Maybe This Time by Cara Bastone

Romance can be a little complicated when you get sucked into a wormhole. Just ask high school English teacher June Flint. One little solar flare happens and suddenly you find yourself 85 years in the future. Eighty-five years from your dream job. Your ailing mother whose only companion in this world is you. Your favorite stuffed-crust pizza from DeLucia… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Workplace homophobia & racism recounted
  • Anxiety
  • Parent with degenerative memory issues
  • Death of a parent recounted

Sweet Talk by Cara Bastone

It’s officially booty o’clock, I’m alone again in my kitchen choking down a slice of terrible chocolate cake…and I’m pretty sure I just got drunk texted by the man I have a ginormous crush on. I’ve been daydreaming about Eliot Hoffman’s dimples for two months, and even though I’m sure this was a mistake on his end, it doesn’t mean it’s not an opportunity on mine. It’s the middle of the night, and I just wanna talk to him. So I text him back. And then somehow we keep talking…ALL NIGHT. We’re both insomniacs, so talking all night soon turns into talking EVERY night. And talking.. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Secondary character with alcoholism
  • Anxiety & panic attack
  • Parent with terminal cancer
  • Home invasion & threats of gun violence (protagonist)

Private Rites by Julia Armfield

It’s been raining for a long time now, so long that the land has reshaped itself and arcane rituals and religions are creeping back into practice. Sisters Isla, Irene, and Agnes have not spoken in some time when their father dies. An architect as cruel as he was revered, his death offers an opportunity for the sisters to come together in a new way. In the grand glass house they grew up in, their father’s most famous creation, the sisters sort through the secrets and memories he left behind, until their fragile bond is shattered by a revel.. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse recounted
  • Parental infidelity mentioned
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Nightmares & sleep issues mentioned
  • Pica mentioned (recovery)
  • Attempted suicide & self-harm recounted
  • Alcohol consumption & smoking
  • Emesis
  • Death of a father from a stroke & heart attack mentioned
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Drowning
  • Cults discussed
  • Animal injury (fish

Amen Maxine by Faith Gardner

Welcome to Silicon Valley, where the weather is perfect, the income is high … and Rowena Snyder is miserable. A transplant from New York, Rowena moved into her husband Jacob’s idyllic childhood home with their new baby. But suburbia isn’t Rowena’s cup of Starbucks. And she’s got serious anxiety and depression to boot. Jacob, worried about their marriage, scores a new product currently in beta testing from his tech job: Maxine, a “digital friend” that bonds with an individual by continually gathering their personal data. Along with functioning like an upscale digital assist… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Domestic emotional abuse & gaslighting
  • Postpartum anxiety & depression (protagonist, on-page)

Sparrow by Sarah Moon

Sparrow has always had a difficult time making friends. She would always rather have stayed home on the weekends with her mother, an affluent IT Executive at a Brooklyn bank, reading, or watching the birds, than playing with other kids. And that’s made school a lonely experience for her. It’s made LIFE a lonely experience. But when the one teacher who really understood her — Mrs. Wexler, the school librarian, a woman who let her eat her lunch in the library office rather than hide in a bathroom stall, a woman who shared her passion for novels and knew just the ones she’d love… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Protagonist with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)
  • Psychiatric hospitalisation for attempted suicide by fall discussed
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a teacher in a car accident discussed

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

Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker

Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner, washing away the remains of brutal murders and suicides in Chinatown. The bloody messes don’t bother her, not when she’s already witnessed the most horrific thing possible: her sister being pushed in front of a train. Before fleeing the scene, the murderer whispered two words: bat eater. Months pass, the killer is never caught, and Cora can barely keep herself together. She pushes away all feelings, disregards the bite marks that appear on her coffee table, and won’t take her aunt’s advice to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Graphic racist & anti-Asian hate crimes
  • Parental abandonment & nglect
  • Health anxiety & intrusive thoughts
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore dpeiction and body horror
  • COVID-19 pandemic
  • Murder
  • Police brutality mentioned
  • Gun violence
  • Car accient
  • Fire
  • Animal cruelty & dead bodies

Don’t Breathe a Word by Jordyn Taylor

Present Day: Eva has never felt like she belonged… not in her own family or with her friends in New York City, and certainly not at a fancy boarding school like Hardwick Preparatory Academy. So when she is invited to join the Fives, an elite secret society, she jumps at the opportunity to finally be a part of something. But what if the Fives are about more than just having the best parties and receiving special privileges from the school? What if they are also responsible for keeping some of Hardwick’s biggest secrets buried? 1962: There is only one reason why Connie would volu… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Claustrophobia and fear of nuclear warfare discussed
  • Bullying & hazing

Is This a Cry for Help? by Emily R. Austin

Darcy’s life turned out better than she could have ever imagined. She is a librarian at the local branch, while her wife Joy runs a book binding service. Between the two of them, there is no more room on their shelves with their ample book collections, various knickknacks and bobbles, and dried bouquets. Rounding out their ideal life is two cats and a sun-soaked house by the lake. But when Darcy receives the news that her ex-boyfriend, Ben, has passed away, she spirals into a pit of guilt and regret, resulting in a mental breakdown and medical leave from the library. When she… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & transphobia
  • Image based sexual abuse (protagonist is threatened by a secondary character when she accidentally uploads an unintentionally intimate photo)
  • Emotional parental abuse
  • Infidelity recounted (the protagonist cheated on her boyfriend in the past; mentions of a secondary character’s husband cheating)
  • Anxiety, insomnia & panic disorder (protagonist) with mentions of dissociation and panic attacks
  • Parent with postpartum depression recounted
  • Psychiatric hospitalisation for acute stress reaction recounted (protagonist)
  • Disordered eating mentioned & recounted, including attempted purging & dieting
  • Alcohol consumption & recreational drug use
  • Abortion recounted
  • Pregnancy & teen pregnancy mentioned (brief, secondary characters)
  • Death of an ex-boyfriend from a brain aneurysm discussed

The Open Era by Edward Schmit

Recently-turned-pro tennis player Austin Hardy has been out since high school and it’s never been a big deal. That is, until he becomes the first openly gay man to compete in a Grand Slam. Suddenly, being gay is a huge deal, with headlines to prove it. Unprepared for this new spotlight, Austin’s anxiety disorder hits a breaking point, and he trips and falls at practice. Right next to the very attractive, very talented, and probably straight Diego Cruz, ranked World #2. The two players start a friendship off the court. But between their flirty banter, mixed signals, and brewing rivalry,… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Anxiety & panic attacks (protagonist, on-page)