Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. By day, she’s an adjunct professor, toiling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of landing tenure. By other day, Elsie makes up for her non-existent paycheck by offering her services as a fake girlfriend, tapping into her expertly honed people-pleasing skills to embody whichever version of herself the client needs. Honestly, it’s a pretty sweet gig—until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and broody old… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Chronic illness (Type 1 Diabetes)
  • Death of a parent recounted

Glass Houses by Louise Penny

Glass Houses by Louise Penny

When a mysterious figure appears in Three Pines one cold November day, Armand Gamache and the rest of the villagers are at first curious. Then wary. Through rain and sleet, the figure stands unmoving, staring ahead. From the moment the creature’s shadow falls over the village, Gamache, now Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté du Quebec suspects it has deep roots and a dark purpose. Yet he does nothing. What can he do? Only watch and wait. And hope his mounting fears are not realized. But when the figure vanishes overnight and a body is discovered, it falls to… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Suicide
  • Drug abuse
  • Abortion
  • Murder
  • Gun violence

Rescue by Jennifer Nielsen

Rescue by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Six hundred and fifty-seven days ago, Meg Kenyon’s father left their home in France to fight for the Allies in World War II, and that was the last time Meg saw him. Recently, she heard he was being held prisoner by the Nazis, a terrible sentence from which Meg fears he’ll never return. All she has left of him are the codes he placed in a jar for her to decipher, an affectionate game the two of them shared. But the codes are running low, and soon there’ll be nothing left of Papa for Meg to hold on to at all. Suddenly, an impossible chance to save her father falls into Meg’s lap. After following… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism & Nazism
  • Blood depiction
  • Gun violence
  • Explosion
  • Avalanche
  • World War Two

A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny

A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny

When an intricate old map is found stuffed into the walls of the bistro in Three Pines, it at first seems no more than a curiosity. But the closer the villagers look, the stranger it becomes Given to Armand Gamache as a gift the first day of his new job, the map eventually leads him to shattering secrets. To an old friend and older adversary. It leads the former Chief of Homicide for the Sûreté du Québec to places even he is afraid to go. But must. And there he finds four young cadets in the Sûreté academy, and a dead professor. And, with the body, a copy of the old, odd map… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Drug abuse
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Gun violence

Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn

Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn

The shadows have risen, and the line is law. All Bree wanted was to uncover the truth behind her mother’s death. So she infiltrated the Legendborn Order, a secret society descended from King Arthur’s knights—only to discover her own ancestral power. Now, Bree has become someone new: A Medium. A Bloodcrafter. A Scion. But the ancient war between demons and the Order is rising to a deadly peak. And Nick, the Legendborn boy Bree fell in love with, has been kidnapped. Bree wants to fight, but the Regents who rule the Order won’t let her. To them… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Slavery recounted
  • Rape by enslaver recounted & mentioned, off-page
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Drugging
  • Drug use mentioned (sc)
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction
  • Coma mentioned (sc)
  • Medical experimentation
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Murder of a father mentioned
  • Death of a mother in a car accident recounted
  • Murder& attempted murder
  • Torture
  • Knife violence
  • Immolation
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus. A flying demon feeding on human energies. A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down. And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw. The Mage… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Slavery
  • Rape recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Hospitalisation
  • Emesis
  • Physical injuries
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother in a car accident
  • Loss of autonomy (possession, mind control & memory manipulation)

Obasan by Joy Kogawa

Obasan by Joy Kogawa

Obasan is the moving story of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War, told through the eyes of a child. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, five-year-old Naomi’s life is changed forever. Separated from her mother, she watches bewildered as she and her family become enemy aliens, persecuted and despised in their own land.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Paedophilia & child sexual abuse

Lucy Fights the Flames by Julie Gilbert

Lucy Fights the Flames by Julie Gilbert and illustrated by Alessia Trunfio

In 1911, fourteen-year-old Lucy Morelli lives with her parents, older brother, and several younger siblings in a crowded apartment in the Greenwich Village neighbourhood of New York City. Lucy dreams of going to college, but her Italian immigrant family relies heavily on her income from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory to survive. Lucy finds the factory work boring, but the working conditions are better than many other jobs. But when Lucy and her best friend, Rosie, head to work one Saturday in March, everything changes. Fire breaks out in the factory, and the doors… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a friend
  • Fire (theme)

If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha

If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha

Kyuri is a beautiful woman with a hard-won job at a “room salon,” an exclusive bar where she entertains businessmen while they drink. Though she prides herself on her cold, clear-eyed approach to life, an impulsive mistake with a client may come to threaten her livelihood. Her roommate, Miho, is a talented artist who grew up in an orphanage but won a scholarship to study art in New York. Returning to Korea after college, she finds herself in a precarious relationship with the super-wealthy heir to one of Korea’s biggest companies. Down the hall in their apartment building… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Cheating*
  • Parental abandonment
  • Body dysmorphia
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Alcoholism
  • Mutism
  • Pregnancy
  • Miscarriage
  • Cancer
  • Emesis
  • Surgery recounted & discussed
  • Murder of sex workers discussed
  • Physical assault, on- & off-page

*Context : Miho’s boyfriend is engaged to another woman and cheats on her with a sex worker.

Total Exposure by JA Huss

Total Exposure by J.A. Huss

Evangeline’s life is dark and lonely. She’ll do anything to change that. Anything. Even play a game with a stranger she’s never met. What starts out as “therapy” soon turns into a passionate anonymous love affair. Her blindfold is like a security blanket and his touch is what lights a fire inside her. I have no idea who he is, what he looks like, or why he agreed to play this game with me. But I don’t care. I don’t even care that I have to wear a blindfold before he’ll come into my room. I don’t care that he watches me sleep, and dress and wants to know all my deepest, darkest, saddest secrets… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child emotional neglect
  • Mental illness (scopophobia)
  • Stalking & voyeurism