Category Archives: Entries

The Last Mapmaker by Christina Soontornvat

The Last Mapmaker by Christina Soontornvat

As assistant to Mangkon’s most celebrated mapmaker, twelve-year-old Sai plays the part of a well-bred young lady with a glittering future. In reality, her father is a conman—and in a kingdom where the status of one’s ancestors dictates their social position, the truth could ruin her. Sai seizes the chance to join an expedition to chart the southern seas, but she isn’t the only one aboard with secrets. When Sai learns that the ship might be heading for the fabled Sunderlands—a land of dragons, dangers, and riches beyond imagining—she must weigh the cost of her dreams.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Parent with alcohol abuse issues, implied
  • Blood & injury depiction including a broken leg and scars
  • Physical assault
  • Whipping
  • Animal injury
  • Whaling

The Tryout by Christina Soontornvat and Joanna Cacao

The Tryout by Christina Soontornvat and illustrated by Joanna Cacao

When cheerleading tryouts are announced, Christina and her best friend, Megan, literally jump at the chance to join the squad. As two of the only kids of color in the school, they have always yearned to fit in-and the middle school cheerleaders are popular and accepted by everyone. But will the girls survive the terrifying tryouts, with their whole grade watching? And will their friendship withstand the pressures of competition?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Bullying

Legends of Lotus Island by Christina Soontornvat

Legends of Lotus Island by Christina Soontornvat

Young Plum is shocked to discover that she’s been accepted to the Guardian Academy on Lotus Island, an elite school where kids learn how to transform into Guardians, magical creatures who are sworn to protect the natural world. The Guardian masters teach Plum and her friends how to communicate with animals and how to use meditation to strengthen their minds and bodies. All the kids also learn to fight, so they can protect the defenseless if needed. To her dismay, Plum struggles at school. While her classmates begin to transform into amazing creatures, Plum can’t even seem to magic up a single feather! If she…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Death of parents in boating accident recounted

Flawless by Elsie Silver

Flawless by Elsie Silver

The rules were simple. Keep my hands off his daughter and stay out of trouble. But now I’m stuck with her. There’s only one bed. And well, rules are made to be broken. I’m the face of professional bull riding—the golden boy. Or at least I was, until it all blew up in my face. Now my agent says I have to clean up my image, so I’m stuck with his ball-busting daughter for the rest of the season as my “full-time supervision.” But I don’t need a goddamn babysitter, especially one with skin-tight jeans, a sexy smirk, and a mouth she can’t stop running. A mouth I can’t stop thinking… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Parental infidelity recounted
  • Toxic relationship & grooming*
  • Child abuse
  • Divorce
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Congenital heart defect recovery including heart surgery mentioned
  • Heart attack of a parent
  • A bull-riding accident resulting in broken ribs and a severe concussion
  • Dieting & food shaming mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother in childbirth recounted
  • Stalking*

*Context : The heroine was in a secret relationship with her surgeon, at age eighteen, for two years until he became engaged to her sister. There were elements of grooming and manipulation that advance to stalkerish behaviour in the current plotline. The protagonist is also her love interest’s sports agent

The Bosun by Harlow Layne

The Bosun by Harlow Layne

Fresh off her divorce, Stella needed to get far away from her lying ex-husband, the pitying looks and hometown gossip. With the help of her best friend, they embark on an epic girl’s trip. Let the “Get Stella’s groove back,” plan begin. Breathtaking waters of Spain, check. Chartered yacht, check. Steamy ex-Marine, check. One forbidden night under the stars leaves Stella wanting what she shouldn’t… The Bosun.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Cheating recounted
  • Unplanned pregnancy
  • Death of a friend
  • Fire

Heat Stroke by Tessa Bailey

Heat Stroke by Tessa Bailey

They can’t be together. They won’t stay apart. Marcus “Diesel” O’Shaughnessy is a brash, oversized CrossFit enthusiast with a naked lady tattooed on his rippling forearm. Jamie Prince is a private school teacher with an extremely low tolerance for bull. The two men have zero in common. Well, except for three things. They’re both moonlighting as lifeguards for the summer. No matter how hard they try, they cannot stay away from each other. And both of them have secrets they’re determined to keep. But what happens in the shadows of the Long Beach boardwalk can only… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Hate crime*
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Parent with alcoholism recounted
  • Physical assault
  • Attempted drowning recounted

* Context : An ex-lover beat the protagonist up and attempted to drown Jamie.

Together We Caught Fire by Eva V. Gibson

Together We Caught Fire by Eva V. Gibson

Lane Jamison’s life is turned upside down the week before her senior year when her father introduces her to his new fiancée: mother of Grey McIntyre, Lane’s secret, longtime crush. Now with Grey living in Lane’s house, there’s only a thin wall separating their rooms, making it harder and harder to deny their growing mutual attraction—an attraction made all the more forbidden by Grey’s long-term girlfriend Sadie Hall, who also happens to be Lane’s friend. Torn between her feelings for Grey and her friendship with Sadie—not to mention her desire to keep the peace at home—Lane befriends Sadie’s older brother, Connor… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Slut-shaming
  • Religious persecution
  • Child abuse
  • Suicide
  • Self-harm
  • Recreational drug use
  • Overdose
  • Homelessness

Real Dirty by Meghan March

Real Dirty by Meghan March

I have everything a guy could want—a new single burning up the charts, more money than a man could spend, and a woman I’m planning to marry. Until she doesn’t show up for my proposal. The life I thought was so perfect, isn’t. The guy who thought he had everything, doesn’t. I’ve got my heart on lockdown, but life sends me straight into the path of a mouthy bartender who puts me in my place. I thought I was done with love, but maybe I’m just getting started.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Cheating mentioned
  • Parent with alcoholism recounted
  • Murder of a parent

Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar

Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar

If the night sky holds many secrets, it holds Sheetal Mistry’s secret the closest. A secret that explains why her hair is the silver of starlight, or why some nights the stars call Sheetal by name. Stars like her mother, who returned to her place in the constellation Pushya years ago. Since that day, Sheetal has been forced to hide. But as her seventeenth birthday draws near, the pull from the sky is growing stronger. So strong that Sheetal loses control, and a flare of starfire burns her human father—an injury only a full star’s blood can heal. Sheetal has no choice but to answer the… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Panic attacks
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Hospitalisation
  • Kidnaping & Captivity
  • Torture

The Flipside of Perfect by Liz Reinhardt

The Flipside of Perfect by Liz Reinhardt

What happens when her two worlds collide? AJ is a buttoned-up, responsible student attending a high-achieving high school in Michigan. She lives with her mother, stepfather, and two younger half sisters. Della spends every summer with her father in Florida. A free-spirited wild child, she spends as much time as possible on the beach with her friends and older siblings. But there’s a catch: AJ and Della are the same person. Adelaide Beloise Jepsen to be exact, and she does everything she can to keep her school and summer lives separate. When her middle sister… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexual harassment
  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Alcoholism
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Unplanned pregnancy