Category Archives: Representation

First Comes Like by Alisha Rai

First Comes Like by Alisha Rai

Beauty expert and influencer Jia Ahmed has her eye on the prize: conquering the internet today, the entire makeup industry tomorrow, and finally, finally proving herself to her big opinionated family. She has little time for love, and even less time for the men in her private messages—until the day a certain international superstar slides into her DMs, and she falls hard and fast. There’s just one wrinkle: he has no idea who she is.

The son of a powerful Bollywood family, soap opera star Dev Dixit is used to drama, but a strange woman who accuses him of wooing her online, well, that’s a new one. As much as he’d like to focus on his Hollywood fresh start, he can’t get Jia out of his head. Especially once he starts to suspect who might have used his famous name to catfish her… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Panic attack
  • COVID-19 mentioned
  • Death of a sibling recounted
  • Catfishing

Girl Gone Viral by Alisha Rai

Girl Gone Viral by Alisha Rai

One minute, Katrina King’s enjoying an innocent conversation with a hot guy at a coffee shop; the next, a stranger has live-tweeted the entire episode with a romantic meet-cute spin and #CafeBae is the new hashtag-du-jour. The problem? Katrina craves a low-profile life, and going viral threatens the peaceful world she’s painstakingly built. Besides, #CafeBae isn’t the man she’s hungry for…

With the internet on the hunt for the identity of #CuteCafeGirl, Jas Singh, bodyguard, friend, and possessor of the most beautiful eyebrows Katrina’s ever seen, comes to the rescue and whisks her away to his family’s home. Alone in a remote setting with the object of her affections? It’s a recipe for romance. But after a long dating dry spell, Katrina isn’t sure she can trust her instincts when it comes to love—even if Jas’ every look says he wants to be more than just her bodyguard…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Sexual assault (groping) recounted
  • Emotional parental abuse
  • Anxiety
  • Panic attack, on-page
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Nightmares
  • Dissociation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a parent
  • Torture recounted
  • Explosion recounted
  • Kidnapping recounted
  • Blackmail
  • Military service recounted
  • Doxing

The Right Swipe by Alisha Rai

The Right Swipe by Alisha Rai

Rhiannon Hunter may have revolutionized romance in the digital world, but in real life she only swipes right on her career—and the occasional hookup. The cynical dating app creator controls her love life with a few key rules: Nude pics are by invitation only, if someone stands you up, block them with extreme prejudice, and protect your heart.

Only there aren’t any rules to govern her attraction to her newest match, former pro-football player Samson Lima. The sexy and seemingly sweet hunk woos her one magical night… and disappears.

Rhi thought she’d buried her hurt over Samson ghosting her, until he suddenly surfaces months later… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexual harassment
  • Cyberbullying & harassment
  • Emotionally abuse relationship recounted
  • Chronic illness discussed
  • Grief & loss depiction

Hate to Want You by Alisha Rai

Hate to Want You by Alisha Rai

One night. No one will know. That was the deal. Every year, Livvy Kane and Nicholas Chandler would share one perfect night of illicit pleasure. The forbidden hours let them forget the tragedy that haunted their pasts—and the last names that made them enemies. Until the night she didn’t show up.

Now Nicholas has an empire to run. He doesn’t have time for distractions and Livvy’s sudden reappearance in town is a major distraction. She’s the one woman he shouldn’t want… so why can’t he forget how right she feels in his bed?

Livvy didn’t come home for Nicholas, but fate seems determined to remind her of his presence—and their past. Although the passion between them might have once run hot and deep, not even love can overcome the scandal that divided their families. Being together might be against all the rules . . . but being apart is impossible.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Emotional parental abuse
  • Depression
  • Anxiety
  • Panic attack
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Death of a sibling recounted
  • Car accident recounted
  • Japanese internment camps mentioned

The Year of the Crocodile by Courtney Milan

The Year of the Crocodile by Courtney Milan

Tina Chen and Blake Reynolds have been together for almost a year. In that time, they’ve grown closer on just about every front. The one exception? Blake’s father has never let anything stop him. Tina’s parents have never let anyone push them around. And they’ve never met.

That’s about to change. But don’t worry—fireworks are traditional at Chinese New Years.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Religious persecution & refugee experiences
  • Chinese education camps
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Eating disorder recovery
  • Substance addiction recovery
  • Heart attack recounted

Turning Pointe by Katherine Locke

Turning Pointe by Katherine Locke

Zedekiah Harrow is Alyona Miller’s other half—the Z to her A, her rock in the chaotic, competitive world of professional ballet. He’s the one person who can talk her anxiety away, the one person she knows will never judge her. That she’s starting to think about him as more than a best friend is something new entirely.

Aly is Zed’s everything, but their “just friends” label is beginning to chafe. When the company embarks on a month-long European tour, the magic of Amsterdam and a nearly indecent pas de deux routine combine, making their chemistry—both on and off the stage—impossible to ignore… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Eating disorder

Second Position by Katherine Locke

Second Position by Katherine Locke

Four years ago, a car accident ended Zedekiah Harrow’s ballet career and sent Philadelphia Ballet principal dancer Alyona Miller spinning toward the breakdown that suspended her own. What they lost on the side of the road that day can never be replaced, and grief is always harshest under a spotlight…

Now twenty-three, Zed teaches music and theatre at a private school in Washington, D.C. and regularly attends AA meetings to keep the pain at bay. Aly has returned to D.C. to live with her mother while trying to recover from the mental and physical breakdown that forced her to take a leave of absence from the ballet world and her adoring fans… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Anxiety
  • Eating disorder
  • Self-harm
  • Loss of limb in a car accident reconted

The Girl with the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke

The Girl with the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke

When sixteen-year-old Ellie Baum accidentally time-travels via red balloon to 1988 East Berlin, she’s caught up in a conspiracy of history and magic. She meets members of an underground guild in East Berlin who use balloons and magic to help people escape over the Wall—but even to the balloon makers, Ellie’s time travel is a mystery. When it becomes clear that someone is using dark magic to change history, Ellie must risk everything—including her only way home—to stop the process.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Antiziganism
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a sibling
  • Murder
  • Fire
  • The Holocaust & war themes
  • Interment & concentration camps

Bluebird by Sharon Cameron

Bluebird by Sharon Cameron

In 1946, Eva leaves behind the rubble of Berlin for the streets of New York City, stepping from the fiery aftermath of one war into another, far colder one, where power is more important than principles, and lies are more plentiful than the truth. Eva holds the key to a deadly secret: Project Bluebird — a horrific experiment of the concentration camps, capable of tipping the balance of world power. Both the Americans and the Soviets want Bluebird, and it is something that neither should ever be allowed to possess.

But Eva hasn’t come to America for secrets or power. She hasn’t even come for a new life. She has come to America for one thing: justice. And the Nazi that has escaped its net.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Antisemitism & Nazism
  • Rape, off-page
  • Suicide by cyanide pill
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Smoking
  • Death of children
  • Murder & mass murder
  • Torture
  • Gun & knife violence
  • Concentration camps
  • Human medical experimentation
  • Animal death (bird) recounted
  • Animal cruelty

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger & Steven Scott, and illustrated by Harmony Becker

George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his captivating stage presence and outspoken commitment to equal rights. But long before he braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father’s — and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future.

In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten “relocation centers,” hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Concentration camps
  • World War Two