Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean

Lady Calpurnia Hartwell has always followed the rules, rules that have left her unmarried—and more than a little unsatisfied. And so she’s vowed to break the rules and live the life of pleasure she’s been missing. But to dance every dance, to steal a midnight kiss—to do those things, Callie will need a willing partner. Someone who knows everything about rule-breaking. Someone like Gabriel St. John, the Marquess of Ralston—charming and devastatingly handsome, his wicked reputation matched only by his sinful smile. If she’s not careful, she’ll break the most important rule of all… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slut-shaming (period-typical)
  • Fatmisia & body-shaming
  • Parental abandonment discussed
  • Gun violence

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.

The Day of the Duchess by Sarah MacLean

Malcolm Bevingstoke, Duke of Haven, has lived the last three years in self-imposed solitude, paying the price for a mistake he can never reverse and a love he lost forever. The dukedom does not wait, however, and Haven requires an heir, which means he must find himself a wife by summer’s end. There is only one problem—he already has one. After years in exile, Seraphina, Duchess of Haven, returns to London with a single goal—to reclaim the life she left and find happiness, unencumbered by the man who broke her heart. Haven offers her a deal; Sera can have her freedom, just as soon as she finds her… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical slut-shaming
  • Infidelity recounted
  • Miscarriage, on-page
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of an infant recounted

Context: The male protagonist slept with another woman as ‘revenge’ when he found out his shunned wife was pregnant and hadn’t told him. It is implied the wife caught him with the other woman.

Bombshell by Sarah MacLean

After years of living as London’s brightest scandal, Lady Sesily Talbot has embraced the reputation and the freedom that comes with the title. No one looks twice when she lures a gentleman into the dark gardens beyond a Mayfair ballroom…and no one realizes those trysts are not what they seem. No one, that is, but Caleb Calhoun, who has spent years trying not to notice his best friend’s beautiful, brash, brilliant sister. If you ask him, he’s been a saint about it, considering the way she looks at him and the way she talks to him…and the way she’d felt in his arms during their one ill… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Slut shaming
  • Rape, implied
  • Domestic abuse, implied
  • Murder recounted
  • Gun violence

One Good Earl Deserves a Lover by Sarah MacLean

The brilliant, bespectacled daughter of a double marquess cares more for books than balls, for science than the season, and for laboratories than love. She’s looking forward to marrying her simple fiancé and living out her days quietly with her dogs and her scientific experiments. But before that, Pippa has two weeks to experience all the rest—fourteen days to research the exciting parts of life. It’s not much time, and to do it right she needs a guide familiar with London’s darker corners. She needs Cross, the clever, controlled partner in London’s most exclusive gaming hell, with a carefully crafted reputation for wickedness. But… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical sexism & ableist language
  • Sexual harassment
  • Gambling & mentions of gambling addiction
  • Death of a brother recounted
  • Blackmail

The Mermaid and the Fisherman by Johannes T Evans

A young man fleeing home has taken up residence in an old fishing cabin on the west coast of Scotland. He is observed, very closely, by a mermaid from beyond the maerl beds nearby.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transmisia mentioned
  • Misogyny mentioned
  • Dubious consent scenario

Context: Dubious consent due to the intoxicating effects of the merman’s secretions

My Life in the Fish Tank by Barbara Dee

When twelve-year-old Zinnia Manning’s older brother Gabriel is diagnosed with a mental illness, the family’s world is turned upside down. Mom and Dad want Zinny, her sixteen-year-old sister, Scarlett, and her eight-year-old brother, Aiden, to keep Gabriel’s condition “private” — and to Zinny that sounds the same as “secret.” Which means she can’t talk about it to her two best friends, who don’t understand why Zinny keeps pushing them away, turning everything into a joke. It also means she can’t talk about it during Lunch Club, a group run by the school guidance counselor. How did… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sibling with Bipolar Disorder

Fish Out of Water by Natalie Whipple

Mika Arlington was supposed to spend the summer after her junior year shadowing her marine biologist parents at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but when her estranged grandmother randomly shows up on the doorstep one day, those plans are derailed. Because Grandma Betty isn’t here to play nice—she is cranky, intolerant of Mika’s mixed-race-couple parents, and oh yeah she has Alzheimer’s and is out of money. While Mika’s family would rather not deal with Grandma Betty, they don’t have much choice. And despite Mika’s protests, she is roped into caring for a… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Homophobia
  • Grandparent with Alzheimer’s Disease

Context: The protagonist’s grandmother didn’t ‘approve’ of her parent’s mixed-race marriage. Her mother is Japanese and her father is white.

The Widowmaker by Hannah Morrissey

Ever since business mogul Clive Reynolds disappeared twenty years ago, the name “Reynolds” has become synonymous with “murder” and “mystery.” And now, lured by a cryptic note, down-on-her-luck photographer Morgan Mori returns home to Black Harbor and into the web of their family secrets and double lives. The same night she photographs the Reynolds holiday get-together, Morgan becomes witness to a homicide of a cop that triggers the discovery of a long-buried clue. This could finally be the thing to crack open the chilling cold case, and Investigator Ryan Hudson… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic abuse
  • Child abuse
  • Incest*
  • Rape of a minor*
  • Sexual assault*
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Police brutality
  • Fire

Context: The protagonist was raped by her uncle as a child. Her half-brother sexually assaults (and possibly rapes) her as well.