The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church’s double standards and their own needs and passions

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia
  • Body shaming
  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Infidelity
  • Domestic abuse
  • Child abuse mentioned
  • Paedophilia mentioned
  • Emotional and physical abuse
  • Adult-minor relationship
  • Dementia
  • Abortion
  • Religious bigotry
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a parent

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher.

2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager—and who professed to worship only her—may be far different from what she has always believed? … Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slut-shaming
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Adult-minor relationship
  • Student-teacher relationship
  • Paedophilia, grooming & child sexual abuse
  • Rape, including statutory rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Child pornography
  • Emotional abuse & gaslighting
  • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
  • Dissociation
  • Suicide
  • Substance addiction
  • Alcoholism
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Recreational drug use
  • Disordered eating
  • Death of a dog
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The Golden Sheep, Vol. 1 by Kaori Ozaki

The Golden Sheep, Vol. 1 by Kaori Ozaki

The Golden Sheep Vol. 1 by Kaori Ozaki

Tsugu Miikura, a high schooler who loves to play guitar, due to family circumstances, moved away from the rural town where she had spent her childhood. After several years, she’s back in her old hometown. She reunites with her childhood friends—Sora, Yuushin, and Asari—the friends she’d buried a time capsule with back in elementary school. Tsugu is overjoyed to be with her friends once more, but the bonds that she thought would never change have in fact started to grow major cracks…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Adult-minor relationship
  • Paedophilia mentioned
  • Attempted suicide
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Bullying
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Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft

Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft

Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft

He says he loves you. So…why does he do that?

You’ve asked yourself this question again and again. Now you have the chance to see inside the minds of angry and controlling men—and change your life. In Why Does He Do That? you will learn about:

• The early warning signs of abuse
• The nature of abusive thinking
• Myths about abusers
• Ten abusive personality types
• The role of drugs and alcohol
• What you can fix, and what you can’t
• And how to get out of an abusive relationship safely

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexism & misogyny
  • Body shaming & fatmisia
  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Slut-shaming
  • Victim blaming
  • Sex worker shaming & slurs
  • Rape, including by coercion
  • Sexual abuse
  • Sexual harassment
  • Abusive relationships
  • Age-gap relationships, including adult-minor
  • Cheating, including grey-area cheating
  • Child abuse, including sexual abuse
  • Domestic abuse & violence
  • Dubious consent scenarios
  • Emotional abuse
  • Paedophilia & grooming
  • Parental abuse & neglect
  • Physical abuse
  • Verbal abuse
  • Mental illness
  • Substance addiction, including alcoholism
  • Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Intrusive thoughts
  • Physical assault
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Recreational drug use
  • Medical treatment & procedures
  • Death of a parent or guardian
  • Gun violence
  • Disappearance of a loved one
  • Poverty themes
  • Blackmail
  • Bullying
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Go Down Together: The True Untold Story of Bonnie & Clyde by Jeff Guinn

Go Down Together: The True Untold Story of Bonnie & Clyde by Jeff Guinn

Go Down Together: The True Untold Story of Bonnie & Clyde by Jeff Guinn

In Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde, bestselling author Jeff Guinn combines exhaustive research with surprising, newly discovered material to tell the real tale of two kids from a filthy Dallas slum who fell in love and then willingly traded their lives for a brief interlude of excitement and, more important, fame. Their timing could not have been better — the Barrow Gang pulled its first heist in 1932 when most Americans, reeling from the Great Depression, were desperate for escapist entertainment. Thanks to newsreels, true crime magazines, and new-fangled wire services that transmitted scandalous photos of Bonnie smoking a cigar to every newspaper in the nation, the Barrow Gang members almost instantly became household names on a par with Charles Lindbergh, Jack Dempsey, and Babe Ruth. In the minds of the public, they were cool, calculating bandits who robbed banks and killed cops with equal impunity.

Nothing could have been further from the truth.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Classism
  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Sexism & misogyny
  • Adult-minor relationships
  • Sexual abuse
  • Sexual assault
  • Sexual harassment
  • Forced marriage
  • Child abuse
  • Estrangement
  • Abusive relationship
  • Intimate partner abuse & violence
  • Parental abuse & abandonment
  • Physical abuse
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcoholism
  • Infertility themes
  • Medical treatment & procedures
  • Chronic illness & pain
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a sibling
  • Dead bodies & body parts
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Flogging & whipping
  • Gun violence
  • Mugging
  • Home invasion
  • Kidnapping
  • Hostage situation
  • Imprisonment
  • Hazing
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The One Memory of Flora Banks by Emily Barr

The One Memory of Flora Banks by Emily Barr

I look at my hands. One of them says FLORA BE BRAVE.

Flora has anterograde amnesia. She can’t remember anything day-to-day: the joke her friend made, the instructions her parents gave her, how old she is. Then she kisses someone she shouldn’t, and the next day she remembers it. It’s the first time she’s remembered anything since she was ten.

But the boy is gone. She thinks he’s moved to the Arctic. Will following him be the key to unlocking her memory? Who can she trust?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cheating
  • Adult-minor relationship*
  • Anterograde Amnesia
  • Nonconsensual drugging*
  • Death of a sibling

* Note: Flora’s parents are lying to her about her prescription medication, which she believes she is taking for her amnesia but is actually a form of tranquilisers designed to keep her ‘passive’. Also, Flora is involved with her best friend’s 19-year-old boyfriend, who is aware that her memory disorder makes her unable to retain memories since turning ten.

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Goodbye, Perfect by Sara Barnard

Goodbye, Perfect by Sara Barnard

When I was wild, you were stead… Now you are wild – what am I?

Eden McKinley knows she can’t count on much in this world, but she can depend on Bonnie, her solid, steady, straight-A best friend. So it’s a complete shock when, five days before the start of their GCSEs, Bonnie runs away with a guy Eden knows nothing about. And it’s the last person she would ever have expected.

As the days pass, and her world begins to unravel, Eden is forced to question everything she thought she knew about her best friend and herself.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Adult-minor relationship
  • Paedophilia & grooming
  • Child pornography mentioned
  • Kidnapping
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White Lines by Armand Baltazar

White Lines by Armand Baltazar

In 1980s New York City, seventeen-year-old Caitlin tries to overcome her mother’s abuse and father’s abandonment by losing herself in nights of clubbing and drugs, followed by days of stumbling aimlessly through school.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Parental abandonment
  • Physical parental abuse recounted
  • Adult-minor relationship mentioned
  • Substance addiction
  • Attempted suicide by overdose mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Graphic drug use & abuse
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Sleepless by Cyn Balog

Sleepless by Cyn Balog

Eron DeMarchelle isn’t supposed to feel this connection. He is a Sandman, a supernatural being whose purpose is to seduce his human charges to sleep. Though he can communicate with his charges in their dreams, he isn’t encouraged to do so. After all, becoming too involved in one human’s life could prevent him from helping others get their needed rest.
 
But he can’t deny that he feels something for Julia, a lonely girl with fiery red hair and sad dreams. Just weeks ago, her boyfriend died in a car accident, and Eron can tell that she feels more alone than ever. Eron was human once too, many years ago, and he remembers how it felt to lose the one he loved… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexual assault, on-page
  • Adult-minor relationship*
  • Abusive relationship
  • Domestic violence
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a boyfriend
  • Kidnapping
  • Stalking

Note : Relationship between a minor and a 100-year-old man.

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Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James

Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James

When literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating. The unworldly, innocent Ana is startled to realize she wants this man and, despite his enigmatic reserve, finds she is desperate to get close to him. Unable to resist Ana’s quiet beauty, wit, and independent spirit, Grey admits he wants her, too—but on his own terms.

Shocked yet thrilled by Grey, Ana hesitates. For all the trappings of success—his multinational businesses, his vast wealth, his loving family—Grey is a man consumed by the need to control. When the couple embarks on a passionate affair, Ana explores her own dark desires.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Victim blaming
  • Sexual assault, on-page
  • Sexual harassment
  • Statutory rape recounted
  • Adult-minor relationship recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Stalking
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