Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk

A magical detective dives into the affairs of Chicago’s divine monsters to secure a future with the love of her life. This sapphic period piece will dazzle anyone looking for mystery, intrigue, romance, magic, or all of the above. An exiled auspex who sold her soul to save her brother’s life is offered one last job before serving an eternity in hell. When she turns it down, her client sweetens the pot by offering up the one payment she can’t resist―the chance to have a future where she grows old with the woman she loves. To succeed, she is given three days to track down the White City Vampire, Chicago’s most notorious serial killer. If… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical homophobia, specifically lesbophobia, & misogyny, including incarceration, institutionalisation of disabled and queer women, and mentions of electroshock therapy (as conversion therapy)
  • Graphic alcohol consumption & smoking (on-page)
  • Blood & gore depiction and mentions of emesis
  • Death of parents in a car accident recounted
  • Murder & mentions of human sacrifice
  • Gun violence
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)

My Best Friend’s Honeymoon by Meryl Wilsner

Elsie Hoffman has been engaged to her college boyfriend for a year and a half. Ginny Holtz has been in love with Elsie for almost a decade and a half. When Elsie discovers her fiancé already planned their wedding and honeymoon as a surprise and she’s expected to be in a white dress in seven days, she swiftly realizes she’s let herself become too comfortable with a future she never wanted. She breaks things off, and a week later is on a plane to the Caribbean for her non-refundable honeymoon with her best friend Ginny instead. Ginny thinks it’s… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Lesbophobia (d slur)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Childhood bullying mentioned

Alice Payne Rides by Kate Heartfield

Alice Payne Rides by Kate Heartfield

After abducting Arthur of Brittany from his own time in 1203, thereby creating the mystery that partly prompted the visit in the first place, Alice and her team discover that they have inadvertently brought the smallpox virus back to 1780 with them. Searching for a future vaccine, Prudence finds that the various factions in the future time war intend to use the crisis to their own advantage. Can the team prevent an international pandemic across time, and put history back on its tracks? At least until the next battle in the time war…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical misogyny & lesbophobia
  • Sexual harassment (unwanted touching)
  • Childbirth mentioned
  • Plague (smallpox)
  • Death of a sister
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping & imprisonment
  • War themes & a battle scene

Lover Birds by Leanne Egan

When Isabel Williams moves to Liverpool, she criticises seemingly everything in Eloise Byrne’s life – her city, her accent, her trademark boldness – so if, when she catches Isabel staring, Eloise feels her pulse race, it must be because they hate each other. It surely couldn’t be for any other reason, could it? Eloise needs to get her ADHD under control in time for A-Levels, but when she meets Isabel, school becomes the least of her concerns. What begins as outright contempt turns into an oddly satisfactory rivalry, but for their rivalry to shift further into romance, their relationship must withstand Isabel’s classism, Eloise’s distrust, and whatever secrets their friends are hiding from them..

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual harassment
  • Lesbophobia & slurs
  • Coming out themes
  • Alcohol consumption

Hers for the Weekend by Helena Greer

The relationship is a lie but the sparks are real in this laugh-out-loud, sparkling rom-com where a no-nonsense lawyer fakes a relationship with her barista to avoid going solo to her ex-girlfriend’s wedding.  No-nonsense lawyer Tara Sloane Chadwick is perfectly fine with going to her ex’s wedding—the break-up was congenial, and Tara is nothing if not well-mannered. But after one too many reminders of her dismal dating track, Tara panics when asked if she’ll need a plus-one and declares she’s bringing her new girlfriend. One Tara is seriously single. Thankfully, Holly… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & lesbophobia
  • Alcohol consumption

Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun

A long time ago, Logan Maletis and Rosemary Hale used to be friends. They spent their childhood summers running through the woods, rebelling against their conservative small town, and dreaming of escaping. But then an incident the summer before high school turned them into bitter rivals. After graduation, they went ten years without speaking. Now in their thirties, Logan and Rosemary find they aren’t quite living the lives of adventure they imagined for themselves. Still in their small town and working as teachers at their alma mater, they’re both stuck in old patterns. Uptight Rosemary chooses security and stability over all else… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Lesbophobia
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Alcoholism (protagonist) & mentions of parent with alcoholism
  • Panic attacks
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis
  • Terminal cancer discussed (secondary character)

Penance by Eliza Clark

It’s been nearly a decade since the horrifying murder of sixteen-year-old Joan Wilson rocked Crow-on-Sea, and the events of that terrible night are now being published for the first time. That story is Penance, a dizzying feat of masterful storytelling, where Eliza Clark manoeuvres us through accounts from the inhabitants of this small seaside town. Placing us in the capable hands of journalist Alec Z. Carelli, Clark allows him to construct what he claims is the ‘definitive account’ of the murder – and what led up to it. Built on hours of interviews with witnesses and family members, painstaking historical research, and most… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia & lesbophovia
  • Sexual assault of a child recounted (protagonist)
  • Necrophilia & hybristophilia discussed
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use
  • Death of a daughter from suicide mentioned
  • Death of a classmate from drowning mentioned
  • Murder by being burned alive (on-page)
  • School shooting mentioned
  • Bullying

Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth

It’s the early 1990s, and in the Irish village of Crossmore, Lucy feels out of place. Despite her fierce friendships, she’s always felt this way, and the conventional path of marriage and motherhood doesn’t appeal to her at all. Not even with handsome and doting Martin, her closest childhood friend. Lucy begins to make sense of herself during a long hot summer, when a spark with her school friend Susannah escalates to an all-consuming infatuation, and, very quickly, to a desperate and devastating love. Fearful of rejection from her small and conservative community, Lucy begins living a double life, hiding the most… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical lesbophobia & slurs

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Lesbomisia
  • Adult-minor relationship
  • Paedophilia
  • Rape
  • Sexual harassment
  • Emotional abuse
  • Depression
  • Schizophrenia
  • Self-harm
  • Suicide & attempted suicide
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Terminal cancer
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent

Pageboy by Elliot Page

Pageboy is a ground-breaking coming-of-age memoir from the Academy Award-nominated actor Elliot Page. A generation-defining actor and one of the most famous trans advocates of our time, Elliot will now be known as an uncommon literary talent, as he shares never-before-heard details and intimate interrogations on gender, love, mental health, relationships, and Hollywood.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Graphic homomisia & slurs
  • Lesbomisia & slurs
  • Transmisia, deadnaming & misgendering
  • Coming out themes including outing
  • Sexual assault
  • Adult-minor relationship & grooming
  • Emotional child abuse
  • Eating disorder including food restriction
  • Body dysphoria discussed
  • Social anxiety & panic attacks
  • Self-harm
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Emesis
  • Top surgery
  • Stalking