Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose office she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.

As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients’ lives — a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can’t stop hooking up with the wrong guys — she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell.

With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Sexism & misogyny
  • Victim blaming
  • Sexual harassment
  • Workplace harassment
  • Abuse, neglect & abandonment
  • Abusive relationships
  • Verbal abuse
  • Intimate partner abuse & violence
  • Estrangement & disownment
  • Child abuse
  • Mental illness
  • Intrusive thoughts
  • Addiction
  • Depression
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Medical treatment & procedures
  • Terminal illness
  • Cancer
  • Heart disease & heart attack
  • Physical injuries & wounds
  • Amputation/Loss of limb
  • Hospital & hospitalisation
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a sibling
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Physical assault
  • Stalking
  • Car accident
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One of Us Is Lying by Karen McManus

On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention. Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule. Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess. Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing. Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher. And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High’s notorious gossip app. Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention, Simon’s dead. And according to investigators, his death wasn’t an accident. On Monday, he died. But on… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism, racism, sexism & slut-shaming
  • Homophobia & coming out themes
  • Dubious consent scenarios involving minors discussed, including mentions of nonconsensual voyeurism*
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Infidelity, recounted & discussed
  • Alcoholism mentioned
  • Bipolar Disorder
  • Suicide & attempted suicide and self-harm
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse and recreational drug use
  • Death from anaphylaxis
  • Cancer mentioned and heart attack
  • Hospitalisation
  • Death of a classmate (on-page)
  • Death of an uncle mentioned
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • School shooting & gun violence discussed
  • Strangulation
  • Physical assault
  • Car accident recounted
  • Blackmail
  • Bullying

*Context: Characters under the influence of alcohol recount having sex, and a protagonist recounts coerced ‘consent’ to sex with her boyfriend.

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

Anna Fox lives alone, a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors.

Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, a mother and their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble and its shocking secrets are laid bare.

What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems. 

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Antiziganism
  • Depression
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Agoraphobia
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Prescription drug abuse
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child & husband in a car accident recounted
  • Murder
  • Stalking
  • Animal death mentioned
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One Day to Fall by Therese Beharrie

One Day to Fall by Therese Beharrie

She should be at her “perfect” sister’s bedside, awaiting the arrival of the newest member of her family. But the thought of spending hours at the hospital with her suffocating relatives has Sophia hailing the first taxi she sees. Only to realise too late that the man at the wheel of her getaway car is the most unpleasant one she’s ever had the misfortune to meet.

Parker Jones, the handsome yet surly driver in question, is used to dealing with baggage of the family variety. And it just so happens he’s in need of temporary escape from his own. Witty banter with a beautiful—if exasperating—woman while chauffeuring her around the city on a gorgeous spring day makes for an ideal break from reality.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Childbirth
  • Surgery
  • Parent with dementia
  • Death of a parent from a brain tumour mentioned
  • Car accident mentioned
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A Bucket List of Sorts by Leah Battaglio

A Bucket List of Sorts by Leah Battaglio

Tilda Loxley doesn’t have time for extras. She’s a single mom. She volunteers. She tries hard to meet the expectations Pinterest has drawn out for her.

Everything changes for Tilda when she’s summoned by the estate attorney of her late Aunt Beebie. A 40th birthday reveals one last item Beebie has left for her favorite niece…a bucket list filled with travel, adventure and only a bit of bare skin.

It’s a bumpy ride as Tilda attempts to step out of her comfort zone, be the mom she needs to be and maybe even kiss a fella with reckless abandon…what could possibly go wrong?

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cheating mentioned
  • Pregnancy
  • Death of a parent
  • Car accident mentioned
  • Deportation
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Flirting with Forever by Cara Bastone

Flirting with Forever by Cara Bastone

Mary Trace is bright, bubbly and back in the dating pool in her midthirties. All of her closest friends are in love, and she refuses to miss out on romance. So when a regular customer at her trendy Brooklyn boutique wants to set Mary up on a blind date with her son, she gives a hesitant yes. John Modesto-Whitford is gorgeous and well-groomed, so maybe dinner won’t be a total bust—until he drops a less-than-flattering comment about Mary’s age.

Desperate to be nothing like his snake of a politician father, public defender John Modesto-Whitford prides himself on his honesty and candor. But his social awkwardness and lack of filter just blew it with the most beautiful woman he’s ever dated… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Parental abandonment
  • Cheating recounted
  • Dieting
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of an aunt from cancer recounted
  • Death of a friend in a car accident recounted
  • Home invasion
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King’s Captive by Amber Bardan

King’s Captive by Amber A. Bardan 

Some people would think being stuck on a private island is heaven, but this is my hell. Because I’m not here as a guest. Not even close. I’m a prisoner. I’m his. Julius King. Powerful. Wealthy. Dangerous. 

There are parts of me he wants that I can’t give him. When he looks at me, there are times I swear he sees someone else. And the scary part is that sometimes, when he touches me, I think he may be someone else, too. 

Though my body might be tempted, and he might control everything else, I can’t let him have any piece of my heart. I won’t. But every day, the fight gets harder, and Julius manages to slip past my defenses in the most unexpected ways. I have to find out the truth about Julius King. Even if it destroys me.  

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Amnesia
  • Physical injury, including brain injury & gunshot wounds
  • Hospitalisation
  • Scar & burn scars
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a spouse, perceived
  • Death of a father from gun violence
  • Death of a mother in a car accident mentioned
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Kidnapping
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Whiteout by Adriana Anders

Whiteout by Adriana Anders

Angel Smith is ready to leave Antarctica for a second chance at life. But on what was meant to be her final day, the research station is attacked. Hunted and scared, she and glaciologist Ford Cooper barely make it out with their lives…only to realize that in a place this remote, there’s nowhere left to run.

Isolated in the middle of a long, frozen winter with a madman at their heels, they must fight to survive in the most inhospitable—and beautiful—place on earth. But the outside world depends on what Ford and Angel know and, as their pursuers close in and their new partnership burns bright and hot, they will stop at nothing to make it out of the cold alive.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cheating recounted
  • Chronic knee injury
  • Murder
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Car accident recounted
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This Is What It Feels Like by Rebecca Barrow

It doesn’t matter what the prize for the Sun City Originals contest is this year. Who cares that’s it’s fifteen grand? Who cares about a gig opening for one of the greatest bands to ever play this town? Not Dia, that’s for sure. Because Dia knows that without a band, she hasn’t got a shot at winning Sun City. Because ever since Hanna’s drinking took over her life, Dia and Jules haven’t been in it. And ever since Hanna left — well, there hasn’t been a band. It used to be the three of them, Dia, Jules, and Hanna, messing around and making music and planning for the future… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Toxic relationship recounted
  • Anxiety & magical thinking discussed
  • Alcoholism recovery with discussions of past alcohol abuse (protagonist)
  • Teen pregnancy & motherhood (protagonist)
  • Death of a boyfriend in a car accident recounted

Deadly Little Scandals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Reluctant debutante Sawyer Taft joined Southern high society for one reason and one reason alone: to identify and locate her biological father. But the answers Sawyer found during her debutante year only left her with more questions and one potentially life-ruining secret. When her cousin Lily ropes her into pledging a mysterious, elite, and all-female secret society called the White Gloves, Sawyer soon discovers that someone in the group’s ranks may have the answers she’s looking for. Things are looking up until Sawyer… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Illegal adoption of a baby
  • Dead body
  • Death of a daughter
  • Attempted murder
  • Car accident