Tag Archives: Suicide & Attempted Suicide

The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison 

The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison

When the young half-goblin emperor Maia sought to learn who had set the bombs that killed his father and half-brothers, he turned to an obscure resident of his father’s Court, a Prelate of Ulis and a Witness for the Dead. Thara Celehar found the truth, though it did him no good to discover it. He lost his place as a retainer of his cousin the former Empress, and made far too many enemies among the many factions vying for power in the new Court. The favor of the Emperor is a dangerous coin.

Now Celehar lives in the city of Amalo, far from the Court though not exactly in exile. He has not escaped from politics, but his position gives him the ability to serve the common people of the city, which is his preference. He lives modestly, but his decency and fundamental honestly will not permit him to live quietly. As a Witness for the Dead… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape mentioned
  • Domestic violence
  • Suicide
  • Infanticide mentioned
  • Fire

Five Strangers by EV Adamson

Five Strangers by E.V. Adamson

With its grassy hills and breathtaking city views, London’s Hampstead Heath is the perfect place to spend an afternoon with friends and loved ones—and on an unseasonably warm Valentine’s Day, the lawns are especially full. So when an aggressive lovers’ quarrel breaks out, there’s an audience of park goers nearby to hear the shouts traded back and forth, and to watch as the violence escalates suddenly to murder, then suicide. 

For the five strangers who observed the gruesome act, the memory of the gore is unshakable. But one of them—disgraced journalist Jen Hunter—is compelled to question the truth of what she thought she saw. Are the facts of the case plain as day, or were they obscured, in the moment, by the glaring sunlight?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Domestic abuse
  • Murder-suicide

The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams 

The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams

Ealing after losing his beloved wife. He shops every Wednesday, goes to Temple, and worries about his granddaughter, Priya, who hides in her room reading while he spends his evenings watching nature documentaries. Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at the local library for the summer when she discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a list of novels that she’s never heard of before. Intrigued, and a little bored with her slow job at the checkout desk, she impulsively decides to read every book on the list.. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Depression
  • Suicide

Finding Junie Kim by Ellen Oh

Finding Junie Kim by Ellen Oh

Junie Kim just wants to fit in. So she keeps her head down and tries not to draw attention to herself. But when racist graffiti appears at her middle school, Junie must decide between staying silent or speaking out.

Then Junie’s history teacher assigns a project and Junie decides to interview her grandparents, learning about their unbelievable experiences as kids during the Korean War. Junie comes to admire her grandma’s fierce determination to overcome impossible odds, and her grandpa’s unwavering compassion during wartime. And as racism becomes more pervasive at school, Junie taps into the strength of her ancestors and finds the courage to do what is right.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Depression
  • Suicide
  • War themes
  • Bullying

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

All Lina wanted was to be desired. How did she end up in a marriage with two children and a husband who wouldn’t touch her?

All Maggie wanted was to be understood. How did she end up in a relationship with her teacher and then in court, a hated pariah in her small town?

All Sloane wanted was to be admired. How did she end up a sexual object of men, including her husband, who liked to watch her have sex with other men and women?

Three Women is a record of unmet needs, unspoken thoughts, disappointments, hopes and unrelenting obsessions.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Fatmisia
  • Slut-shaming
  • Rape
  • Statutory rape
  • Eating disorder (anorexia)
  • Suicide mentioned

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. The Twins were playing their debut season, ice-cold root beers were selling out at the soda counter of Halderson’s Drugstore, and Hot Stuff comic books were a mainstay on every barbershop magazine rack. It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim summer in which death visited frequently and assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder.

Frank begins the season preoccupied with the concerns of any teenage boy, but when tragedy unexpectedly strikes his family— which includes his Methodist minister father; his passionate, artistic mother; Juilliard-bound older sister; and wise-beyond-his-years kid brother— he finds himself thrust into an adult world full of secrets, lies, adultery, and betrayal, suddenly called upon to demonstrate a maturity and gumption beyond his years.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Queermisic slurs
  • Attempted suicide
  • Abortion mentioned
  • Death of a child
  • Murder

The Stand by Stephen King

The Stand by Stephen King

A patient escapes from a biological testing facility, unknowingly carrying a deadly weapon: a mutated strain of super-flu that will wipe out 99 percent of the world’s population within a few weeks. Those who remain are scared, bewildered, and in need of a leader. Two emerge—Mother Abagail, the benevolent 108-year-old woman who urges them to build a peaceful community in Boulder, Colorado; and Randall Flagg, the nefarious “Dark Man,” who delights in chaos and violence. As the dark man and the peaceful woman gather power, the survivors will have to choose between them—and ultimately decide the fate of all humanity.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableist language
  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Rape
  • Suicide
  • Abortion discussed
  • Dead bodies
  • Murder
  • Graphic gun violence
  • Suffocation
  • White supremacy & the KKK mentioned

Year One by Nora Roberts

Year One by Nora Roberts

It began on New Year’s Eve.

The sickness came on suddenly, and spread quickly. The fear spread even faster. Within weeks, everything people counted on began to fail them. The electrical grid sputtered; law and government collapsed–and more than half of the world’s population was decimated.

Where there had been order, there was now chaos. And as the power of science and technology receded, magic rose up in its place. Some of it is good, like the witchcraft worked by Lana Bingham, practising in the loft apartment she shares with her lover, Max. Some of it is unimaginably evil, and it can lurk anywhere, around a corner, in fetid tunnels beneath the river–or in the ones you know and love the most…. Read more.

.Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Suicide
  • Torture

The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North

The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North

My name is Hope Arden, and you won’t know who I am. But we’ve met before – a thousand times.

It started when I was sixteen years old.

A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A friend who looks at me and sees a stranger. No matter what I do, the words I say, the crimes I commit, you will never remember who I am.

That makes my life difficult. It also makes me dangerous.

.Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Suicide
  • Medical experimentation
  • House fire

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

Some stories cannot be told in just one lifetime. Harry August is on his deathbed. Again. No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes. Until now. As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. “I nearly missed you, Doctor August,” she says. “I need to send a message.” This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.

.Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Suicide
  • Overdose
  • Medical experimentation
  • Cancer
  • AIDS
  • Infanticide
  • Torture, on-page
  • Incarceration