Detective Mills arrives at the scene of a gruesome murder: a family butchered and bundled inside cocoons stitched from corn husks, and hung from the rafters of a barn, eerily mirroring the opening of Bookman’s latest novel. When another family is killed in… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault
  • Self-harm, specifically cutting
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Drug use & abuse
  • Blood depiction
  • Murder
  • Disappearance of children
  • Animal cruelty

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena’s a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn’t even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism, including microaggressions & slurs
  • Bullying
  • Cyberharassment, including doxxing
  • Sexual assault & rape recounted
  • Emotional abuse, specifically gaslighting
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a daughter
  • Death of a friend
  • Graphic death by choking

Real Friends by Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham

Shannon and Adrienne have been best friends ever since they were little. But one day, Adrienne starts hanging out with Jen, the most popular girl in class and the leader of a circle of friends called The Group. Everyone in The Group wants to be Jen’s #1, and some girls would do anything to stay on top . . . even if it means bullying others. Now every day is like a roller coaster for Shannon. Will she and Adrienne stay friends? Can she stand up for herself? And is she in The Group—or out?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Physical, emotional & verbal sibling abuse
  • Sexual assault of a minor (forced kiss)
  • Bullying

No Good Duke Goes Unpunished by Sarah MacLean

He is the Killer Duke, accused of murdering Mara Lowe on the eve of her wedding. With no memory of that fateful night, Temple has reigned over the darkest of London’s corners for twelve years, wealthy and powerful, but beyond redemption. Until one night, Mara resurfaces, offering the one thing he’s dreamed of… absolution. Mara planned never to return to the world from which she’d run, but when her brother falls deep into debt at Temple’s exclusive casino, she has no choice but to offer Temple a trade that ends in her returning to society and proving to the world what only she knows… that he is no killer. It’s a fine… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted sexual assault
  • Domestic violence recounted
  • Blood depiction
  • Gambling
  • Pregnancy mentioned (secondary character)
  • Murder of mother by a father from stabbing recounted

Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover by Sarah MacLean

By day, she is Lady Georgiana, sister to a Duke, ruined before her first season in the worst kind of scandal. But the truth is far more shocking—in London’s darkest corners, she is Chase, the mysterious, unknown founder of the city’s most legendary gaming hell. For years, her double identity has gone undiscovered… until now. Brilliant, handsome-as-sin Duncan West is intrigued by the beautiful, ruined woman who is somehow connected to a world of sin. He knows she is more than she seems and he vows to uncover all of Georgiana’s secrets, laying bare her past, threatening her present, and risking all she holds dear including her heart.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical sexism, sex-work shaming & slut-shaming
  • Rape & attempted sexual assault recounted
  • Domestic violence (secondary character)
  • Unplanned pregnancy of a minor recounted
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Murder by gun violence of an abuser
  • Blackmail

Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke’s Heart by Sarah MacLean

Bold, impulsive, and a magnet for trouble, Juliana Fiori is no simpering English miss. She refuses to play by society’s rules: she speaks her mind, cares nothing for the approval of the ton, and can throw a punch with remarkable accuracy. Her scandalous nature makes her a favourite subject of London’s most practised gossips… and precisely the kind of woman the Duke of Leighton wants far far away from him. Scandal is the last thing Simon Pearson has room for in his well-ordered world. The Duke of Disdain is too focused on keeping his title untainted and his secrets unknown. But when he discovers Juliana hiding in his carriage… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slut-shaming
  • Parental abandonment mentioned
  • Attempted sexual assault
  • Cheating

Context: The love interest is engaged to someone else for the majority of the novel.