A Thorn in the Saddle by Rebekah Weatherspoon

A Thorn in the Saddle by Rebekah Weatherspoon

Ranch owner Jesse Pleasant always felt too big for his desert town–literally–and too brutish to fit in with his charming, cowboy brothers. After his temper gets the best of him one time too many, he’s ready to accept the truth: he’s cursed to be alone. But when the Senate selection committee comes looking for a man of his public standing, he knows this might be his chance to prove to his family and friends that he can keep his cool, all while giving back to his community. There’s only one problem. While Jesse definitely has a mind for business, his people skills are more than… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Workplace sexual harassment mentioned
  • Pregnancy mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Injury
  • Home invasion

Deep Dark Secrets by Keri Beevis

Deep Dark Secrets by Keri Beevis

Lizzie Kent wasn’t supposed to babysit the night she was murdered. She was covering for her best friend, Nell. Nell has lived with the guilt ever since. Eighteen years later Nell returns to the area, desperate to escape a bad relationship after inheriting her aunt’s rundown guesthouse. But her return isn’t welcomed by everyone – in particular Sam Kent, who blames Nell for his sister’s death. And after a few unsettling incidents, it becomes apparent that someone is trying to scare her. Is Sam responsible or has Nell’s abusive ex-boyfriend managed to track her down? Or is someone else, with a more sinister agenda, responsible?

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Abusive relationship recounted
  • Murder of a friend in a home invasion recounted

You Had Me at Hola by Alexis Daria

You Had Me at Hola by Alexis Daria

After a messy public breakup, soap opera darling Jasmine Lin Rodriguez finds her face splashed across the tabloids. When she returns to her hometown of New York City to film the starring role in a bilingual romantic comedy for the number one streaming service in the country, Jasmine figures her new “Leading Lady Plan” should be easy enough to follow—until a casting shake-up pairs her with telenovela hunk Ashton Suárez. After his last telenovela character was killed off, Ashton is worried his career is dead as well. Joining this new cast as a last-minute addition will give him the... Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Hospitalisation
  • Stalking recounted
  • Home invasion recounted

Refugee by Alan Gratz

Josef is a Jewish boy in 1930s Nazi Germany. With the threat of concentration camps looming, he and his family board a ship bound for the other side of the world. Isabel is a Cuban girl in 1994. With riots and unrest plaguing her country, she and her family set out on a raft, hoping to find safety and freedom in America. Mahmoud is a Syrian boy in 2015. With his homeland torn apart by violence and destruction, he and his family begin a long trek toward Europe. All three young people will go on harrowing journeys in search of refuge. All will face unimaginable dangers… Read more.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical antisemitism & Nazism
  • Attempted suicide & suicidal ideation of a grandparent due to trauma sustained in a concentration camp
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Blood & injury depiction, including the mention of the floating dead body with gunshot wounds
  • Physical assault (beating)
  • Police violence
  • Riots, specifically in 1994 Cuba
  • Home invasion
  • Destruction of a home & buildings from a missile strike
  • WWII themes, including detainment in concentration camps
  • Refugee experiences & displacement (theme)
  • Animal attack (secondary character dies from a shark bite)

Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang

Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang

It’s 1966, and twelve-year-old Ji-li Jiang has everything a girl could want: brains, friends, and a bright future in Communist China. But it’s also the year that China’s leader, Mao Ze-dong, launches the Cultural Revolution—and Ji-li’s world begins to fall apart. Over the next few years, people who were once her friends and neighbors turn on her and her family, forcing them to live in constant terror of arrest. When Ji-li’s father is finally imprisoned, she faces the most difficult dilemma of her life..

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Classism
  • Depression
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Torture
  • Home invasion
  • Bullying

The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene

The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene

Nancy, unaided, seeks to find a missing will. To the surprise of many, the Topham family will inherit wealthy Josiah Crowley’s fortune, instead of deserving relatives and friends who were promised inheritances. Nancy determines that a clue to a second will might be found in an old clock Mr. Crowley had owned and she seeks to find the timepiece. Her search not only tests her keen mind, but also leads her into a thrilling adventure. 

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Classism
  • Home invasion
  • Confinement
  • Poverty & financial difficulties (theme)

*Context: Nancy walks in a crew burglarising an unvacated holiday house and they lock her in a wardrobe. Secondary characters struggle with financial concerns, including an elderly lady who cannot afford food or medical treatment.

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Salvation by Sloane Kennedy

Salvation by Sloane Kennedy

Trauma surgeon Ronan Grisham lost everything the day the man he loved was stolen from him in a brutal attack. Driven by a thirst for vengeance, he turns his hatred into building an underground group that can do what he couldn’t that fateful day…take the lives of the guilty to save the lives of the innocent. But years later, he’s forced to confront the one link to his past that he can’t sever. Seven years after the loss of his parents in a violent home invasion that left him permanently scarred both inside and out, 21-year-old Seth Nichols is trying to put his life back together so he… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Anxiety
  • Death of a partner mentioned
  • Murder of parents in a home invasion recounted
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The Babysitters Coven by Kate Williams

The Babysitters Coven by Kate Williams

Seventeen-year-old Esme Pearl has a babysitters club. She knows it’s kinda lame, but what else is she supposed to do? Get a job? Gross. Besides, Esme likes babysitting, and she’s good at it. And lately Esme needs all the cash she can get, because it seems like destruction follows her wherever she goes. Let’s just say she owes some people a new tree. Enter Cassandra Heaven. She’s Instagram-model hot, dresses like she found her clothes in a dumpster, and has a rebellious streak as gnarly as the cafeteria food. So why is Cassandra willing to do anything, even… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Death of a parent
  • Home invasion
  • Kidnapping
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)
  • Bullying

The Dead Don’t Drink at Lafitte’s by Seana Kelly

The Dead Don’t Drink at Lafitte’s by Seana Kelly

I’m Sam Quinn, the werewolf book nerd owner of the Slaughtered Lamb Bookstore and Bar. Things have been busy lately. While the near-constant attempts on my life have ceased, I now have a vampire gentleman caller. I’ve been living with Clive and the rest of his vampires for a few weeks while the Slaughtered Lamb is being rebuilt. It’s going about as well as you’d expect. My mother was a wicche and long dormant abilities are starting to make themselves known. If I’d had a choice, necromancy wouldn’t have been my top pick, but it’s starting to come in handy. A ghost warns me someone is coming to kill Clive. When I rush back to… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault mentioned
  • Panic attacks
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Decapitation
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Torture
  • Lynching
  • Whipping
  • Home invasion
  • Captivity & confinement
  • Hostage situation
  • Blackmail
  • Loss of autonomy
  • Grave desecration
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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.