The Other Lola by Ripley Jones

In the months after Cam and Blair broke their small hometown’s legendary missing-girl story and catapulted to accidental fame, they vowed never to do it again. No more mysteries, no more podcasts, and no more sticking their heads where they don’t belong. Until Mattie Brosillard, a freshman at their high school, shows up on their doorstep, begging Cam and Blair for help. Mattie’s sister Lola disappeared mysteriously five years ago. No trace of her was ever found. Now, she’s back–but Mattie is convinced the girl who returned is an impostor. Nobody believes Mattie’s wild story–not Mattie’s brother, not Mattie’s mother, and… Read more,

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Adult-minor relationship mentioned
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) & panic attack
  • Child abuse
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Catfishing
  • Bullying

Fable for the End of the World by Ava Reid

By encouraging massive accumulations of debt from its underclass, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society. Inesa lives with her brother in a half-sunken town where they scrape by running a taxidermy shop. Unbeknownst to Inesa, their cruel and indolent mother has accrued an enormous debt—enough to qualify one of her children for Caerus’s livestreamed assassination spectacle: the Lamb’s Gauntlet. Melinoë is a Caerus assassin, trained to track and kill the sacrificial Lambs. The product of neural reconditioning and physiological alteration, she is a living weapon, known for her cold brutality and deadly beauty… Read more,

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual harassment
  • Adult-minor relationship
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction
  • Emesis
  • Death of a child
  • Gun violence
  • Animal death

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Adult-minor relationship
  • Infidelity
  • Death of a spouse from cancer
  • Drowning
  • Wildfire
  • Animal cruelty recounted

Where the Dark Stands Still by A.B. Poranek

Raised in a small village near the spirit-wood, Liska Radost knows that Magic is monstrous, and its practitioners, monsters. After Liska unleashes her own powers with devastating consequences, she is caught by the demon warden of the wood – the Leszy – who offers her a bargain: one year of servitude in exchange for a wish.Whisked away to his crumbling manor, Liska soon discovers the sinister roots of their bargain. And if she wants to survive the year and return home, she must unravel her host’s spool of secrets and face the ghosts of his past. Those who enter the wood do not always return…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Adult-minor relationship (17-year old and an ancient being)
  • Domestic violence & child abuse mentioned
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction and body horror
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Fire

Perfect Little Monsters by Cindy R.X. He

Ella Moore was the most popular girl in school…and also the most hated. When she’s murdered at her own party, there are too many suspects to count–and too many people who think she deserved it. The police’s prime suspect is the new girl, Dawn Foster. She was the last to hand Ella a drink on the night Ella died. Plus, all of Ella’s friends with a motive for wanting her dead are more than willing to implicate Dawn. But Dawn refuses to go down without a fight. She’s determined to clear her name. As she delves deeper into the past, she discovers that Ella and her friends had… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Fatphobia & body-shaming
  • Adult-minor relationship & toxic friendships
  • Disordered eating
  • Attempted suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Hospitalisation
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder
  • Car accident
  • Fire
  • Kidnapping & stalking
  • Bullying & cyberbullying

Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donne

After the death of her mom, 17-year-old Cecelia Ellis goes to live with her estranged grandmother, a celebrated author whose Victorian mansion is as creepy as the murder mysteries she writes. On the surface, life is utterly ordinary until the homecoming queen is murdered. And she’s not Seaview’s first pretty dead queen. With a copycat killer on the loose, Cecelia throws herself into the investigation, determined to crack the case like the heroines in her grandmother’s books. But the more Cecelia digs into the town’s secrets, the more she worries that her own mystery might not have a storybook ending….

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Classism, racism & homophobia
  • Adult-minor relationship mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use mentioned
  • Minor blood & gore depiction including mentions of dead bodies & emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother from cancer recounted & discussed
  • Murder & knife violence
  • Drowning
  • Animal death (rabbit, dog)

Swift River by Essie J. Chambers

It’s the summer of 1987 in Swift River, and Diamond Newberry is learning how to drive. Ever since her Pop disappeared seven years ago, she and her mother hitchhike everywhere. But that’s not the only reason Diamond stands out: She’s teased relentlessly about her weight, and the fact that since Pop’s been gone, she is the only Black person in all of Swift River. This summer, Ma is determined to declare Pop legally dead so they can collect his life insurance money, get their house back from the bank, and finally move on. But when Diamond receives a letter from a… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Adult-minor relationship
  • Death of a parent
  • Bullying

The Hunting Wives by May Cobb

Sophie O’Neill left behind an envy-inspiring career and the stressful, competitive life of big-city Chicago to settle down with her husband and young son in a small Texas town. It seems like the perfect life with a beautiful home in an idyllic rural community. But Sophie soon realizes that life is now too quiet, and she’s feeling bored and restless. Then she meets Margot Banks, an alluring socialite who is part of an elite clique secretly known as the Hunting Wives. Sophie finds herself completely drawn to Margot and swept into her mysterious world of late-night target… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Adult-minor relationship & paedophilia
  • Rape
  • Cheating
  • Alcohol abuse & drugging
  • Pregnancy & abortion mentioned
  • Death of a child
  • Gun violence

My Summer Darlings by May Cobb

Jen Hansen, Kittie Spears, and Cynthia Nichols have been friends since childhood. They are now approaching forty and their lives have changed, but their insular East Texas town has not. They stay sane by drinking wine in the afternoons, dishing about other women in the neighbourhood, and bonding over the heartache of their own encroaching middle age and raising ungrateful teens. Then Will Harding comes to town, moving into one of the neighbourhood’s grandest homes. Mysterious and charming, he seems like the answer to each woman’s prayers. He’s a… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Adult-minor relationship & paedophilia
  • Divorce recounted
  • Infidelity
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping & captivity

The Familiars by Stacey Halls

Young Fleetwood Shuttleworth, a noblewoman, is with child again. None of her previous pregnancies have borne fruit, and her husband, Richard, is anxious for an heir. Then Fleetwood discovers a hidden doctor’s letter that carries a dire prediction: she will not survive another birth. By chance she meets a midwife named Alice Grey, who promises to help her deliver a healthy baby. But Alice soon stands accused of witchcraft. Is there more to Alice than meets the eye? Fleetwood must risk everything to prove her innocence. As the two women’s lives become intertwined, the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical sexism & misogyny
  • Adult-minor abusive marriage
  • Lancashire witch trials (theme)
  • Teen pregnancy (protagonist)
  • Infertility & miscarriages recounted

Context : The 17-year-old protagonist is pregnant and married to an adult man. She has had two miscarriages in the past, and is advised to not get pregnant again.