Codebreaker by Jay Martel

Mia Hayes has peaceful plans for the summer—find a part-time job at a coffee shop and work on her application for Harvard. Those plans are shattered one night when government agents arrive unannounced at her home seeking something they believe her father has taken. When the dust settles, her mother is dead and her father is gone, a fugitive on the run. Three weeks later, and still reeling from her father’s betrayal, Mia spends her seventeenth birthday at a protest in the heart of D.C., where she meets Logan, a rebellious and charming hacker. Just as she’s enjoying… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Minor injury depiction, including a concussion & gunshot wounds
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of parents in a car accident recounted
  • Car chase, resulting in a car falling into the river and a fatal drowning
  • Gun violence
  • Physical assault (fistfights)

No Matter What by Cara Bastone

Roz and Vin can’t look each other in the eyes anymore, let alone share a bed. It’s been a year since they survived a life-altering accident, and their marriage hasn’t been the same. But Roz has held out hope that they can fix things, until she discovers Vin has signed a new lease. So she does what any soon-to-be-divorced Manhattanite would do: sign up for a figure-drawing class. Between Roz’s determined attempts to improve her artistic skills and her adventures with her best friend, Raffi, she can almost ignore Vin’s impending move-out date and his footsteps in… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) & panic attacks
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Scars & injuries sustained in a car accident

Just a Heartbeat Away by Cara Bastone

Newly widowed dad Sebastian Dorner was unraveling at the edges—until his son’s teacher, Via DeRosa, threw him a lifeline. Now, two years later, they reconnect at Matty’s new school, and an inconvenient but unmistakable jolt of attraction crackles between them. But why does the first person to spark with Sebastian in years have to be a millennial? Is twentysomething Via really too young for him or does fortysomething Sebastian just feel too damn old? A former foster kid, Via’s finally forged the stable life she’s always dreamed of—new job, steady income, no drama. The last thing she needs are rumors… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse mentioned & foster care system experiences recounted
  • Unplanned pregnancy mentioned
  • Death of a wife & parents in a car accident recounted

Salt Slow by Julia Armfield

In her brilliantly inventive and haunting debut collection of stories, Julia Armfield explores bodies and the bodily, mapping the skin and bones of her characters through their experiences of isolation, obsession, love and revenge.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia (Cassandra After)
  • Body-shaming (Mantis)
  • Infidelity (Cassandra After)
  • Divorce (Formally Feral, Smack)
  • Depression (Smack, Cassandra After)
  • Suicide mentioned (The Collectables)
  • Self-harm mentioned (Cassandra After)
  • Alcohol consumption & smoking (The Collectables)
  • Pregnancy & mention of miscarriage/pregnancy loss (Salt Slow)
  • Blood & injury depiction (Mantis, Formally Feral, Stop Your Women’s Ears with Wax, Granite, Salt Slow)
  • Heart attack mentioned (The Collectables)
  • Weight loss, dieting & starvation mentioned (Mantis, Salt Slow)
  • Emesis (Stop Your Women’s Ears with Wax)
  • Death of a parent recounted (Smack)
  • Death of a partner (Cassandra After)
  • Car accident mentioned (Stop Your Women’s Ears with Wax)
  • Fire (The Collectables)
  • Drowning (Salt Slow)
  • Bullying (Formally Feral)

When We Had Forever by Shaylin Gandhi

Six months after her husband died in a car crash, Mina Drake is still mired in a haze of grief. Reminders of her years with Michael are everywhere, but beneath her heartache lies an even more painful emotion. It’s a guilty suspicion she can hardly admit to anyone, even herself—that her marriage was over long before Michael’s accident. They were good together once, she’s sure of it, sharing a connection so deep that Mina can’t understand how it unraveled. That is, until a chance discovery in her husband’s office—and the reappearance of Michael’s estranged… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcoholism recovery
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a husband in a car accident recounted

The Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson

Turner Falls is a small tourist town nestled in the hills of western Oregon, the kind of town you escape to for a vacation. When an inexplicable outbreak rapidly develops, this idyllic town becomes the epicenter of an epidemic of violence as the teenaged children of several executives from the local biotech firm become ill and aggressively murderous. Suddenly the town is on edge, and Lucy and her friends must do everything it takes just to fight through the night.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Sexual assault mentioned
  • Child neglect
  • Suicide
  • Alcoholism
  • Drug use
  • Car accident (on-page)
  • Graphic animal death & animal abuse
  • Bullying

You’ve Found Oliver by Dustin Thao

It’s been a year since his best friend, Sam, died. Even though Oliver knows he won’t get a response, he can’t stop texting Sam’s number, especially as the anniversary of his death approaches. Then one day he accidentally hits the call button, and someone picks up. The voice on the other end isn’t Sam—Sam’s number was reassigned and a stranger has been reading Oliver’s private and vulnerable messages for months. But Ben, an astronomy student in Seattle, won’t remain a stranger for long.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse mentioned (secondary character)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction (theme)
  • Death of a friend in a car accident

The Keep by Jennifer Egan

Two cousins, irreversibly damaged by a childhood prank, reunite twenty years later to renovate a medieval castle in Eastern Europe. In an environment of extreme paranoia, cut off from the outside world, the men reenact the signal event of their youth, with even more catastrophic results. And as the full horror of their predicament unfolds, a prisoner, in jail for an unnamed crime, recounts an unforgettable story that seamlessly brings the crimes of the past and present into piercing relation.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Sexual assault & harassment
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Death of a child
  • Police violence
  • Car accident
  • Bullying

The Vacation by John Marrs

Venice Beach, Los Angeles. A paradise on earth. Tourists flock to the golden coast and the promise of Hollywood. But for eight strangers at a beach-front hostel, there is far more on their minds than an extended vacation. All of them are running from something. And they all have secrets they’d kill to keep…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Child abuse
  • Rape & voyeurism
  • Drug use, overdose & drugging
  • Cancer & terminal stroke
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder by stabbing
  • Stalking
  • Car accident

Single Malt by Layla Reyne

FBI agent Aidan “Irish” Talley had it all until a harrowing car crash left him with a heap of survivor’s guilt and a hole in his heart where his happily ever after used to be. Aiming to fill the void, he returns to work—and to a new partner. Charming, smart, and athletic, Jamie is the last thing Aidan’s bruised heart needs. Cyber agent Jameson “Whiskey” Walker joined the Bureau three years ago and has pined for Aidan ever since. Working with the Irish expat is a fantasy and a challenge, one Jamie intends to win by earning the surly older agent’s trust and respect. Except there’s no time… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Child physical & sexual abuse and stalking by a foster parent mentioned (secondary character)
  • Infidelity mentioned (secondary character)
  • Child trafficking mentioned
  • Early On-Set Alzheimer’s Disease mentioned (secondary character)
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Spouse with terminal cancer mentioned (secondary character)
  • Death of a brother in an Irish Republican Army (IRA) car bombing recounted
  • Death of a father in a factory fire recounted
  • Graphic hit-and-run car accident as attempted murder, resulting in hospitalisation for coma & head injuries and death of the protagonist’s husband & working partner
  • Bioterrorism discussed