Category Archives: Contemporary

Bad Boy by Elliot Wake 

Bad Boy by Elliot Wake

Vlog star Renard Grant has nothing to prove: he’s got a pretty face, chiselled body, and two million adoring video subscribers. Plus the scars on his chest and a prescription for testosterone. Because Ren is transgender: assigned female at birth, living now as male. He films his transition and shares it bravely with the world; his fans love his honesty and positivity. But Ren has been living a double life.

Off-camera, he’s Cane, the muscle-bound enforcer for social justice vigilante group Black Iris. As Cane, he lets his dark side loose. Hurts those who prey on the disempowered. Indulges in the ugly side of masculinity. And his new partner, Tamsin Baylor, is a girl as rough and relentless as him. Together, they terrorize the trolls into silence… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Transmisia
  • Rape
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Doxxing

This is How We Change the Ending by Vikki Wakefield

This is How We Change the Ending by Vikki Wakefield

Sixteen-year-old Nate McKee is doing his best to be invisible. He’s worried about a lot of things—how his dad treats Nance and his twin half-brothers; the hydro crop in his bedroom; his reckless friend, Merrick.

Nate hangs out at the local youth centre and fills his notebooks with things he can’t say. But when some of his pages are stolen, and his words are graffitied at the centre, Nate realises he has allies. He might be able to make a difference, change his life, and claim his future. Or can he?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Domestic abuse
  • Child abuse

Friday Brown by Vikki Wakefield

Friday Brown by Vikki Wakefield

Friday, 17, flees memories of her mother, granddad, and the family curse. She joins Silence in a street gang led by beautiful charismatic Arden, and escapes to a ghost town in the outback. In Murungal Creek, the town of never leaving, Friday faces the ghosts of her past. Sometimes you have to stay to finish what you started, and before you can find out who you are, you have to become someone you never meant to be.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Death of a mother

Ballad for a Mad Girl by Vikki Wakefield

Ballad for a Mad Girl by Vikki Wakefield

Everyone knows seventeen-year-old Grace Foley is a bit mad. She’s a prankster and a risk-taker, and she’s not afraid of anything—except losing. As part of the long-running feud between two local schools in Swanston, Grace accepts a challenge to walk the pipe. That night she experiences something she can’t explain. The funny girl isn’t laughing anymore. She’s haunted by voices and visions—but nobody believes a girl who cries wolf.

As she’s drawn deeper into a twenty-year-old mystery surrounding missing girl Hannah Holt, the thin veil between this world and the next begins to slip. She can no longer tell what’s real or imagined—all she knows is the ghosts of Swanston… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Death of a parent recounted

Lost It by Kristen Tracy

Lost It by Kristen Tracy

Tess Whistle is a high school junior with ridiculous problems. Her best friend is plotting the annihilation of a neighbourhood poodle. Her parents are newly-born-again Christians who just moved to a survivalist Outward Bound–type camp in Utah. And Tess is about to lose her virginity—under a canoe—to her serious boyfriend, Ben Easter.

Luckily, none of these dramatic turns spells catastrophe. Because Tess Whistle is a high school junior who is about to discover that, ridiculous as her life may seem, she is finding out exactly who it is she wants to be.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Bombing
  • Car accident
  • Animal death

Echo by A Zavarelli 

Echo by A. Zavarelli

How far would you go to save someone you love? Would you give up your body? I did and it cost me everything. He says he owns me. And it’s true. I’ve signed over complete control of my life for six months to a man I don’t know. Five years he’s been planning this. They say revenge is a dish best served cold. But my blackmailer serves it up white-hot.

But he also scares me. He holds the fate of my brother’s life in his hands. A life behind bars for crimes I know he didn’t commit. My blackmailer can’t give up his revenge on my family, and I can’t be with him if he doesn’t. Do I really have a choice?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Blackmail
  • Incarceration of a sibling

Stutter by A Zavarelli 

Stutter by A. Zavarelli

I’m trapped in a black hole of darkness I can’t seem to crawl out of. My twin and my lover want each other dead and I’m pregnant with a baby I don’t know how to protect. Ryland says he will do anything to get me back, but how do you trust the man who almost killed you? When every option before you comes at a cost, how do you choose the right path?

People say that history has a way of repeating itself. Six years after the fact, my father’s actions are still haunting me. When I learn about an old debt yet to be settled, everything changes. It might not matter who I trust anymore when my every breath brings me one step closer to the end of this twisted game. 

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Kidnapping
  • Pregnancy

Pretty When She Cries by A Zavarelli 

Pretty When She Cries by A. Zavarelli

Your first kiss is supposed to be sweet. Ours was baptized in fire. I was the new girl trying to find her place. Landon was the brooding neighbour I tutored over the summer. I didn’t know he was a legend at Black Mountain Academy. I didn’t know they worshipped him like a religion. But I fell for him before I knew those things. To me, he was just the tortured soul who drew me in like a magnet. And then he did something so unspeakable, so unforgivable, it shattered me. I ran away then because I was weak, but I’ve shed my tears. He stole my heart and my dignity, and I’m here to take it back. The only problem is… he’s not giving it up without a fight.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Drugging
  • Drug abuse
  • Alcohol abuse

Thief by A Zavarelli 

Thief by A. Zavarelli

I live by a code that can’t be bent or broken. It is my duty to my family to stay innocent and pure. To marry an Italian man. The stars are already aligned. But Nikolai Kozlov re-writes my destiny with five simple words: You belong to me now. He’s Russian mafiya. A thief. A skilled liar with no moral boundaries. He is everything I have been taught to hate. A man who stands for nothing. A man who takes what he wants without a second thought. And what he wanted was me. He thinks he controls my fate, but what he doesn’t know is, sometimes it’s the good girls you have… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Human trafficking mentioned
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Dubious consent scenarios
  • Organised crime (mafia)
  • Kidnapping & captivity

Saint by A Zavarelli 

Saint by A. Zavarelli

When going to war, there are three very simple rules one must abide by: know thy enemy, be prepared to sacrifice, and always wear good shoes. After all, revenge is a dish best served in stilettos. I’ve got an eye for it, and nothing’s going to stand in my way. Not even Rory ‘The Saint’ Brodrick.
He’s a fool if he thinks he can change me. By the time I’m through with him, I’ll make his mafia look like child’s play.

I’m a fighter. A hustler. A mobster. I’ve seen a few things in my day. But I’ve never encountered anything like her. She’s a beauty with a beast of a heart. The poison apple I just can’t resist. And in her trail, she leaves a wake of men crawling on their knees. What she doesn’t know is that I like my women wild. It only makes it that much more fun to tame them.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape