Darn Knit All by Evie Mitchell

Theo: You might be asking yourself how a guy like me ended up on a fashion reality TV show. You may also be asking why I agreed to be a designer’s apprentice with no intelligible sewing skills. Cake. Delicious, fluffy, flour-laden, sugary cake—the beginning of my downfall. If it weren’t for that cake, I’d have never bribed Mai Sakamoto for more. We’d have never developed a friendship. I wouldn’t know of her dreams to become a fashion designer. And I’d sure as hell would never have ended up on a reality TV show to help her chase those dreams. Real knight in shining armor… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Anxiety & panic attacks (on-page)
  • Alcohol consumption and
  • Parent with drug & alcohol abuse issues recounted
  • Pregnancy (secondary character)
  • Car accident resulting in loss of limb recounted
  • Blackmail
  • Bullying

Party of Liars by Kelsey Cox

Today is Sophie Matthews’s sixteenth birthday party, an exclusive black-tie bash in the heart of the Texas Hill Country, where secrets are as deep-rooted as the sprawling live oaks. Sophie’s dad has spared no expense, and his renovated cliffside mansion—once thought haunted—is now hosting the event of the season. Then, just before the candles on the three-tiered red velvet cake are blown out, a body falls from the balcony onto the starlit dance floor below. It’s a killer guest list. DANI: Sophie’s new stepmother who’s been plagued by self-doubt ever since… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcoholism & alcohol abuse
  • Post-partum depression
  • Intrusive thoughts

The Close-Up by Pip Drysdale

When Zoe Ann Weiss moves to Los Angeles to pursue her dream of becoming a writer, her whole future is wide open. But then Zach, the bartender and aspiring actor she’s falling for, ghosts her. Her debut novel, a thriller, fails. And she has writer’s block worse than ever before. Now, three years later, Zach is famous and Zoe is… not. She’s facing her thirtieth birthday, a dead-end job at a flower shop, and a demanding agent, terrified she’ll never get her life back on track. But when she goes to make a flower delivery and Zach is at the address, it’s like no time has passed at all.. Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Kidnapping & stalking
  • Gun violence

Maybe This Time by Cara Bastone

Romance can be a little complicated when you get sucked into a wormhole. Just ask high school English teacher June Flint. One little solar flare happens and suddenly you find yourself 85 years in the future. Eighty-five years from your dream job. Your ailing mother whose only companion in this world is you. Your favorite stuffed-crust pizza from DeLucia… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Workplace homophobia & racism recounted
  • Anxiety
  • Parent with degenerative memory issues
  • Death of a parent recounted

Private Rites by Julia Armfield

It’s been raining for a long time now, so long that the land has reshaped itself and arcane rituals and religions are creeping back into practice. Sisters Isla, Irene, and Agnes have not spoken in some time when their father dies. An architect as cruel as he was revered, his death offers an opportunity for the sisters to come together in a new way. In the grand glass house they grew up in, their father’s most famous creation, the sisters sort through the secrets and memories he left behind, until their fragile bond is shattered by a revel.. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse recounted
  • Parental infidelity mentioned
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Nightmares & sleep issues mentioned
  • Pica mentioned (recovery)
  • Attempted suicide & self-harm recounted
  • Alcohol consumption & smoking
  • Emesis
  • Death of a father from a stroke & heart attack mentioned
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Drowning
  • Cults discussed
  • Animal injury (fish

We Shall Be Monsters by Tara Sim

After her sister Lasya’s sudden death, Kajal vows to do whatever it takes to bring her back. No cost is too great, even if it means preventing Lasya’s soul from joining the cycle of reincarnation. But as Kajal prepares for the resurrection, her sister’s trapped soul warps into a bhuta—a violent, wraith-like spirit hell-bent on murdering those who wronged it in life. With each kill, the bhuta becomes stronger and fiercer, and Kajal’s chances of resurrecting Lasya with her soul intact grow slimmer. Blamed for Lasya’s rampage and condemned as a witch, Kajal is locked away with… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Death & resurrection of a sister (theme)
  • Death of parents
  • Murder, knife violence & torture
  • War themes

When We Had Forever by Shaylin Gandhi

Six months after her husband died in a car crash, Mina Drake is still mired in a haze of grief. Reminders of her years with Michael are everywhere, but beneath her heartache lies an even more painful emotion. It’s a guilty suspicion she can hardly admit to anyone, even herself—that her marriage was over long before Michael’s accident. They were good together once, she’s sure of it, sharing a connection so deep that Mina can’t understand how it unraveled. That is, until a chance discovery in her husband’s office—and the reappearance of Michael’s estranged… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcoholism recovery
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a husband in a car accident recounted

When Haru Was Here by Dustin Thao

After the death of his best friend, Eric Ly creates imaginary scenarios in his head to deal with his grief. Until one of them becomes real when a boy he met last summer in Japan finds his way back into his life. When he least expects it, Haru Tanaka walks into the coffee shop and sits down next to him. The only thing is, nobody else can see him. In a magical turn of events, Eric suddenly has someone to connect with, making him feel less alone in the world. But as they spend more and more time together, he begins to question what is real. When he starts losing control of the very thing that is holding him together, Eric must finally confront his reality. Even if it means losing Haru forever.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Sexual harassment
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction (theme)
  • Death of a friend

Under Loch and Key by Lana Ferguson

Keyanna “Key” MacKay is used to secrets. Raised by a single father who never divulged his past, it’s only after his death that she finds herself thrust into the world he’d always refused to speak of. With just a childhood bedtime story about a monster that saved her father’s life and the name of her estranged grandmother to go off of, Key has no idea what she’ll find in Scotland. But repeating her father’s mistakes and being rescued by a gorgeous, angry Scotsman—who thinks she’s an idiot—is definitely the last thing she expects… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Parent with Alzheimer’s Disease
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Imprisonment recounted (secondary character)
  • Physical assault with a knife
  • Kidnapping

Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret by Alexander C. Eberhart

My name’s Ernest Cunningham. I used to be a fan of reading Golden Age murder mysteries, until I found myself with a haphazard career getting stuck in the middle of real-life ones. I’d hoped, this Christmas, that any self-respecting murderer would kick their feet up and take it easy over the holidays. I was wrong. So here I am, backstage at the show of world-famous magician Rylan Blaze, whose benefactor has just been murdered. My suspects are all professional tricksters: masters of the art of misdirection. My clues are even… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Substance addiction mentioned
  • Gun violence