We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza

We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza

Jen and Riley have been best friends since kindergarten. As adults, they remain as close as sisters, though their lives have taken different directions. Jen married young, and after years of trying, is finally pregnant. Riley pursued her childhood dream of becoming a television journalist and is poised to become one of the first Black female anchors of the top news channel in their hometown of Philadelphia. But the deep bond they share is severely tested when Jen’s husband, a city police officer, is involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager. Six month… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Pregnancy & childbirth
  • Infertility & IVF treatment
  • Miscarriage
  • Police brutality including the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager

For Lamb by Lesa Cline-Ransome

For Lamb by Lesa Cline-Ransome

For Lamb follows a family striving to better their lives in the late 1930s Jackson, Mississippi. Lamb’s mother is a hard-working, creative seamstress who cannot reveal she is a lesbian. Lamb’s brother has a brilliant mind and has even earned a college scholarship for a black college up north– if only he could curb his impulsiveness and rebellious nature. Lamb herself is a quiet and studious girl. She is also naive. As she tentatively accepts the friendly overtures of a white girl who loans her a book she loves, she sets off a calamitous series of events that pulls in … Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Lynching

Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese

Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese

Isobel Gamble is a young seamstress carrying generations of secrets when she sets sail from Scotland in the early 1800s with her husband, Edward. An apothecary who has fallen under the spell of opium, his pile of debts have forced them to flee Edinburgh for a fresh start in the New World. But only days after they’ve arrived in Salem, Edward abruptly joins a departing ship as a medic––leaving Isobel penniless and alone in a strange country, forced to make her way by any means possible. When she meets a young Nathaniel Hawthorne, the two are instantly drawn to… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Human trafficking
  • Slavery
  • Misogyny
  • Domestic violence
  • Substance addiction
  • Self-harm including self-flagellation
  • Blood depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Lynching
  • Kidnapping
  • Torture

Marriage for One by Ella Maise

Marriage for One by Ella Maise

Jack and I, we did everything backward. The day he lured me into his office-which was also the first day we met-he proposed. You’d think a guy who looked like him-a bit cold maybe, but still striking and very unattainable would only ask the love of his life to marry him, right? You’d think he must be madly in love. Nope. It was me he asked. A complete stranger who had never even heard of him. A stranger who had been dumped by her fiancé only weeks before. You’d think I’d laugh in his face, call him insane-and a few other names-then walk away as quickly as possible. Well, did all… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Cheating recounted
  • Panic attack
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Medical treatment & procedures including surgery
  • Death of a relative in a car accident recounted

The Darkest Temptation by Danielle Lori

The Darkest Temptation by Danielle Lori

A fortune teller once told Mila she’d find a man who would take her breath away. She refrained from telling her it would be literally while Mila ran for her life. Having always done what is expected of her, Mila dresses the part, only dates college boys with exemplary backgrounds, and doesn’t ask questions. Not about her papa’s absences or his refusal to let her set foot in her birthplace—Russia. Suffocated by the rules and unanswered questions, Mila does what she’s always wanted to. She boards a plane to Moscow… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Human trafficking
  • Slut-shaming
  • Attempted rape & sexual assault
  • Sex work
  • Disordered food thoughts & self-inflicted food deprivation
  • Drug use
  • Kidnapping & captivity

The Good Lie by AR Torre

The Good Lie by A.R. Torre

Cat Winthorpe has worked hard to get what she has: a gorgeous home; social standing; and William, her successful, handsome husband. Then a friendly new couple moves into the estate next door. While cautious, a good neighbour like Cat greets them with open arms and warm hospitality. Neena Ryder isn’t a fellow lady of leisure. A life coach with off-the-rack dresses, personal issues, and a husband who hasn’t delivered, she’s anxious to move up in the world. This beautiful new town is a step in the right direction. It’s also making Neena aware of what she doesn’t have. Namely, William. When Neena’s infatuation escalates into… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Paranoid schizophrenia discussed
  • Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
  • Murder

Every Last Secret by AR Torre

Every Last Secret by A.R. Torre

Cat Winthorpe has worked hard to get what she has: a gorgeous home; social standing; and William, her successful, handsome husband. Then a friendly new couple moves into the estate next door. While cautious, a good neighbour like Cat greets them with open arms and warm hospitality. Neena Ryder isn’t a fellow lady of leisure. A life coach with off-the-rack dresses, personal issues, and a husband who hasn’t delivered, she’s anxious to move up in the world. This beautiful new town is a step in the right direction. It’s also making Neena aware of what she doesn’t have. Namely, William. When Neena’s infatuation escalates into… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Cheating
  • Abortion

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

As Princesses of Crete and daughters of the fearsome King Minos, Ariadne and her sister Phaedra grow up hearing the hoofbeats and bellows of the Minotaur echo from the Labyrinth beneath the palace. The Minotaur – Minos’s greatest shame and Ariadne’s brother – demands blood every year When Theseus, Prince of Athens, arrives in Crete as a sacrifice to the beast, Ariadne falls in love with him. But helping Theseus kill the monster means betraying her family and country, and Ariadne knows only too well that in a world ruled by mercurial gods – drawing their attention…. Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Rape & sexual assault
  • Incest (mother-stepson)
  • Suicide
  • Pregnancy
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child & parent
  • Bestiality
  • Animal death & cruelty

A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny

A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny

It is the height of summer, and Armand and Reine-Marie Gamache are celebrating their wedding anniversary at Manoir Bellechasse, an isolated, luxurious inn not far from the village of Three Pines. But they’re not alone. The Finney family—rich, cultured, and respectable—has also arrived for a celebration of their own. The beautiful Manoir Bellechasse might be surrounded by nature, but there is something unnatural looming. As the heat rises and the humidity closes in, some surprising guests turn up at the family reunion, and a terrible summer storm leaves behind a dead body. It is up to Chief Inspector Gamache to unearth secrets long buried… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Eating disorder
  • Murder

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice’s life isn’t terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn’t exactly the one she expected. She’s happy with her apartment, her romantic status, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday. But it isn’t just her adolescent body that shocks her, it’s her dad: the vital, 40-something version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Miscarriage mentioned
  • Abortion mentioned
  • Parent with terminal cancer
  • Death of a parent