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.

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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

The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater

January 1942. The Avallon Hotel & Spa has always offered elegant luxury in the wilds of West Virginia, its mountain sweetwater washing away all of high society’s troubles. Local girl-turned-general manager June Porter Hudson has guided the Avallon skillfully through the first pangs of war. The Gilfoyles, the hotel’s aristocratic owners, have trained her well. But when the family heir makes a secret deal with the State Department to fill the hotel with captured Axis diplomats, June must persuade her staff—many of whom have sons and husbands heading… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical ableism
  • Antisemitism recounted
  • Child abandonment
  • Attempted suicide

Breaking His Ice by Klastella

I have one rule: I don’t do relationships. Hookups? Sure. Love? Hell no. Love doesn’t fix anything—it just screws you up. I know. I watched it ruin my family. As captain of the Ridgewater Warriors, my game plan is simple: keep it casual, stay focused, win games. Repeat. And it’s been working just fine—until Samantha Westbrook showed up. My best friend’s pesky little sister. The girl who’s had a crush on me since she was ten. Now she’s a freshman at Ridgewater U, and she’s everywhere I go, cockblocking every girl who so much as breathes near me. I spent years brushing her off, telling her to stay… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment & neglect
  • Parental infidelity
  • Parent with alcoholism, gambling issues & depression
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Drug use & smoking
  • Sports injury
  • Death of a parent from cancer (acute myeloid leukemia)
  • Animal death mentioned (pet)

Some of Us Are Brave by Saadia Faruqi

It’s a humid summer in Houston, Texas, and Yasir is dreaming of being soccer team captain—if only he could get the team bully, Cody, off his back, and maybe impress his sort-of-crush, Mona. Meanwhile, Mona is turning her nightmares into art, and Cody’s home life feels as tense as the storm literally brewing down the coast. When Hurricane Harvey makes landfall, the three kids could hardly be called friends. But as their regular lives fall apart and rising floodwaters pull them together, Mona, Cody, and Yasir will need to work as a team if they want to survive. The… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Classism & racism
  • Parental abandonment, child abuse & domestic violence
  • Night terrors
  • Parent with anger management issues after being injured during military service
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Death of a grandmother mentioned
  • Hurricane Harvey & floods (theme)
  • Near-drowning incident recounted
  • Bullying

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

Maud Blyth has always longed for adventure. She expected plenty of it when she volunteered to serve as an old lady’s companion on an ocean liner, in order to help her beloved older brother unravel a magical conspiracy that began generations ago. What she didn’t expect was for the old lady in question to turn up dead on the first day of the voyage. Now she has to deal with a dead body, a disrespectful parrot, and the lovely, dangerously outrageous Violet Debenham, who’s also returning home to England. Violet is everything that Maud has been trained to distrust yet… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity & spousal abandonment*
  • Attempted sexual assault
  • Emotional parental abuse recounted
  • Suicide mentioned (secondary character)
  • Alcohol consumption & drugging
  • Blood & gore depiction, including minor self-injury for blood, dead bodies & emesis
  • Death of parents in a car accident recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Kidnapping
  • Knife violence
  • Loss of autonomy (ghost possession)

Context : Violet is technically married to a man who abandoned her & stole her possessions; due to his disappearance, she is unable to dissolve their marriage and never reveals this to her love interest.

A Risky Game by Alyson Gerber

Deadly stakes, dangerous secrets, and a cut-throat game where the winners are set for life. Welcome to the Boston School, and the world of the Liars Society. Weatherby and Jack have been tapped to join Last Heir, the most powerful secret society in the world, but the night of the first gambit, the game takes a terrifying turn. Now, Jack and Weatherby are in a race against time to discover the truth about the game – and themselves. But how do you know who to trust when everyone is a liar?

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Hospitalisation
  • Attempted murder by poisoning

The Liars Society by Alyson Gerber

Weatherby is a fish out of water. When she lands a scholarship to the prestigious Boston School, she’s excited to be in the same world as her dad, whom she’s never met, and make real friends. But Weatherby has a secret she’ll risk everything to protect, one that could destroy her new life. Every member of Jack’s wealthy and privileged family has made their mark at the Boston School. Everyone, that is, except for Jack, who is entirely mediocre. He’s desperate to prove his worth to his influential father. But Jack has a secret of his own… one with the power to ruin everything… Read more,

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment

A Secret Escape by Alyson Gerber

The game starts now. Jack and Weatherby—the newest members of Last Heir, the most powerful secret society in the world—have landed at an exclusive prep school in the Swiss Alps, ready to win big. Last Heir is offering the chance of a lifetime: millions of dollars, a private island, and a powerful spot in the society’s inner circle. Not everyone has the same reasons for playing, but with money, power, and influence up for grabs, everyone wants to win. Too bad they’re not all playing by the same rules.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Death of a parent
  • Kidnapping & captivity

A Million to One by Adiba Jaigirdar

A thief. An artist. A acrobat. An actress. While Josefa, Emilie, Hinnah, and Violet seemingly don’t have anything in common, they’re united in one goal: stealing the Rubaiyat, a jewel-encrusted book aboard the RMS Titanic that just might be the golden ticket to solving their problems. But careless mistakes, old grudges, and new romance threaten to jeopardize everything they’ve worked for and put them in incredible danger when tragedy strikes. While the odds of pulling off the heist are slim, the odds of survival are even slimmer…

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment & child neglect
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Drowning

Pole Position by Rebecca J. Caffery

Kian Walker has always been the golden boy of motor sport. The four-time Championship winner has racing in his DNA – his father was a legend on the track, just don’t let him catch you comparing the two. As reckless and unreliable at home as he was behind the wheel, there’s nothing Kian wants less than to be just like his dad. Enter Harper James. This year’s rookie called up to compete with the big boys – and Kian’s new teammate. Cocky, hot-headed and with a reputation for breaking as many hearts as he does new track records, Harper’s the opposite of Kian in every way. But. when… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment & foster care system experiences recounted
  • Anxiety & panic attacks (protagonist, on-page)
  • Parent with Parkinson’s Disease
  • Death of a parent