Tag Archives: Mental Illness

Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn

Longtime personal assistant Georgie Mulcahy has made a career out of putting others before herself. When an unexpected upheaval sends her away from her hectic job in L.A. and back to her hometown, Georgie must confront an uncomfortable truth: her own wants and needs have always been a disconcertingly blank page. But then Georgie comes across a forgotten artifact—a “friendfic” diary she wrote as a teenager, filled with possibilities she once imagined. To an overwhelmed Georgie, the diary’s simple, small-scale ideas are a lifeline—a guidebook for getting started… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Familial estrangement
  • Emotional child abuse
  • Anxiety
  • Substance addiction & depression recovery
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Pregnancy & childbirth mentioned (secondary character)
  • Parent with rheumatoid arthritis
  • Death of a mother from cancer mentioned (secondary character)
  • Bullying recounted
  • Dog attack & minor injuries to pet dog

Best of Luck by Kate Clayborn

Greer Hawthorne is finally on the cusp of proving to her big, overprotective family that shes independent until a careless mistake jeopardizes her plan to graduate. Lucky for her, theres someone in town who may be able to help. Alex Averin plans to show up for his sisters wedding, then get straight back to his job as a world-renowned photojournalist. But when gorgeous, good-hearted Greer needs an assist with a photography project, he’s powerless to say no. Can a ceaseless wanderer find a stopping place alongside a woman determined to set out on her own, or are Alex and Greer both pushing their luck too far?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism and internalised ableism
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Parent with alcoholism & gambling addiction
  • Physical injuries
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of mother recounted
  • Poverty recounted

Beginner’s Luck by Kate Clayborn

Kit Averin is anything but a gambler. A scientist with a quiet, steady job at a university, Kit’s focus has always been maintaining the acceptable status quo. A sudden windfall doesn’t change that, with one exception: the fixer-upper she plans to buy, her first and only real home. It’s more than enough to keep her busy, until an unsettlingly handsome, charming, and determined corporate recruiter shows up in her lab—and manages to work his way into her heart… Ben Tucker is surprised to find that the scientist he wants for Beaumont Materials is a young woman-and a… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment & neglect recounted
  • Dieting mentioned
  • Parent with alcoholism & gambling addiction
  • Serious physical injury of a parent, requiring the use of a wheelchair & cane
  • Stroke
  • Arson recounted

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Her city is under siege. The zombies are coming back. And all Nona wants is a birthday party. In many ways, Nona is like other people. She lives with her family, has a job at her local school, and loves walks on the beach and meeting new dogs. But Nona’s not like other people. Six months ago she woke up in a stranger’s body, and she’s afraid she might have to give it back. The whole city is falling to pieces. A monstrous blue sphere hangs on the horizon, ready to tear the planet apart. Blood of Eden forces have surrounded the last Cohort facility and wait for the…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Suicidal ideation & suicide (secondary character)
  • Protagonist with pica & food sensory issues
  • Panic attack
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction including body horror, cancer, jellyfish sting, needles and dead bodies
  • Eugenics recounted
  • Murder by stabbing & shooting
  • Immolation (secondary characters)
  • Physical assault
  • Loss of autonomy (possession)
  • Nuclear bombs
  • Alcohol consumption & smoking (cigarettes)

Return to the DallerGut Dream Department Store by Lee Mi-ye

It has been a year since Penny first walked through the doors of DallerGut Dream Department Store, and surviving a year at the store means one thing . . . She is now an official employee of the dream industry! She can finally take the express commuter train to the Company District, where all the dream production companies are located and discover how all raw dream materials and testing equipment are produced. But the Company District is not quite what she expected, it hides the darker underbelly of the magical industry that Penny thought she was a part of… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Depression
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Dieting mentioned

Not Here to Make Friends by Jodi McAlister

Murray O’Connell is standing on the greatest precipice of his career. As showrunner of the reality dating show Marry Me, Juliet, Murray is determined to make this season a success. Nothing and nobody will stand in his way. Except perhaps Lily Fireball, the network’s choice for this season’s villain. Lily has classic reality TV appeal: She’s feisty, dramatic, and never backs down from a fight. She also happens to be Murray’s estranged best friend and former co-showrunner. What was once a perfectly planned season turns to chaos as the two battle for control. Working in reality television, they’re used to drama, secrets, and romance. But what happens when suddenly they’re at the center of the storyline?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Outing
  • Anxiety & panic attack (secondary character)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Secondary character in cancer remission
  • COVID-19 pandemic
  • Physical assault (off-page)
  • Death of a husband in a car accident recounted

Can I Steal You for a Second? by Jodi McAlister

Mandie Mitchell will do anything to get over her toxic ex. Even sign up to the polarising reality dating show, Marry Me, Juliet. But with her self-esteem in tatters, she’s not sure she’s brave enough to actually go on the show – until she forms a friendship with fellow contestant Dylan Gilchrist, who gives her the push she needs. Dylan is everything Mandie is not – tough, strong, and totally unafraid to speak her mind. Unfortunately, she also looks set to win, as she soon becomes the clear favourite of the Romeo, who also happens to share the same name. It’s annoying, really, just how perfect the Dylans seem for… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Workplace sexism & sexual harassment
  • Biphobia & panphobia recounted including forced outing (secondary character)
  • Infidelity recounted
  • Anxiety & panic attacks (secondary character)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Dieting discussed
  • COVID-19 pandemic
  • Death of a father from cancer mentioned
  • Bullying

Context : One protagonist’s ex-husband cheated and the other left her ex-boyfriend for another woman.

Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith

In 1986, the teenage daughter of a wealthy family gets lost in an abandoned rubber plantation while fleeing her angry father and is forever changed by the experience. In 2009, pressed into a dangerous scheme by a former lover, a woman captures a rare two-headed cobra. And in 2011, a young, unhappy American living in Saigon with her sort-of boyfriend disappears without a trace. Over the course of the novel, the fates of these three women will lock together in an exhilarating series of nested narratives. Along the way, we meet a young boy sent to a boarding school in the mountains for the métis children of French expatriates just… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape & sexual assault
  • Incest
  • Attempted necrophilia
  • Eating disorder
  • Suicide
  • Drug use & abuse
  • Body horror
  • Murder
  • Animal death & cruelty

The Lotus Empire by Tasha Suri

Malini has claimed her rightful throne as the empress of Parijatdvipa, just as the nameless gods prophesied. Now, in order to gain the support of the priesthood who remain loyal to the fallen emperor, she must consider a terrible Claim her throne and burn in order to seal her legacy—or find another willing to take her place on the pyre. Priya has survived the deathless waters and now their magic runs in her veins. But a mysterious yaksa with flowering eyes and a mouth of thorns lies beneath the waters. The yaksa promises protection for Ahiranya. But in exchange, she needs a sacrifice. And she’s chosen Priya as the one to offer it… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny & sexism
  • Intimate partner violence
  • Forced parent-child separation mentioned
  • Alcoholism
  • Suicidal ideation & self-sacrifice
  • Alcohol consumption & drug use (pipe & hookah smoking)
  • Blood & injury depiction including burns, broken bones, chronic pain, illness (which causes plants to grow through skin) and emesis
  • Death of a brother recounted
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Fire
  • Drowning
  • Imprisonment
  • War themes & battle scenes
  • Animal death

A Jingle Bell Mingle by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone

Part-time adult film actress/one-time adult film director/makeup artist Sunny Palmer has accidentally sold her very first screenplay to the Hope Channel. That was six months ago. Fast forward to a looming deadline, an uninspired Sunny has returned to the source of her inspiration in Christmas Notch, Vermont, to immerse herself in the local Christmas miracle on which her fever dream of a movie pitch was based. Isaac Kelly, former boy band heartthrob and the saddest boy in the music biz, is the latest owner of the town’s historic mansion. After his years of heartbreak following his young wife’s death, Isaac’s record label is done waiting… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Depression
  • Death of a wife from pancreatic cancer recounted (protagonist)
  • Death of parents in a drunk hit-and-run accident recounted
  • Minor animal sickness mentioned (secondary character)