Letting Go by Maya Banks

Josslyn found perfection once, and she knows she’ll never find it again. Now widowed, she seeks the one thing her beloved husband couldn’t give her. Dominance. Lonely and searching for an outlet for her grief and wanting only a brief taste of the perfection she once enjoyed, she seeks what she’s looking for at an exclusive club that caters to people indulging in their most hedonistic fantasies. She never imagined that what she’d find is the one man who’s long been a source of comfort—and secret longing. Her husband’s best friend. Dash has lived in an untenable… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a husband recounted

Duchess of My Heart by Maya Banks

Jillian’s marriage was a nightmare, the news of her husband’s death an answered prayer. She refuses to bow to the ton and pretend to mourn. And her best friend, Case, will be by her side as she defies society’s rules and has her first taste of freedom. Justin, eighth Duke of Whittington, is determined to save his family name from the scandal his brother, Case, is creating, but the lovely Jillian is not the foe he expected. Both vulnerable and vexing, he’s never met another woman like her. But as sparks fly between them, Justin realizes he must help save Jillian from her past before they can ever have a future.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Martial rape and gang rape recounted
  • Domestic abuse
  • Death of a husband, presumed
  • Physical assault, on-page

The Lady’s Champion by Marie Lipscomb

Lady Natalie Blackmere has always dreamed of meeting the renowned champions of Aldland, especially the legendary Brandon the Bear. When at last the Grand Tourney comes to Blackmere, Natalie swaps places with a barmaid and sneaks out to follow her dreams. But when bandits besiege her town, Natalie barely escapes with the surviving champions. Alone in the woods with the man she has always admired, Natalie must keep her identity a secret and step up to become the leader she was born to be, if she is to save her people… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Amputation of a finger, off-page
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a husband recounted
  • Fire

The Magician’s Assistant by Ann Patchett

A magician (with one memorable appearance on the Johnny Carson Show to his credit) takes the name Parsifal. He is gay. He has a Vietnamese lover, Phan. When Phan dies of AIDS, Parsifal marries the woman who has always adored him and who has lived with them both, his assistant Sabine.

Then Parsifal himself dies in California, suddenly and shockingly, of an aneurysm. Parsifal always said that he had no living family and that he came from wealthy upscale Connecticut stock… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • AIDs (theme)
  • Death of a husband from an aneurism
  • Death of a lover recounted

A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler

A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler

In Oak Knoll, a verdant, tight-knit North Carolina neighborhood, professor of forestry and ecology Valerie Alston-Holt is raising her bright and talented biracial son. Xavier is headed to college in the fall, and after years of single parenting, Valerie is facing the prospect of an empty nest. All is well until the Whitmans move in next door – an apparently traditional family with new money, ambition, and a secretly troubled teenaged daughter. Thanks to his thriving local business, Brad Whitman is something of a celebrity around town, and he’s made a small fortune on his customer… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Grap

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racial slurs
  • Rape
  • Incest (step-parent/step-child)
  • Suicide
  • Death of a husband from a brain injury
  • Murder by gun violence (dream sequence)

The Widow by Valerie Keogh

The Widow by Valerie Keogh

Grieving or guilty? When Allison’s wealthy and charming husband Peter is found dead, she appears distraught, devastated… delighted? Because despite an apparently picture-perfect marriage, Allison knows it was all built on a bed of lies. And as the truth regarding Peter’s life and death are revealed, Alison must try to keep her own dark past buried. Because if Peter was keeping secrets, then his widow is too…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Death of a husband

Speed Grieving by Allison Ellis

Speed Grieving by Allison Ellis

When Allison Ellis’s husband died of an unexpected heart attack, there was no playbook for a thirty-three-year-old widow with a breastfeeding infant. In her grief, she devised a practical strategy: find a new husband within twelve months. What transpired was a year of mourning, manic dating, and breaking hearts across Seattle on a deadline mission to heal her own.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction (theme)
  • Death of a husband from a heart attack

The Watchers by A.M. Shine

The Watchers by A.M. Shine

This forest isn’t charted on any map. Every car breaks down at its treeline. Mina’s is no different. Left stranded, she is forced into the dark woodland only to find a woman shouting, urging Mina to run to a concrete bunker. As the door slams behind her, the building is besieged by screams. Mina finds herself in a room with a wall of glass and an electric light that activates at nightfall when the Watchers come above ground. These creatures emerge to observe their captive humans—and terrible things happen to anyone who doesn’t reach the bunker in time… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child abuse recounted
  • Drug use (smoking)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a husband
  • Death of a friend
  • Confinement

Nine Lives by Peter Swanson

Nine Lives by Peter Swanson

Nine strangers receive a list with their names on it in the mail. Nothing else, just a list of names on a single sheet of paper. None of the nine people know or have ever met the others on the list. They dismiss it as junk mail, a fluke – until very, very bad things begin happening to people on the list. First, a well-liked old man is drowned on a beach in the small town of Kennewick, Maine. Then, a father is shot in the back while running through his quiet neighbourhood in suburban Massachusetts. A frightening pattern is emerging, but what do these nine people have in common? Their professions range from… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Racism mentioned
  • Ableism (r slur), on-page
  • Sexual assault mentioned (groping)
  • Child abuse and neglect recounted including a mention of child sexual assault
  • Spousal abandonment
  • Abusive relationship (scs)
  • Cheating
  • Sex work, on-page
  • Familial estrangement mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption, on-page
  • Alcohol abuse (implied)
  • Recreational drug use, on-page
  • Chronic leg injury
  • Grief and loss depiction
  • Death of a girlfriend from an oxycontin overdose mentioned
  • Death of a husband and a pet dog in a car accident recounted
  • Death of a sister from drowning recounted
  • Murder by drowning
  • Murder by gun violence
  • Murder by poisoning
  • Stalking
  • Animal dead body mentioned (seagull)