Tag Archives: Estrangement & Disownment

After Hours on Milagro Street by Angelina M. Lopez

Guapo pobrecito her grandmother calls him. The “poor handsome man.” Professor Jeremiah Post, the poor handsome man, is in fact standing in the way of Alejandra “Alex” Torres turning Loretta’s, her grandmother’s bar, into a viable business. The hot brainiac who sleeps in one of the upstairs tenant rooms already has all of her Mexican American family’s admiration; she won’t let him have the bar and building she needs to resurrect her career, too. Alex blowing into town has rocked Jeremiah to his mild-mannered core, but the large, boisterous Torres clan is everything he never had. He doesn’t believe Alex has the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Racism, on-page
  • Emotional & verbal parental abuse
  • Familial estrangement
  • Parent in recovery for alcoholism
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Abortion mentioned
  • Death of a grandfather recounted
  • Bullying recounted
  • Animal cruelty mentioned

We’ll Never Have Paris by Adriana Anders

Jules aka “World’s most annoying laugher”. It’s Christmas Eve, one of my last nights in Paris, and I get stuck in a tiny elevator with the insufferable, grumpy Welshman from downstairs. I’m wearing nothing but my skimpy PJs and totally inappropriate spike heels. Oh, and the light’s gone out. What could possibly go wrong? Colin aka “Ebenezer McGrumpypants” She’s the neighbour from hell. Loud, brash, and American, with the body of a pin-up and the laugh of a wild hyena. My only wish is that she’ll move out and be done with Paris forever. Fate, apparently, has other ideas because tonight of all nights, when the city’s shut.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental estrangement
  • Sexual assault recounted (groping)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a mother in a car accident recounted
  • Death of a brother in an explosion recounted

Too Hot to Touch by Katy James

He’s spent a lifetime putting up walls to protect himself, but he never expected one woman to break them all down. Between working multiple jobs and tackling her dissertation, it’s hardly unexpected PhD student Murray Silva is a hot mess. What is unexpected? Tyler Valentine. When the hockey playboy and former—okay, current—crush shows up in her summer school class, he immediately becomes the kind of distraction she doesn’t need. Want, however? That’s a whole other story. Tyler Valentine understands… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia & internalised homomisia including parental estrangement
  • Forced outing recounted
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Sports injuries including dislocated shoulders and broken bones
  • Parent in remission for breast cancer

*Context : The protagonist was outed by his partner to their hockey team in the past, resulting in bullying and being traded to another team.

With Love, from Cold World by Alicia Thompson

Lauren Fox is the bookkeeper for Cold World, a tourist destination that’s always a winter wonderland despite being located in humid Orlando, Florida. Sure, it’s ranked way below any of the trademarked amusement parks and maybe foot traffic could be better. But it’s a fun place to work, even if “fun” isn’t exactly Lauren’s middle name.

Her coworker Asa Williamson, on the other hand, is all about finding ways to enliven his days at Cold World–whether that means organizing the Secret Santa or teasing Lauren… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Bimisia
  • Queermisia & religious bigotry
  • Sexual harassment
  • Foster care system
  • Parental estrangement
  • Outing recounted
  • Parent with a substance addiction recounted
  • Death of a parent from an overdose recounted

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. At the core of this rich, expansive, layered novel, Lauren Groff presents the story of one such marriage over the course of twenty-four years.
At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault
  • Sex work
  • Family estrangement
  • Agoraphobia
  • Depression
  • Eating disorder
  • Suicide
  • Drug use & overdose
  • Cancer

When the Lights Come On by Katia Rose

When the Lights Come On by Katia Rose

Paige Rivera doesn’t intend to end up among the twice-fooled. It’s been six years since Youssef Salah let her down, and not even the shock of his reappearance is enough to make her consider letting him do it again. She learned a lot from that first fall: how to pick herself up, brush herself off, and push away anyone with the ability to knock her off her feet. He’s no longer the teenage boy she knew, but Youssef still possess the powers of a gravitational force, so Paige employs her failsafe strategy: head down, eyes on the prize. The prize in this case is her burgeoning career…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Familial estrangement
  • Emotional child abuse
  • Drugging

Names for the Dawn by CL Beaumont

Names for the Dawn by C.L. Beaumont

Seasoned Park Ranger Will Avery has found his home in the Denali wilderness, cherishing his solitary routines for the decade leading up to 1991. The trade-off that no one knows of his identity as a transgender man feels worth it for the comforting assurance he finds in the towering glaciers. Until Will discovers an unexpected passenger in his truck—the visiting wolf biologist everyone in the Park is ecstatic to meet—Nikhil Rajawat. Nikhil doesn’t return his new colleagues’ fervour. He’s dreamt of Denali for one reason: the pinnacle of his research, and it isn’t anyone’s business that this is the last year he’ll get to chase the wolves. He… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Homomisia discussed
  • Transmisia recounted*
  • Familial estrangement & disownment*
  • Physical child abuse recounted*
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Insomnia
  • Nightmare
  • Parent with alcoholism recounted
  • Recovery from substance addiction including an off-page relapse
  • Suicidal ideation recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Pregnancy & childbirth mentioned (sc)
  • Weight loss mentioned
  • Gender dysphoria & body dysmorphia
  • Scars from top surgery mentioned
  • Gun violence*
  • Bullying
  • Animal death, including a wolf cub & death of a pet dog

*Context : When the protagonist came out to his father, his father shot a gun at the barn near him. He has wondered for years if it was intentional or an accident. As a child, the protagonist’s mother physically abused him and burnt him with cigarettes.

Something Wild and Wonderful by Anita Kelly

Something Wild and Wonderful by Anita Kelly

When Alexei Lebedev finally comes out to his conservative community, it does not go well. That’s how he ended up on the rugged Pacific Crest Trail, hoping he can figure out a new life plan in the thousands of miles it’ll take to walk the famed hike. He’s prepared for rattlesnakes, blisters, and months of solitude. What he’s not prepared for is the ray of sunshine named Ben Caravalho. Charismatic and outgoing, Ben’s personality and infectious laughter are a stark opposite of Alexei’s quiet, reserved demeanour. But no matter how determined Alexei is to hike the trail alone, it seems he and Ben can’t avoid… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Familial estrangement due to religious-based queermisia
  • Coming out recounted
  • Emotionally abusive relationship recounted
  • Social anxiety
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of an aunt from Alzheimer’s Disease

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.

Goodreads • The 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)

The Twisted Dead by Darcy Coates

The Twisted Dead by Darcy Coates

Keira is ready for her life to return to normal. Though, to be fair, normal is a tall ask when your ability to see ghosts has landed you the job of groundskeeper in a small town’s cemetery. When Keira receives an invitation to dinner at Dane Crispin’s crumbling ancestral estate, she knows she can’t refuse. The last living descendant of the Crispin family is reclusive. Keira only met him once…on the night he tried to kill her. The mansion is steeped in history that is equal parts complicated and bloody. Keira senses the presence of restless spirits the moment she steps through its door. And Dane, waiting for her inside, wants to ask for her help.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Familial estrangement mentioned
  • Amnesia
  • Parent with a chronically, and possibly terminally, ill parent (sc)
  • Blood and physical injuries, on-page
  • Needles
  • Arson and damage to property discussed
  • Murder including murder by stabbing and knife violence, on-page
  • Gun violence