Watch Over Me by Nina LaCour

Eighteen-year-old Mila has been in the foster system since her mother abandoned her. Now that she’s graduating high school, she has nothing to do and nowhere to call home. So when she gets an offer to work as an intern on the Farm, she readily accepts. Her main job is to take care of eight-year-old Lee. At first the Farm seems like an idyllic paradise, a remote place on the cliffs with view of the sea far below. But Mila soon realises there’s something more sinister going on. Lee’s recent trauma causes Mila’s own frightening memories to bubble to the surface…. Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & neglect (theme)
  • Parental abandonment recounted
  • Emotional, psychological & financial domestic abuse
  • Gaslighting
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Needles & medical treatment mentioned
  • Car accident mentioned
  • Death of grandmother & grandfather mentioned
  • Fire & death from fire
  • Near-drowning incident

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

The Manicurist’s Daughter by Susan Lieu

Susan Lieu has long been searching for answers about her family’s past and about her own future. Refugees from the Vietnam War, Susan’s family escaped to California in the 1980s after five failed attempts. Upon arrival, Susan’s mother was their savvy, charismatic North Star, setting up two successful nail salons and orchestrating every success―until Susan was eleven. That year, her mother died from a botched tummy tuck. After the funeral, no one was ever allowed to talk about her or what had happened. For the next twenty years, Susan navigated a series of cascading questions alone―why did the most perfect… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction (theme)
  • Death of a mother during cosmetic surgery

Four Weekends and a Funeral by Ellie Palmer

When thirty-year-old post-double-mastectomy BRCA 1 carrier and reluctant thrill-seeker Alison Mullally arrives at her ex-boyfriend Sam’s funeral to find that no one knows he dumped her, she agrees to play the grieving girlfriend for the sake of the family and pack up Sam’s apartment with his prickly best friend, Adam Berg. After all, it’ll only take four weekends. But Adam doesn’t want Alison anywhere near him. Forced to spend long hours with the grump, and his monosyllabic demeanor, Alison decides she must put her people-pleasing abilities to the test. She will make him like her. And after awkward family affairs and packing up dilemmas… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Cancer*
  • Surgery (double mastectomy)

Context : The protagonist has a mastectomy to mitigate the risk of breast cancer as she has the BRCA1 gene mutation.

Through the Glen by Samantha Young

Theo Cavendish is the second son of a British viscount, and he’s spent years running from the aristocratic world he grew up in. Betrayal and loss taught him lessons he’s not quick to forget. As an award-winning screenwriter and creator, Theo prefers to throw himself into the world of film and television. He moves from one project to another, never really letting anyone truly know him. As a housekeeper at the exclusive Ardnoch Estate, shy Sarah McCulloch feels invisible most days. No one really knows her, and they definitely don’t know she’s a bestselling crime writer. She dreams of seeing her series on screen and believes only one… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity mentioned
  • Panic attacks
  • Blood depiction & medical content
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of grandparents mentioned
  • Death of a parent from cancer
  • Knife violence

Saha by Cho Nam-Joo

In a country called ‘Town’, Su is found dead in an abandoned car. The suspected killer is presumed to come from the Saha Estates. Town is a privatised country, controlled by a secretive organisation known as the Seven Premiers. It is a society clearly divided into the haves and have-nots and those who have the very least live on the Saha Estates. Among their number is Jin-Kyung, a young woman whose brother, Dok-yung, was in a relationship with Su and quickly becomes the police’s prime suspect. When Dok-yung disappears, Jin Ky-ung is determined to get to the bottom of things.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism & classism
  • Sexual assault
  • Pregnancy & abortion
  • Suicide
  • Death of a child
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Unethical human experimentation & medical procedures (on-page)
  • Gun violence
  • Police brutality
  • Animal cruelty

The Stalker by Sarah Alderson

Newly-weds Liam and Laura are spending their honeymoon in paradise: just the two of them on a remote island off the coast of Scotland. But they soon discover that all is not as it seems, and the island has a tragic past. And they can’t shake the feeling of being watched… When one morning, they wake to find a message scratched into the window, their worst fears are confirmed. They aren’t alone on the island. And this stranger wants them dead.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Fatphobia and body shaming (on-page)
  • Child abuse mentioned
  • Domestic violence and intimate partner abuse including food deprivation, captivity, physical & sexual assault (on-page)
  • Rape by a spouse/partner (on-page)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Emesis
  • Mentions of a parent recovering from cancer
  • Physical injury and amateur medical treatment (on-page, glass shard stuck in foot)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a fiance
  • Death of a mother from a fall down the stairs (later revealed to be murder)
  • Murder of a husband by gun violence (on-page, self-defence for abuse)
  • Stalking
  • Animal injury (crow)
  • Kidnapping of a pet dog
  • Murder of a kitten (abusive partner kills the cat off-page by the body is found on-page)

A Shot at Normal by Marisa Reichardt

Juniper Jade’s parents are hippies. They didn’t attend the first Woodstock, but they were there for the second one. The Jade family lives an all-organic homeschool lifestyle that means no plastics, no cell phones, and no vaccines. It isn’t exactly normal, but it’s the only thing Juniper has ever known. She doesn’t agree with her parents on everything, but she knows that to be in this family, you’ve got to stick to the rules. That is, until the unthinkable happens. Juniper contracts the measles and unknowingly passes the disease along, with tragic consequences. She is shell-shocked. June.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Discussions of antivaxxers and child neglect
  • Physical illness (measles)
  • Death of an infant

Dance with the Devil by Kit Rocha

Tobias Richter, the fearsome VP of Security of the TechCorps is dead. The puppetmaster is gone and the organization is scrambling to maintain control by ruthlessly limiting Atlanta’s access to resources, hoping to quell rebellion. Our band of mercenary librarians have decided that the time for revolution has come. Maya uses her wealth of secrets to weaken the TechCorps from within. Dani strikes from the shadows, picking off the chain of command one ambush at a time. And Nina is organizing their community―not just to survive, but to fight back. When Maya needs to make contact with a sympathetic insider, Dani… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Suicide mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Physical injury including amputation due to a gunshot wound (secondary character)
  • Medical experimentation recounted
  • Heart transplant surgery mentioned
  • Death of a sister recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Physical assailt
  • Bombings
  • War themes & battle scenes

Butcher and Blackbird by Brynne Weaver

Every serial killer needs a friend. Every game must have a winner. When a chance encounter sparks an unlikely bond between rival murderers Sloane and Rowan, the two find something elusive—the friendship of a like-minded, pitch-black soul. From small town West Virginia to upscale California, from downtown Boston to rural Texas, the two hunters collide in an annual game of blood and suffering, one that pits them against the most dangerous monsters in the country. But as their friendship develops into something more, the restless ghosts left in their wake are only a few steps behind, ready to claim more than just their new… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault of a child mentioned
  • Child abuse & neglect mentioned
  • Death of a parent in childbirth
  • Murder of a parent
  • Medical procedures
  • Cannibalism
  • Murder
  • Knife, axe, and chainsaw violence