The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian

The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian

When Elizabeth Endicott arrives in Aleppo, Syria she has a diploma from Mount Holyoke, a crash course in nursing, and only the most basic grasp of the Armenian language. The year is 1915 and she has volunteered on behalf of the Boston-based Friends of Armenia to help deliver food and medical aid to refugees of the Armenian genocide. There Elizabeth becomes friendly with Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has already lost his wife and infant daughter. When Armen leaves Aleppo and travels south into Egypt to join the British army, he begins to write Elizabeth… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Death of a wife & daughter
  • Armenian Genocide (theme)
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Beard Necessities by Penny Reid

Beard Necessities by Penny Reid

No one deserves a happily-ever-after quite as much as the second oldest Winston brother and his lady love, Claire McClure (aka Scarlet St. Claire). Cruelty and circumstance tore them apart almost twenty years ago. Secrecy and bitterness kept them separated. But you know who’s tired of their separation and stubbornness? Everyone. Especially Billy Winston’s family. And now they’re going to do something about it. Well-meaning interference means the star-crossed lovers can’t stop tripping over each other in the hills of Tuscany, the catacombs of Rome, and the waterways of… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Coerced adult-minor marriage
  • Marital rape
  • Pregnancy mentioned
  • Death of a mother from cancer recounted
  • Death of a spouse during military service
  • Knife violence & stabbing mentioned
  • Death of a pet dog mentioned
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The Remaking of Corbin Wale by Roan Parrish

The Remaking of Corbin Wale by Roan Parrish

Last month, Alex Barrow’s whole life imploded—partner, home, job, all gone in forty-eight hours. But sometimes when everything falls apart, better things appear almost like magic. Now, he’s back in his Michigan hometown, finally opening the bakery he’s always dreamed of. But the pleasure of opening day is nothing compared to the lonely and beautiful man who bewitches Alex before he even orders. Corbin Wale is a weirdo. At least, that’s what he’s heard his whole life. He knows he’s often in a fantasy world, but the things he feels are very real. And so is the reason… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & homophobia
  • Intimate partner abuse mentioned (secondary character)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father from an aneurysm recounted
  • Death of an aunt recounted
  • Death of a spouse from a heart attack mentioned (secondary character)
  • Bullying recounted

The Final Hunt by Audrey Cole

The Final Hunt by Audrey J. Cole

Alone in a hunting cabin, off-grid in an untamed wilderness. How does a marriage come to this? After John disappeared while hunting-presumed dead from a bear attack-Cameron found the crime photos. His role in the recent Seattle serial murders was discovered. The media destroyed her reputation. She lost her dental practice, is on the brink of losing her home. Everyone has a secret. But if her husband could hide the unimaginable from her, who’s to say he’s truly dead?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a husband in a hunting accident
  • Murder
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Times Like These by Ana McKenzie

Times Like These by Ana McKenzie

Merren Hardy is delighted when her thirst for new experiences turns into a holiday job for an attractive older woman. She’s more than happy to be muse, model, assistant, and lover – especially lover – for brilliant and successful Bianca Graves. After all, Merren’s smart with a big-picture view of the world and a practical streak wide enough to deal with Bianca’s difficulties. She’s a problem-solver. Except there’s one problem Merren’s never had to solve before – what happens when you fall in love with a woman who can’t see you properly? Bianca’s an artist losing… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Death of a spouse recounted
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The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager

Casey Fletcher, a recently widowed actress trying to escape a streak of bad press, has retreated to the peace and quiet of her family’s lake house in Vermont. Armed with a pair of binoculars and several bottles of liquor, she passes the time watching Tom and Katherine Royce, the glamorous couple who live in the house across the lake. They make for good viewing—a tech innovator, Tom is rich; and a former model, Katherine is gorgeous. One day on the lake, Casey saves Katherine from drowning, and the two strike up a budding friendship. But the more they get to know each other—and… Read more,

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence
  • Graphic alcohol consumption & abuse (on-age, theme)
  • Alcoholism & recovery discussed (protagonist & secondary character)
  • Recreational drug use mentioned (off-page)
  • Self-sacrifice (on-page)
  • Minor injury & illness, including emesis & fainting spells
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Murder by drowning & near-drowning incidents (on-page)
  • Death of a husband by accidental drowning discussed
  • Death of a wife from suicide by throwing herself down a set of stars discussed (disguised as an accidental death)
  • Poisoning
  • Physical assault
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Home invasion & stalking
  • Disappearance of a friend & missing person cases discussed (on-page)
  • Loss of autonomy (ghost possession)

Context: The protagonist is an alcoholic and her love interest is in recovery for alcoholism after losing his wife. The protagonist drugs her husband and dumps him in the lake to drown after she discovers he’s a serial killer. The protagonist’s neighbour is attempting to kill his wife by poisoning (and she almost drowns due to muscle weakness caused by the poison). The protagonist witnesses the wife punch the husband after a fight.

The Dream Hunter by Laura Kinsale

The Dream Hunter by Laura Kinsale

Desperate to find safety in England, Zenia, the descendent of the Queen of the Desert, dresses herself as a Bedouin boy. For protection, she agrees to guide Arden, the Lord of Winter, through the wilds of her dangerous desert homeland as he searches for a legendary Arabian mare. Consigned by her mother to live disguised, Zenia hasn’t the courage to admit her sex to Arden. Yet, as they cross a merciless desert, she comes to yearn for this fearless, untamable man to know the feminine heart beating beneath her Bedouin rags. Lord Winter’s loneliness and adventurous spirit have always driven him to the… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Antiziganism
  • Misogyny
  • Unplanned pregnancy
  • Childbirth
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a fiancé by drowning
  • Death of a mother
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Imprisonment
  • Animal attack (snake) mentioned

Bloodwitch by Susan Dennard

Bloodwitch by Susan Dennard

High in a snowy mountain range, a monastery that holds more than just faith clings to the side of a cliff. Below, thwarted by a lake, a bloodthirsty horde of raiders await the coming of winter and the frozen path to destroy the sanctuary and its secrets. The Bloodwitch Aeduan has teamed up with the Threadwitch Iseult and the magical girl Owl to stop the destruction. But to do so, he must confront his own father, and his past.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Nightmares
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction including dead bodies
  • Graphic physical injuries & illness
  • Emesis
  • Death of a baby, on-page
  • Death of a wife & daughter mentioned
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Mass murder & massacres, on-page
  • Torture mentioned
  • Gun violence
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Fire
  • Explosions, on-page
  • Decapitation
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)
  • Kidnapping
  • Disappearance of a friend
  • Imprisonment mentioned
  • War & military violence (theme)

The Last Story of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kim

The Last Story of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kim

Margot Lee’s mother, Mina, isn’t returning her calls. It’s a mystery to twenty-six-year-old Margot, until she visits her childhood apartment in Koreatown, LA, and finds that her mother has suspiciously died. The discovery sends Margot digging through the past, unravelling the tenuous invisible strings that held together her single mother’s life as a Korean War orphan and an undocumented immigrant, only to realize how little she truly knew about her mother. Interwoven with Margot’s present-day search is Mina’s story of her first year in Los Angeles as she navigates the promises and perils of the American myth of reinvention. While… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Attempted rape & sexual assault
  • Sexual harassment
  • Domestic abuse mentioned
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Cancer
  • Death of a mother
  • Death of a daughter
  • Death of a husband
  • Gun violence
  • Stalking mentioned
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The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Bergensdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Northern town of Vardø must fend for themselves. Three years later, a sinister figure arrives. Absalom Cornet comes from Scotland, where he burned witches in the northern isles. He brings with him his young Norwegian wife, Ursa, who is both heady with her husband’s authority and terrified by it. In Vardø, and in Maren… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Period-typical misogyny
  • Anti-indigenous racism
  • Colonialism
  • Religious bigotry and persecution for witchcraft (theme) including the on-page depiction of witch trials and burning women at the stake
  • Graphic martial rape and sexual assault
  • Infidelity*
  • Forced marriage
  • Pregnancy and pregnancy from rape discussed including childbirth
  • Miscarriage
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction including dead bodies
  • Death of a friend, on-page
  • Death of a father, husband and brother mentioned
  • Mass death by boating accident
  • Murder, on-page
  • Torture, implied
  • Imprisonment mentioned
  • Near-drowning incident
  • Animal death

*Context : The protagonist falls in love with a woman but is in a forced arranged marriage with a man.

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