Category Archives: 2025 Releases

We Could Be Rats by Emily R. Austin

Sigrid hates working at the Dollar Pal but having always resisted the idea of growing up into the trappings of adulthood, she did not graduate high school, preferring to roam the streets of her small town with her best friend Greta, the only person in the world who ever understood her. Her older sister Margit is baffled and frustrated by Sigrid’s inability to conform to the expectations of polite society. But Sigrid’s detachment veils a deeper turmoil and sensitivity. She’s haunted by the pains of her past—from pretending her parents were swamp monsters when they shook the… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Depression
  • Substance addiction & drug abuse
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation

The Family Inside by Katie Garner

It takes a special family to turn a home into a nightmare. Since her husband’s unsolved murder three years ago, Iris Blodgett’s life has unraveled. Awash in grief and buried in debt, she can’t pay her mortgage—and now that she’s lost her job, she has no idea how she’ll provide for her unruly teenage daughter, Ellory. Facing eviction, Iris turns to her new beau, prominent architect Hugh Smoll, for a shoulder to cry on. But the seemingly perfect Hugh offers her something more in an invitation to move into his mother’s centuries-old mansion while he renovates the property. It seems like… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Heart disease & heart attack mentioned
  • Childbirth
  • Death of a husband

We Are Watching by Alison Gaylin

Meg Russo was behind the wheel when it happened. She and her husband Justin were driving their daughter Lily to Ithaca College, the family celebrating the eighteen-year-old music prodigy’s future. Then a car sidled up beside them, the young men inside it behaving erratically. The Russos’ car went off the road, and Justin didn’t survive the accident. Four months later, Meg works to distract herself from her grief, reopening her small local bookstore. But soon after returning to work, bizarre messages and visitors begin to arrive, with strangers threatening Meg and vandalizing the store. They are obsessed… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism
  • Death of a father
  • Knife violence
  • Fatal car accident
  • Kidnapping

Spiral by Bal Khabra

Elias Westbrook, a newly drafted hockey player for the Toronto Thunder, is facing the challenges of fame and media scrutiny. With a growing fan base and too many expectations on his shoulders, he’s struggling to make his first career goal. The tabloids are reporting on his every move, including which woman he was last seen with, but all he wants to do is escape the spotlight. Enter from stage left Sage Beaumont, an aspiring ballerina with dreams of joining the Aurora Ballet Theatre, but her lack of popularity online leaves her at a major disadvantage for securing the lead role. When Sage finds herself with the perfect… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Blackmail
  • Child abuse & abandonment recounted (off-page)
  • Fire

We Rip the World Apart by Charlene Carr

When 24-year-old Kareela discovers she’s pregnant with a child she isn’t sure she wants, her struggle to understand her place in the world as a person who is half-Black, half-white—yet feels neither—is amplified. Her mother, Evelyn, fled to Canada with her husband and their first-born child during the politically charged Jamaican exodus in the 1980s, only to realize they’d come to a place where Black men are viewed with suspicion—a constant and pernicious reality Evelyn watches her husband and son navigate daily. Years later, in the aftermath of her son’s murder by the police, Evelyn’s mother-in-law, Violet, moves…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Abortion discussed
  • Death of a child from gun violence

Deep End by Ali Hazelwood

Scarlett Vandermeer is swimming upstream. A Junior at Stanford and a student-athlete who specializes in platform diving, Scarlett prefers to keep her head down, concentrating on getting into med school and on recovering from the injury that almost ended her career. She has no time for relationships—at least, that’s what she tells herself. Swim captain, world champion, all-around aquatics golden boy, Lukas Blomqvist thrives on discipline. It’s how he wins gold medals and breaks records: complete focus, with every stroke. On the surface, Lukas and Scarlett have nothing… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental estrangement & abuse recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) & trauma
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent recounted

Wings of Starlight by Allison Saft

It’s been centuries since a warm-season fairy in Pixie Hollow has crossed into the Winter Woods, and while most fear the legends of monsters lurking in the frozen lands, Clarion, can’t help being intrigued by Winter’s stoic beauty. But under the watchful eyes of the current monarch and the court’s seasonal ministers, Clarion has little time to dwell on daydreams while the days to her coronation dwindle away. That is, until reports of a monster crossing from Winter into Spring make their way to the palace. Clarion sees defeating… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Blood & injury depiction)

Last Twilight in Paris by Pam Jenoff

London, 1953. Louise is still adjusting to her postwar role as a housewife when she discovers a necklace in a box at a secondhand shop. The box is marked with the name of a department store in Paris, and she is certain she has seen the necklace before when she worked with the Red Cross in Nazi-occupied Europe —and that it holds the key to the mysterious death of her friend Franny during the war. Following the trail of clues to Paris, Louise seeks help from her former boss Ian, with whom she shares a romantic history. The necklace leads them to discover the dark history of Lévitan—a once-glamorous department store that… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Chronic illness (protagonist)
  • Imprisonment
  • World War Two (theme)

A Killing Cold by Kate Alice Marshall

When Theodora Scott met Connor—wealthy, charming, and a member of the powerful Dalton family—she fell in love in an instant. Six months later, he’s brought her to Idlewood, his family’s isolated winter retreat, to win over his skeptical relatives. Theo has tried to ignore the threatening messages on her phone, but she can’t ignore the footprints in the snow outside the cabin window or the strange sense of familiarity she has about this place. Then, in a disused cabin, Theo finds something impossible: a photo of herself as a child. A photo taken at Idlewood. Theo has almost… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Infidelity
  • Self-harm
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drugging
  • Teen pregnancy & miscarriage mentioned
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Gun violence

End of August by Paige Dinneny

Fifteen-year-old Aurora Taylor’s single mother prefers to leave when things get hard. She’s spent years abandoning bad boyfriends and dead-end jobs, without so much as a glance in the rearview mirror. After fifteen years in the passenger seat, Aurora needs more than two hands to count the towns she’s lived in. She’s learned to live small—it’s easier to leave when you don’t need to say goodbye. So when her mother Laine shows up at school with the car loaded, Aurora assumes her latest fling has run its course. Instead, it’s her grandpa Jay’s death calling them back to the town Laine has spent fifteen years running from… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a grandfather (off-page)