Mercy by Jodi Picoult 

Mercy by Jodi Picoult

Police chief of a small Massachusetts town, Cameron McDonald makes the toughest arrest of his life when his own cousin Jamie comes to him and confesses outright that he has killed his terminally ill wife out of mercy. A heated murder trial plunges the town into upheaval and drives a wedge into a contented marriage: Cameron, aiding the prosecution in their case against Jamie, finds himself suddenly at odds with his devoted wife, Allie. She is seduced by the idea of a man so in love with his wife that he’d grant all her wishes, even her wish to end her life. And when an inexplicable attraction leads to a shocking betrayal, Allie faces the hardest questions of the heart: when does love cross the line of moral obligation?

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Infidelity
  • Cancer
  • Euthanasia of a terminally ill spouse

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

Our narrator should be happy, shouldn’t she? She’s young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Depression
  • Eating disorders mentioned
  • Suicide, off-page
  • Self harm
  • Drug use & abuse
  • Abortion mentioned
  • Cancer
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Events of 9/11 recounted

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again…

Working as a paid companion to a bitter elderly lady, the timid heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Life is bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she falls in love with Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower whose proposal takes her by surprise. Whisked from Monte Carlo to Manderley, Maxim’s isolated Cornish estate, the friendless young bride begins to realise she barely knows her husband at all. And in every corner of every room is the phantom of his beautiful first wife, Rebecca.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia
  • Racism
  • Incest
  • Infidelity
  • Dementia
  • Alcoholism
  • Suicide
  • Cancer
  • Murder
  • Drowning

The Unwanted Wife by Natasha Anders

The Unwanted Wife by Natasha Anders

All Alessandro de Lucci wants from his wife is a son but after a year and a half of unhappiness and disillusionment, all Theresa de Lucci wants from her ice cold husband is a divorce. Unfortunate timing, since Theresa is about to discover that she’s finally pregnant and Alessandro is about to discover that he isn’t willing to lose Theresa.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Arranged marriage
  • Rape mentioned
  • Domestic abuse & violence
  • Miscarriage
  • Cancer
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of a pet

City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende

City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende

Fifteen-year-old Alexander Cold has the chance to take the trip of a lifetime. Parting from his family and ill mother, Alexander joins his fearless grandmother, a magazine reporter for International Geographic, on an expedition to the dangerous, remote world of the Amazon. Their mission, along with the others on their team—including a celebrated anthropologist, a local guide and his young daughter Nadia, and a doctor—is to document the legendary Yeti of the Amazon known as the Beast. Under the dense canopy of the jungle, Alexander is amazed to discover much… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Drug use including the use of psychedelics in indigenous religious rites and cigar smoking
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Parent with cancer
  • Animal attack (snake)

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Jojo and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their grandparents, Mam and Pop, and the occasional presence of their drug-addicted mother, Leonie, on a farm on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Leonie is simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she’s high; Mam is dying of cancer; and quiet, steady Pop tries to run the household and teach Jojo how to be a man. When the white father of Leonie’s children is released from prison, she packs her kids and a friend into her car and sets out across the state for Parchman farm, the Mississippi State Penitentiary, on a journey rife with danger and promise.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia
  • Racism
  • Sexual assault
  • Substance addiction
  • Drug use
  • Physical injuries
  • Cancer
  • Police brutality
  • Imprisonment
  • Animal death
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A Dog’s Journey by W. Bruce Cameron

A Dog’s Journey by W. Bruce Cameron

Buddy is a good dog.

After searching for his purpose through several eventful lives, Buddy is sure that he has found and fulfilled it. Yet as he watches curious baby Clarity get into dangerous mischief, he is certain that this little girl is very much in need of a dog of her own.

When Buddy is reborn, he realizes that he has a new destiny. He’s overjoyed when he is adopted by Clarity, now a vibrant but troubled teenager. When they are suddenly separated, Buddy despairs―who will take care of his girl?

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Domestic abuse & violence
  • Alcoholism & alcohol abuse
  • Recreational drug use & abuse
  • Hospital
  • Needles
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Death of a father mentioned
  • Car accident
  • Stalking
  • Homelessness
  • Animal death, including the death of a pet dog
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The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse

The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse

Half-hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the former abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel.

An imposing, isolated getaway spot high up in the Swiss Alps is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But Elin’s taken time off from her job as a detective, so when her estranged brother, Isaac, and his fiancée, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept.

Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexism
  • Victim blaming discussed
  • Rape recounted
  • Parental abandonment mentioned
  • Depression & psychotic depression
  • Panic attacks, on-page
  • Abortion recounted
  • Infertility mentioned
  • Needles
  • Graphic dead bodies, on-page
  • Emesis mentioned
  • Amputation of fingers, off-page
  • Medical experimentation & inhumane procedures discussed
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother from cancer recounted
  • Death of a mother in a hit-and-run accident mentioned
  • Death of a brother by drowning recounted
  • Death of a colleague by drowning
  • Murder & attempted murder, on-page
  • Drowning & attempted drowning
  • Knife violence & stabbing, on-page
  • Kidnapping, on-page
  • Physical assault
  • Disappearance of a wife
  • Avalanche, on-page
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Twice in a Blue Moon by Christina Lauren

Twice in a Blue Moon by Christina Lauren

During a whirlwind two-week vacation abroad, Sam and Tate fell for each other in only the way that first loves do: sharing all of their hopes, dreams, and deepest secrets along the way. Sam was the first, and only, person that Tate—the long-lost daughter of one of the world’s biggest film stars—ever revealed her identity to. So when it became clear her trust was misplaced, her world shattered for good.

Fourteen years later, Tate, now an up-and-coming actress, only thinks about her first love every once in a blue moon. When she steps onto the set of her first big break, he’s the last person she expects to see. Yet here Sam is, the same charming, confident man she knew, but even more alluring than she remembered. Forced to confront the man who betrayed her, Tate must ask herself if it’s possible to do the wrong thing for the right reason… and whether “once in a lifetime” can come around twice.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cancer
  • Death of a grandparent recounted
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My Favorite Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren

My Favorite Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren

Millie Morris has always been one of the guys. A UC Santa Barbara professor, she’s a female-serial-killer expert who’s quick with a deflection joke and terrible at getting personal. And she, just like her four best guy friends and fellow professors, is perma-single.

So when a routine university function turns into a black tie gala, Mille and her circle make a pact that they’ll join an online dating service to find plus-ones for the event. There’s only one hitch: after making the pact, Millie and one of the guys, Reid Campbell, secretly spend the sexiest half-night of their lives together, but mutually decide the friendship would be better off strictly platonic… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cancer discussed
  • Parent with Parkinson’s Disease
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Catfishing
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