Category Archives: Romance

How to Walk Away by Katherine Center 

How to Walk Away by Katherine Center

Margaret Jacobsen has a bright future ahead of her: a fiancé she adores, her dream job, and the promise of a picture-perfect life just around the corner. Then, suddenly, on what should have been one of the happiest days of her life, everything she worked for is taken away in one tumultuous moment.

In the hospital and forced to face the possibility that nothing will ever be the same again, Margaret must figure out how to move forward on her own terms while facing long-held family secrets, devastating heartbreak, and the idea that love might find her in the last place she would ever expect.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Cheating
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Gun violence mentioned
  • Plane crash, on-page

Dirty Headlines by LJ Shen

Dirty Headlines by L.J. Shen

I could have impressed him, if not for last month’s unforgettable one-night stand. I left it with more than orgasms and a pleasant memory–namely, his wallet. Now he’s staring me down like I’m the dirt under his Italian loafers, and I’m supposed to take it. But the thing about being Judith “Jude” Humphry is I have nothing to lose. Brooklyn girl. Infamously quirky. Heir to a stack of medical bills and a tattered couch. When he looks at me from across the room, I see the glint in his eyes, and that makes us rivals. He knows it. So do I. Every day in the newsroom is a battle. Every night in his bed, war. But it’s my heart at stake, and I fear I’ll be raising the white flag. 

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Cheating mentioned
  • Boss-employee relationship
  • Parent with cancer (on-page)

Angry God by LJ Shen

Angry God by L.J. Shen

Vaughn Spencer. They call him an angry god. To me, he is nothing but a heartless prince. His parents rule this town. All I own is a grudge against him for that time he almost killed me. Between breaking hearts, noses and rules, Vaughn also finds the time to bully little ole’ me. I fight back, never expecting him to chase me across the ocean after we graduate high school. But here he is, living with me in a dark, looming castle on the outskirts of London. A fellow intern. A prodigal sculptor. A bloody genius. They say this place is haunted, and it is. Carlisle Castle hides two of our most awful secrets. Vaughn thinks he can kill the ghosts of his past, but what he doesn’t know? It’s my heart he’s slaying.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Paedophilia
  • Sexual assault
  • Suicide & self-harm mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood depiction
  • Murder
  • Bullying

Scandalous by LJ Shen

Scandalous by L.J. Shen

They call him The Mute for a reason. Hard, cold and calculated, he rarely speaks. When he does, it’s with disdain. When he does, my stomach flips and my world tilts on its axis. He is thirty-three. I am eighteen. He’s a single dad and my father’s business partner. I’m just a kid to him and his enemy’s daughter. He’s emotionally unavailable. And I am…feeling things I shouldn’t feel for him. Trent Rexroth is going to break my heart. The writing isn’t just on the wall, it’s inked on my soul. And yet, I can’t stay away. A scandal is the last thing my family needs. But a scandal is what we’re going to give them. And oh, what beautiful chaos it will be.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Physical parental abuse (on-page)
  • Parent with depression & a substance addiction
  • Drug use (on- & off-page)
  • Blackmail

Broken Knight by LJ Shen

Broken Knight by L.J. Shen

Not all love stories are written the same way. Ours had torn chapters, missing paragraphs, and a bittersweet ending. Luna Rexroth is everyone’s favourite wallflower. Underneath the meek, tomboy exterior everyone loves (yet pities) is a girl who knows exactly what, and who, she wants—namely, the boy from the treehouse who taught her how to curse in sign language. Who taught her how to laugh, to live. To love. Knight Cole is everyone’s favourite football hero. This daredevil hell-raiser could knock you up with his gaze alone, but he only has eyes for the girl across the street… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Cheating
  • Child abandonment recounted
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Drug use & abuse
  • Pregnancy
  • Selective mutism
  • Death of a parent from cystic fibrosis (on-page)

Ruckus by LJ Shen

Ruckus by L.J. Shen

They say that life is a beautiful lie and death a painful truth. They’re right. No one has ever made me feel more alive than the guy who serves as a constant reminder that my clock is ticking. He is my forbidden, shiny apple. The striking fallacy to my blunt, raw, truth. He is also my sister’s ex-boyfriend. One thing you should know before you judge me; I saw him first. I craved him first. I loved him first. Eleven years later, he waltzes into my life, demanding a second chance. Dean Cole wants to be my bronze horseman. But my clock is ticking. See, I’m not like the rest. I have an illness. Sometimes I conquer it. Sometimes it conquers me. My white knight has finally arrived. Hopefully, he isn’t too late.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Abandonment recounted
  • Panic attack
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Drug abuse
  • Infertility (on-page)
  • Cystic fibrosis (on-page)
  • Blackmail (on-page)

Sparrow by LJ Shen

Sparrow by L.J. Shen

Troy Brennan. Every southie in Boston knows that name. The son of a dead mobster. The heartthrob with steel-blue eyes. “The Fixer” who can make or break you in this city. Oh, and my new husband. Sparrow Raynes. That’s me. No one seemed to remember my name up until he barged into my life. But then he kidnapped me. And killed every chance I had to runaway from the place where we grew up. Put simply, Troy Brennan clipped my wings. I have dreams, big ones, but I doubt he’d ever let me chase them. I have no idea why he’d decided to take me as his wife. But I do know this: pissing off this man will not do me any good. At all.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Paedophilia mentioned
  • Infidelity (on-page)
  • Kidnapping & captivity

Pretty Reckless by LJ Shen

Pretty Reckless by L.J. Shen

I’d had four years to stew on what Daria Followhill did to me, and now my heart was completely iced. I took her first kiss. She took the only thing I loved. I was poor. She was rich. The good thing about circumstances? They can change. Fast. Now, I’m her parents’ latest shiny project. Her housemate. Her tormentor. The captain of the rival football team she hates so much. Yeah, baby girl, say it—I’m your foster brother. There’s a price to pay for ruining the only good thing in my life, and she’s about to shell out some serious tears. Daria thinks she is the queen. I’m about to prove to her that she’s nothing but a spoiled princess.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slur
  • Fatphobia & body-shaming
  • Grey-area cheating
  • Statutory rape recounted
  • Principal-student relationship
  • Domestic violence
  • Substance addiction
  • Alcohol consumption & overdose mentioned

Vicious by LJ Shen

Vicious by L.J. Shen

They say love and hate are the same feelings experienced under different circumstances, and it’s true. The man who comes to me in my dreams also haunts me in my nightmares. He is a brilliant lawyer. A skilled criminal. A bully. A saviour. Ten years ago, he made me run away from the small town where we lived. Now, he came for me, and he isn’t leaving until he takes me with him. She is a starving artist. Ten years ago, she barged into my life unannounced and turned everything upside down. She paid the price. Emilia LeBlanc is completely off-limits, my best friend’s… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse recounted
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Chronic illness
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Bullying

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

This brutal, shattering glimpse of the fate of millions of Russians under Stalin shook Russia and shocked the world when it first appeared. Discover the importance of a piece of bread or an extra bowl of soup, the incredible luxury of a book, the ingenious possibilities of a nail, a piece of string or a single match in a world where survival is all. Here safety, warmth and food are the first objectives. Reading it, you enter a world of incarceration, brutality, hard manual labour and freezing cold – and participate in the struggle of men to survive both the terrible rigours of nature and the inhumanity of the system that defines their conditions of life.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Wrongful imprisonment
  • Gulag