Midnight Is the Darkest Hour by Ashley Winstead

For fans of Verity and A Flicker in the Dark, this is a twisted tale of murder, obsessive love, and the beastly urges that lie dormant within us all…even the God-fearing folk of Bottom Springs, Louisiana. In her small hometown, librarian Ruth Cornier has always felt like an outsider, even as her beloved father rains fire-and-brimstone warnings from the pulpit at Holy Fire Baptist. Unfortunately for Ruth, the only things the townspeople fear more than the God and the Devil are the myths that haunt the area, like the story of the Low Man, a vampiric figure said to steal into sinners’ bedrooms and kill them on moonless nights. When a skull is found… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted rape
  • Religious trauma
  • Alcohol abuse

Hopeless by Elsie Silver

Beau Eaton is the town prince, a handsome military hero with a tortured past. I’m the outcast bartender, a shy girl from the wrong side of the tracks. He’s thirty-five and all man, and I’m twenty-two and all… virgin. He’s also my fiancé. Correction: my fake fiancé. We start out as a bet. He doesn’t believe that anyone holds my last name against me. So he offers me his to prove a point. It’s win-win. He gets a break from his concerned family’s prying, and I get a chance to shed my family’s reputation while I save up to ditch this small town. He says all I have to do is wear his ring, follow his lead, and pretend I can’t keep my hands off of him… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Alcoholism discussed
  • Skin grafts for burns
  • Military service recounted

The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young

In the small mountain town of Jasper, North Carolina, June Farrow is waiting for fate to find her. The Farrow women are known for their thriving flower farm—and the mysterious curse that has plagued their family line. The whole town remembers the madness that led to Susanna Farrow’s disappearance, leaving June to be raised by her grandmother and haunted by rumours. It’s been a year since June started seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. Faint wind chimes, a voice calling her name, and a mysterious door appearing out of nowhere—the signs of what June always knew was coming. But June is determined to end… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Panic attack, on-page
  • Memory loss
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder & attempted murder

A Curse for True Love by Stephanie Garber

Evangeline Fox ventured to the Magnificent North in search of her happy ending, and it seems as if she has it. She’s married to a handsome prince and lives in a legendary castle. But Evangeline has no idea of the devastating price she’s paid for this fairytale. She doesn’t know what she has lost, and her husband is determined to make sure she never finds out . . . but first he must kill Jacks, the Prince of Hearts.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Self-injury for magic
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption & drugging (protagonist)
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Murder by stabbing & knife violence
  • Torture mentioned
  • Protagonist is kidnapped, bound, pushed into a well, magically stripped of her memories, and nearly killed with a knife
  • Animal death (fox by arrow)

Wildfire by Hannah Grace

Maple Hills students Russ Callaghan and Aurora Roberts cross paths at a party celebrating the end of the academic year, where a drinking game results in them having a passionate one-night stand. Never one to overstay her welcome (or expect much from a man), Aurora slips away before Russ even has the chance to ask for her full name. Imagine their surprise when they bump into each other on the first day of the summer camp where they are both counsellors, hoping to escape their complicated home lives by spending the summer working. Russ hopes if he gets far enough away from Maple Hills, he can avoid deal… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Parent with alcoholism and gambling addiction

At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop

Alfa Ndiaye is a Senegalese man who, never before having left his village, finds himself fighting as a so-called “Chocolat” soldier with the French army during World War I. When his friend Mademba Diop, in the same regiment, is seriously injured in battle, Diop begs Alfa to kill him and spare him the pain of a long and agonizing death in No Man’s Land. Unable to commit this mercy killing, madness creeps into Alfa’s mind as he comes to see this refusal as a cruel moment of cowardice. Anxious to avenge the death of his friend and find forgiveness for himself, he begins a macabre ritual: every night he sneaks across enemy lines… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder
  • Explosions

To Steal a Heart by KC Bateman

Forced to do the bidding of a corrupt government minister, Marianne de Bonnard agrees to plant incriminating evidence in the offices of France’s most notorious spymaster. Under cover of night, the tightrope-walking thief puts her skills to good use—until her aerial stunt is foiled when her target appears in the window and, with consummate poise, helps Marianne off the wire and into his lair. The tremors that run through her body are not just from fear; there’s an unwanted frisson of desire there, too. But is it because of her elegant, wickedly handsome host… or his proposition? Nicolas Valette has had plans… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault & dubious consent scenes recounted
  • Death of a parent & sibling recounted
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Fire

*Context : The romance is between a nineteen-year-old heroine and a 35-year-old hero.

Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire

Welcome to the Shop Where the Lost Things Go. If you ever lost a sock, you’ll find it here. If you ever wondered about favorite toy from childhood… it’s probably sitting on a shelf in the back. And the headphones that you swore that this time you’d keep safe? You guessed it… Antoinette has lost her father. Metaphorically. He’s not in the shop, and she’ll never see him again. But when Antsy finds herself lost (literally, this time), she finds that however many doors open for her, leaving the Shop for good might not be as simple as it sounds. And stepping through those doors exacts a price.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted sexual abuse of a child & grooming
  • Emotional abuse & gaslighting
  • Panic attack
  • Minor self-injury for magic
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father recounted

Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon

I went up the hill, the hill was muddy, stomped my toe and made it bloody, should I wash it? Justin knows that something is wrong with his best friend. Zee went missing for a year. And when he came back, he was . . . different. Nobody knows what happened to him. At Zee’s welcome home party, Justin and the neighborhood crew play Hide and Seek. But it goes wrong. Very wrong. One by one, everyone who plays the game disappears, pulled into a world of nightmares come to life. Justin and his friends realize this horrible place is where Zee had been trapped. All they can do now is hide from the Seeker.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Phobias
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Disappearance of a friend
  • Animal attack
  • Poverty

Pageboy by Elliot Page

Pageboy is a ground-breaking coming-of-age memoir from the Academy Award-nominated actor Elliot Page. A generation-defining actor and one of the most famous trans advocates of our time, Elliot will now be known as an uncommon literary talent, as he shares never-before-heard details and intimate interrogations on gender, love, mental health, relationships, and Hollywood.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Graphic homomisia & slurs
  • Lesbomisia & slurs
  • Transmisia, deadnaming & misgendering
  • Coming out themes including outing
  • Sexual assault
  • Adult-minor relationship & grooming
  • Emotional child abuse
  • Eating disorder including food restriction
  • Body dysphoria discussed
  • Social anxiety & panic attacks
  • Self-harm
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Emesis
  • Top surgery
  • Stalking