We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian

Nick Russo has worked his way from a rough Brooklyn neighbourhood to a reporting job at one of the city’s biggest newspapers. But the late 1950s are a hostile time for gay men, and Nick knows that he can’t let anyone into his life. He just never counted on meeting someone as impossible to say no to as Andy. Andy Fleming’s newspaper-tycoon father wants him to take over the family business. Andy, though, has no intention of running the paper. He’s barely able to run his life–he’s never paid a bill on time, routinely gets lost on the way to work, and would rather gouge out his own eyes than deal with office politics. Andy… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical homophobia & threats of outing
  • Infidelity recounted (protagonist’s ex-fiancée)
  • Parental divorce recounted
  • Physical sibling abuse recounted
  • Alcohol consumption & mentions of smoking and drug use
  • Death of a mother in a bombing recounted
  • Police violence & corruption
  • Blackmail
  • Bullying (recounted & off-page)

Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore

Ezra Friedman sees ghosts, which made growing up in a funeral home a bit complicated. It might have been easier if his grandfather’s ghost didn’t give him such scathing looks of disapproval as he went through a second, HRT-induced puberty, or if he didn’t have the pressure of all those relatives—living and dead—judging every choice he makes. It’s no wonder that Ezra runs as far away from the family business as humanly possible. But when the floor of his dream job drops out from under him and his mother uses the family Passover seder to tell everyone that she’s running away with the rabbi’s wife, Ezra finds himself back in the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misgendering mentioned
  • Infidelity mentioned (secondary charactes)
  • Hospitalisation for injury & depiction of a dead body
  • Childbirth (on-page)
  • House fire

The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson

Niamh Kelly is dead. Her troubled twin, Ciara, now masquerades as the benevolent witch as Her Majesty’s Royal Coven prepares to crown her High Preistess. Suffering from amnesia, Ciara can’t remember what she’s done–but if she wants to survive, she must fool Niamh’s adopted family and friends; the coven; and the murky Shadow Cabinet–a secret group of mundane civil servants who are already suspicious of witches. While she tries to rebuild her past, she realizes none of her past has forgotten her, including her former lover, renegade warlock Dabney Hale. On the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical misogyny & ableism
  • Infidelity
  • Amnesia & memory loss
  • Loss of autonomy (demonic possession)
  • Animal death

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

At the dawn of their adolescence, on the eve of the summer solstice, four young girls–Helena, Leonie, Niamh and Elle–took the oath to join Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, established by Queen Elizabeth I as a covert government department. Now, decades later, the witch community is still reeling from a civil war and Helena is now the reigning High Priestess of the organization. Yet Helena is the only one of her friend group still enmeshed in the stale bureaucracy of HMRC. Elle is trying to pretend she’s a normal housewife, and Niamh has become a country vet, using her powers to heal sick animals. In what Helena… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transphobia, deadnaming & misgendering including outing
  • Infidelity
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Animal death

You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian

The 1960 baseball season is shaping up to be the worst year of Eddie O’Leary’s life. He can’t manage to hit the ball, his new teammates hate him, he’s living out of a suitcase, and he’s homesick. When the team’s owner orders him to give a bunch of interviews to some snobby reporter, he’s ready to call it quits. He can barely manage to behave himself for the length of a game, let alone an entire season. But he’s already on thin ice, so he has no choice but to agree. Mark Bailey is not sports reporter. He writes for the arts page, and these days he’s barely even managing to… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical homophobia, racism & antisemitism including mentions of the gay protagonist being disowned and kicked out of home as a teenager
  • Infidelity mentioned (secondary characters)
  • Alcohol consumption & mentions of smoking, tobacco and drug use
  • Hospitalisation (secondary character)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of an abusive parent with alcoholism in a drunk-driving accident recounted
  • Death of a partner from a heart attack discussed
  • Death of a grandparent from a heart attack recounted

Boy of Chaotic Making by Charlie N. Holmberg

Merritt Fernsby’s life has changed considerably since he inherited Whimbrel House. He’s engaged to Hulda Larkin, who opened his eyes to the uncanny. And he’s grown quite protective of his uncle Owein—several generations, and iterations, removed. Owein is presently inhabiting the body of a mixed-breed terrier when Merritt receives a missive from none other than Alexandrina Victoria, the Queen of England: I am interested in your dog. It’s the queen’s duty to the peerage to keep British wizardry empowered. Her offer: England will find a human vessel… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity mentioned
  • Death of a child (off-page)
  • Animal death (pet)

Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart And Other Stories by GennaRose Nethercott

The stories in Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart are about the abomination that resides within us all. That churning, clawing, hungry the desire to be loved, and seen, and known. And the terror of those things to be loved too well, or not enough, or for long enough. To be laid bare before your sweetheart, to their horror. To be known and recognized as the monstrous thing you are.  Two young women working at a sinister roadside attraction called the Eternal Staircase explore its secrets—and their own doomed summer love. A group of witchy teens concoct the perfect plan to induce the hated new girl into their ranks. A woman… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Infidelity
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Blood & gore depiction including decapitation & body horror
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Death of a child
  • Drowning
  • Animal death
  • Bestiality

The Partner Plot by Kristina Forest

To Violet Greene, fashion is everything. As a successful celebrity stylist, she travels all over the world, living out her dreams. Professionally, she’s thriving, but her personal life is in shambles. After surviving a very public breakup with her ex-fiancé six months ago, Violet is now determined to focus on her career. But life hands her something—or rather, someone—that might derail everything… Xavier Wright did not expect to run into his high school girlfriend Violet—the girl he once thought he’d marry—on a birthday trip to Vegas. As a high school teacher and basketball coach, he rarely leaves his New Jersey hometown, so… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis

Happily Never After by Lynn Painter

When Sophie Steinbeck finds out just before her nuptials that her fiancé has cheated yet again, she desperately wants to call it off. But because her future father-in-law is her dad’s cutthroat boss, she doesn’t want to be the one to do it. Her saviour comes in the form of a professional objector, whose purpose is to show up at weddings and proclaim the words no couple (usually) wants to hear at their ceremony: “I object!” During anti-wedding festivities that night, Sophie learns more about Max the Objector’s job. It makes perfect sense to her: he saves people from wast… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Cheating discussed (secondary characters)

Truly, Madly, Deeply by Alexandria Bellefleur

As a bestselling romance novelist, everyone thinks Truly Livingston is an expert on happily-ever-afters. She’s even signed on to record a podcast sharing relationship advice. Little do they know she feels like an imposter—her parents just announced they’re separating, she caught her fiancé cheating, and her entire view on love has been shaken to the core. Truly hopes the podcast will distract her… until she meets her cohost. Her first impression of Colin McCory is…hot. But then he opens his extremely kissable mouth. Colin’s view on love just pisses Truly off, even if he does have an annoyingly attractive face. Bickering with a cynical… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Biphobia
  • Infidelity
  • Alcohol consumption