Category Archives: Romance

It Sounds Like This by Anna Meriano

Yasmín Treviño didn’t have much of a freshman year thanks to Hurricane Humphrey, but she’s ready to take sophomore year by storm. That means mastering the marching side of marching band—fast!—so she can outshine her BFF Sofia as top of the flute section, earn first chair, and impress both her future college admission boards and her comfortably unattainable drum major crush Gilberto Reyes. But Yasmín steps off on the wrong foot when she reports an anonymous gossip Instagram account harassing new band members and accidentally gets the entire… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misgendering
  • Sexism
  • Toxic friendship
  • Cyberbullying & online harassment

Miss Camper by Kat Fajardo

Sue is heading to Camp Willow with her friends for two whole weeks this summer! She’s looking forward to hiking, archery, and making some comics in the fresh air. She’s especially excited about LARPing (live-action roleplaying), and can’t wait for the freedom that comes with being away from home. But she won’t be far from her family’s watchful eye because her big sister, Carmen, is a camp counsellor and her little sister, Ester, will be a camper! All Sue wants is to spend quality time and make memories with her friends, but Ester won’t give her any space and Sue can’t… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a grandmother recounted

Miss Quinces by Kat Fajardo

Sue just wants to spend the summer reading and making comics at sleepaway camp with her friends, but instead she gets stuck going to Honduras to visit relatives with her parents and two sisters. They live way out in the country, which means no texting, no cable, and no Internet! The trip takes a turn for the worse when Sue’s mother announces that they’ll be having a surprise quinceañera for Sue, which is the last thing she wants. She can’t imagine wearing a big, floofy, colorful dress! What is Sue going to do? And how will she survive all this “quality” time with her rambunctious family?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Panic attack (on-page)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a grandmother
  • Mentions of an uncle becoming paralysed after a horse-riding accident

Meet Me in the Middle by Alex Light

Eden had her best friend Katie—she didn’t need anyone else. But then there was Truman. Katie’s older brother, the artist. The recluse. The boy with the innocent smile and the dangerous eyes. Eden had never really known Truman—not until the night of Katie’s accident. That was the night they’d finally let each other into their orbits—only to have the sky come crashing down on them. With Katie in the hospital and Truman fleeing from his grief without a word, Eden is left alone to grapple with her own pain. But when Truman returns to the city, can Eden let him back into her life knowing that their first kiss is what tore their world apart?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Secondary character in a coma after a hit-and-run, drunk-driving car accident

Lock & West by Alexander C. Eberhart

Lock is awkward. He can’t make eye contact, counts when he’s nervous and has to remind himself several times a day how ‘normal’ teens behave. Homeschooled most of his life, he’s resigned himself to a friendless existence at his new Atlanta high school. Until he meets West. List Of Reasons Why My Life Is A Mess: How Much Time Do You Have? West has everything. Looks. Talent. Money. And secrets… so many secrets. Beneath the surface of West’s perfect existence is a pain he’s buried so deep a million therapists couldn’t unearth it and he’s determined to keep it that way. He’s an… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Attempted rape & sexual assault
  • Child abuse
  • Anxiety
  • Eating disorder & purging
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Attempted suicide

Scandal of the Summer by Alexandra Vasti

Eccentric heiress Lady Ruby Ballimore has had enough of the Marriage Mart. After offending yet another Very Important Marquess―and imperiling her father’s diplomatic career―Ruby flees London for the holiday house of a glamorous (and better yet, absent) princess. Armed with a forged invitation and accompanied by her like-minded friends, Ruby arrives at the Cornwall estate expecting a summer of blissful freedom. Instead, she discovers a derelict mansion and the most suspiciously charming man she’s ever met. Former privateer and current con artist Captain Malcolm Archer… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Attempted murder & kidnapping
  • Financial difficulties

Ladies in Hating by Alexandra Vasti

Celebrated authoress Lady Georgiana Cleeve has achieved fame and fortune. Unfortunately, she’s also acquired an enemy: the enigmatic Lady Darling, whose spine-tingling plots appear to be pulled straight from Georgiana’s own manuscripts. What’s a stubborn, steely writer to do? Unmask her rival, of course. But unmasking doesn’t go according to plan—because Lady Darling is actually Cat Lacey, the butler’s daughter and object of Georgiana’s very secret, very embarrassing teenage infatuation. Cat Lacey has spent a decade clawing her family our of poverty. The last… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical homophobia & classism
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Domestic violence recounted
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Financial difficulties & food insecurity discussed

Next Time Will Be Our Turn by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Izzy Chen is dreading her family’s annual Chinese New Year celebration, where they all come together at a Michelin-starred restaurant to flaunt their status and successes in hopes to one up each other. So when her seventy-three-year-old glamorous and formidable grandmother walks in with a stunning woman on her arm and kisses her in front of everyone, it shakes Izzy to her core. She’d always considered herself the black sheep of the family for harboring similar feelings to the ones her Nainai just displayed. Seeing herself in her teenage granddaughter’s struggles with… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & coming out themes
  • Domestic abuse
  • Death of a grandfather recounted
  • Car accident mentioned

The Duke by Anna Cowan

Kate, Duke of Howard, is known throughout Europe as a merciless autocrat not to be crossed. Consumed by a bitter rivalry, she avoids society and has vowed never to trap a woman into marriage with a monster like herself. The beautiful, ambitious courtesan Celine Genet once threw herself on the mercy of the visiting Duke of Howard. She was desperate to escape the guillotine. But after a night of searing passion, the duke left her to the ravages of Revolutionary Paris and didn’t look back. Now Celine is in London and in possession of a dangerous letter that proves the Duke… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misgendering & sex worker-shaming
  • Sexual assault (unwanted kiss)
  • Nightmare
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of relatives in a fire
  • Death of an ex-partner in the French Revolution
  • Physical assault
  • Blackmail

Sorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni

When Nar’s non-Armenian boyfriend gets down on one knee and proposes to her in front of a room full of drunk San Francisco tech boys, she realizes it’s time to find someone who shares her idea of romance. Enter her mother: armed with plenty of mom-guilt and a spreadsheet of Facebook-stalked Armenian men, she convinces Nar to attend Explore Armenia, a month-long series of events in the city. But it’s not the mom-approved playboy doctor or wealthy engineer who catches her eye—it’s Erebuni, a woman as equally immersed in the witchy arts as she is in… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & biphobia and coming out themes
  • Alcoholism
  • Death of a parent in a car accident recounted