Writers and Lovers by Lily King 

Writers & Lovers by Lily King

Blindsided by her mother’s sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, mouldy room at the side of a garage, where she works on the novel she’s been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching on to something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey’s fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Workplace sexual harassment
  • Cheating mentioned
  • Anxiety
  • Panic attack
  • Cancer (squamous cell carcinoma)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a wife from cancer mentioned
  • Death of a mother from heart disease
  • Death of a sister mentioned

Finding Joy by Adriana Herrera

Finding Joy by Adriana Herrera 

As his twenty-sixth birthday approaches, Desta Joy Walker finds himself in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the one place he’s been actively avoiding most of his life. For Desta, the East African capital encompasses some of the happiest and saddest parts of his life–his first home and the place where his father died. When an unavoidable work obligation lands him there for twelve weeks, he may finally have a chance for the closure he so desperately needs. What Desta never expected was to catch a glimpse of his future as he reconnects with the beautiful country and his family’s past… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Coming out themes
  • Cheating recounted
  • Anxiety & panic attacks, off-page
  • Parent hospitalised for heart disease
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father recounted

American Dreamer by Adriana Herrera

American Dreamer by Adriana Herrera

For Nesto Vasquez, moving his Afro-Caribbean food truck from New York City to the wilds of Upstate New York is a huge gamble. If it works? He’ll be a big fish in a little pond. If it doesn’t? He’ll have to give up the hustle and return to the day job he hates. He’s got six months to make it happen—the last thing he needs is a distraction.

Jude Fuller is proud of the life he’s built on the banks of Cayuga Lake. He has a job he loves and good friends. It’s safe. It’s quiet. And it’s damn lonely. Until he tries Ithaca’s most-talked-about new lunch spot and works up the courage to flirt with the handsome owner. Soon he can’t get enough—of Nesto’s food or of Nesto. For the first time in his life, Jude can finally taste the kind of happiness that’s always been just out of reach… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Coming out
  • Homomisia
  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Disordered food & weight thoughts
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Terminal cancer
  • Heart attack mentioned
  • Death of a parent, off-page

The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory

The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory

When freelance writer Nikole Paterson goes to a Dodgers game with her actor boyfriend, his man bun, and his bros, the last thing she expects is a scoreboard proposal. Saying no isn’t the hard part–they’ve only been dating for five months, and he can’t even spell her name correctly. The hard part is having to face a stadium full of disappointed fans…

At the game with his sister, Carlos Ibarra comes to Nik’s rescue and rushes her away from a camera crew. He’s even there for her when the video goes viral and Nik’s social media blows up–in a bad way. Nik knows that in the wilds of LA, a handsome doctor like Carlos can’t be looking for anything serious, so she embarks on an epic rebound with him, filled with food, fun, and fantastic sex. But when their glorified hookups start breaking the rules, one of them has to be smart enough to put on the brakes…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Sexual harassment
  • Emotionally abusive relationship recounted
  • Miscarriage mentioned
  • Pregnancy-related medical crisis, including an emergency caesarian & pre-eclampsia
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent from a heart attack recounted

Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson

Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson

Years ago, bookseller and mystery aficionado Malcolm Kershaw compiled a list of the genre’s most unsolvable murders, those that are almost impossible to crack—which he titled “Eight Perfect Murders”—chosen from among the best of the best including Agatha Christie, Patricia Highsmith, and Donna Tartt. But no one is more surprised than Mal, now the owner of the Old Devils Bookstore in Boston, when an FBI agent comes knocking on his door one snowy day in February. She’s looking for information about a series of unsolved murders that look eerily similar to the killings on Mal’s old list. And the FBI agent isn’t the only… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Homomisia
  • Rape
  • Cheating
  • Alcoholism
  • Substance addiction
  • Drug use & abuse
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Overdose
  • Death from a heart attack
  • Murder
  • Poisoning
  • Physical assault
  • Drowning
  • Gun violence
  • Car accident
  • Blackmail

The Year of the Crocodile by Courtney Milan

The Year of the Crocodile by Courtney Milan

Tina Chen and Blake Reynolds have been together for almost a year. In that time, they’ve grown closer on just about every front. The one exception? Blake’s father has never let anything stop him. Tina’s parents have never let anyone push them around. And they’ve never met.

That’s about to change. But don’t worry—fireworks are traditional at Chinese New Years.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Religious persecution & refugee experiences
  • Chinese education camps
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Eating disorder recovery
  • Substance addiction recovery
  • Heart attack recounted

Gerald’s Game by Stephen King

Gerald’s Game by Stephen King

Jessie is trapped: during an ill-fated S&M game, she kicks her husband and induces a fatal coronary. She is handcuffed to the bed in a lakeside cabin in the middle of nowhere, with no means of escape. Voices in her head force her to confront a buried childhood trauma.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Attempted martial rape, on-page
  • Paedophilia & incestuous child sexual assault (father-daughter)
  • Hallucinations, delusions & intrusive thoughts
  • Dehydration
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Physical injury
  • Death of a husband from a heart attack
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Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose office she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.

As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients’ lives — a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can’t stop hooking up with the wrong guys — she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell.

With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Sexism & misogyny
  • Victim blaming
  • Sexual harassment
  • Workplace harassment
  • Abuse, neglect & abandonment
  • Abusive relationships
  • Verbal abuse
  • Intimate partner abuse & violence
  • Estrangement & disownment
  • Child abuse
  • Mental illness
  • Intrusive thoughts
  • Addiction
  • Depression
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Medical treatment & procedures
  • Terminal illness
  • Cancer
  • Heart disease & heart attack
  • Physical injuries & wounds
  • Amputation/Loss of limb
  • Hospital & hospitalisation
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a sibling
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Physical assault
  • Stalking
  • Car accident
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One of Us Is Lying by Karen McManus

On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention. Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule. Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess. Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing. Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher. And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High’s notorious gossip app. Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention, Simon’s dead. And according to investigators, his death wasn’t an accident. On Monday, he died. But on… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism, racism, sexism & slut-shaming
  • Homophobia & coming out themes
  • Dubious consent scenarios involving minors discussed, including mentions of nonconsensual voyeurism*
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Infidelity, recounted & discussed
  • Alcoholism mentioned
  • Bipolar Disorder
  • Suicide & attempted suicide and self-harm
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse and recreational drug use
  • Death from anaphylaxis
  • Cancer mentioned and heart attack
  • Hospitalisation
  • Death of a classmate (on-page)
  • Death of an uncle mentioned
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • School shooting & gun violence discussed
  • Strangulation
  • Physical assault
  • Car accident recounted
  • Blackmail
  • Bullying

*Context: Characters under the influence of alcohol recount having sex, and a protagonist recounts coerced ‘consent’ to sex with her boyfriend.

Rebound by Kwame Alexander

Before Josh and Jordan Bell were streaking up and down the court, their father was learning his own moves. In this prequel, Chuck Bell takes center stage, as readers get a glimpse of his childhood and how he became the jazz music worshipping, basketball star his sons look up to.   

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father from a heart attack & stroke
  • Gun violence