Queen Takes Rose by Katee Robert

Once upon a time I made a deal with the devil. It turns out I like playing in the dark. Over the years, I’ve become someone I’m proud of, someone dangerous. I’ll never be as dangerous as Malone, though. She’s one of the most feared leaders in Carver City, and her reputation is more than earned. Years ago, we had a single night together and she’s ignored me ever since. Imagine my surprise to discover she’s scheduled me for the final two weeks of my contract. Maybe I should be afraid. Everyone else fears Malone. Instead, all I feel is anticipation. It’s time to balance the… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother after twenty years in a life-support coma
  • Caning

Your Perfect Year by Charlotte Lucas

For hyper-particular publishing heir Jonathan Grief, the day starts like any other—with a strict morning fitness regimen that’ll keep his divorced, easily irritated, cynical, forty-two-year-old self in absolutely flawless physical condition. But all it takes to put a crimp in his routine is one small annoyance. Someone has left a leather-bound day planner with the handwritten title Your Perfect Year in his spot on his mountain bike at his fitness course! Determined to discover its owner, Jonathan opens the calendar to find that someone known only as “H.” has filled it in with suggestions, tasks, and affirmative actions for… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Cheating recounted
  • Suicide
  • Alcoholism
  • Dementia
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent mentioned
  • Homelessness

Passing Through by Katia Rose

Emily Rivers does not have time for love. Or dating. Or even a one night stand. As the eldest of the Rivers sisters, she’s too focused on keeping her family’s campground running in the wake of a devastating tragedy to even think about romance. When Kim Jefferies shows up at the local small town bar looking like a lesbian snack on a stick, Emily writes her off as yet another tourist just passing through—no matter how much the butterflies in her stomach try to tell her otherwise. Only Kim’s plans of ‘passing through’ fade the second she sees Emily Rivers, despite… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Panic attack
  • Parent with depression
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother from breast cancer recounted
  • Hiking accident resulting in serious injury

Luck of the Draw by Kate Clayborn

Sure, winning the lottery allows Zoe Ferris to quit her job as a cutthroat corporate attorney, but no amount of cash will clear her conscience about the way her firm treated the O’Leary family in a wrongful death case. So she sets out to make things right, only to find gruff, grieving Aiden O’Leary doesn’t need—or want—her apology. He does, however, need something else from her. Something Zoe is more than willing to give, if only to ease the pain in her heart, a sorrow she sees mirrored in his eyes Aiden doesn’t know what possesses him to ask his family’s enemy to be his fake fiancée. But he needs a bride if he hopes to be the win… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Medical emergencies & treatment including mentions of seizures and chronic asthma
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a twin brother from opioid overdose recounted
  • Death of a father from a heart attack recounted

Love at First by Kate Clayborn

Sixteen years ago, teenager Will Sterling saw – or rather, heard – the girl of his dreams. Now an unexpected inheritance has brought Will back to that same address, where he plans to offload his new property pronto and get back to his regular life. Bound by her loyalty to her adored grandmother, Nora Clarke won’t let Will’s plans ruin her quirky, close-knit building. With a little sabotage, she sets out to foil his renovation efforts. But as their feud heats up, so does the attraction between them. A star-crossed couple, a fateful meeting – maybe it’s the kind of story that can’t work out. Or maybe, it’s the perfect second chance…

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Hospitalisation for a broken leg & hand (secondary character)
  • Heart attack mentioned (secondary character)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of an uncle recounted
  • Death of a grandmother recounted (theme)
  • Death of a father from a terminal illness recounted (protagonist)
  • Death of a mother from an aneurysm recounted (protagonist)

DallerGut Dream Department Store by Lee Mi-ye

In a mysterious town that lies hidden in our collective subconscious, there’s a quaint little store where all kinds of dreams are sold. Day and night, visitors both human and animal from all over the world shuffle in sleepily in their pyjamas, lining up to purchase their latest adventure. Each floor in the department store sells a special kind of dream, including nostalgic dreams about your childhood, trips you’ve taken, and delicious food you’ve eaten, as well as nightmares and more mysterious dreams. In Dallergut Dream Department Store we meet Penny an enthusiastic new-hire; Dallergut, the flamboyant owner of the department store; Agnap Coco, producer… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child mentioned

Libby Lawrence Is Good at Pretending by Jodi McAlister

Nineteen-year-old Libby Lawrence is good at pretending. Problem is, she’s not entirely sure how to stop. Which is good for her role in the campus production of Much Ado About Nothing … but poses problems in her personal life. Especially when the list of things she can’t admit to, even to her best friend Ella, starts to build. Losing her virginity to the too-charming director of her uni theatre group (just before he ran off with the group’s money) is only the start. There’s also an uncomfortable encounter with her broody on-stage love interest Roarke, and her crackling offstage chemistry with nerdy-but-sweetl… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a sibling recounted
  • Stalking

Viciously Yours by Jamie Applegate Hunter

When Rennick was thirteen, the gods bestowed upon him the name of his fated mate–a human girl. As the sole heir to the Mountain Kingdom, magic bound him to his kingdom until he ascended the throne on his twenty-fifth birthday, and as a human, she couldn’t cross the magical barrier separating the humans from the fae. Heartsore and consumed with thoughts of her, he did the only thing he could and sent her anonymous letters and gifts. Until he crossed the barrier into her kingdom to claim her as his own… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder & torture
  • Stalking

Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donne

After the death of her mom, 17-year-old Cecelia Ellis goes to live with her estranged grandmother, a celebrated author whose Victorian mansion is as creepy as the murder mysteries she writes. On the surface, life is utterly ordinary until the homecoming queen is murdered. And she’s not Seaview’s first pretty dead queen. With a copycat killer on the loose, Cecelia throws herself into the investigation, determined to crack the case like the heroines in her grandmother’s books. But the more Cecelia digs into the town’s secrets, the more she worries that her own mystery might not have a storybook ending….

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Classism, racism & homophobia
  • Adult-minor relationship mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use mentioned
  • Minor blood & gore depiction including mentions of dead bodies & emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother from cancer recounted & discussed
  • Murder & knife violence
  • Drowning
  • Animal death (rabbit, dog)

The Old Place by Bobby Finger

Billington, Texas, is a place where nothing changes. Well, almost nothing. For the first time in nearly four decades, Mary Alice Roth is not getting ready for the first day of school at Billington High. A few months into her retirement—or, district mandated exile as she calls it—Mary Alice does not know how to fill her days. The annual picnic is coming up, but that isn’t nearly enough since the menu never changes and she had the roles mentally assigned weeks ago. At least there’s Ellie, who stops by each morning for coffee and whose reemergence in Mary Alice’s life is the one thing soothing the sting of retirement… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Suicide
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a husband from drowning recounted
  • Death of a son mentioned
  • Car accident