Tag Archives: Mental Illness

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby. Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small-town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Depression mentioned
  • Stroke (parent)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a mother recounted

Dominate Me: Alpha by Eve Healy

Dominate Me: Alpha by Eve Healy

Nathan and Sam’s relationship didn’t start off all that wholesome. Nathan, a recessive alpha, went to an omega brothel known as the Omega House, looking for a dominant omega to have a good time with. Due to a door number mix-up, Nathan ended up in the room of the dominant omega, Sam, a tall, masculine, and very non-omega omega. Sam turns Nathan’s world upside down, and their steamy night ends up being the first of many as Nathan marks Sam, and they end up being bondmates, intrinsically tied for the rest of their lives. While they aren’t the standard alpha and omega couple, in more ways than one, they do follow the usual expectations of most alpha and omega… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sex work
  • Depression
  • Pregnancy
  • Miscarriage

Refugee by Alan Gratz

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.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism
  • Blood depiction
  • Attempted suicide & suicidal ideation of a parent
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Physical injury
  • Physical assault
  • Police violence
  • Riots
  • Home invasion
  • Bombing
  • Imprisonment in concentration camps
  • War themes
  • Refugee experiences and displacement
  • Animal death

I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells

I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells

John Wayne Cleaver is dangerous, and he knows it. He’s spent his life doing his best not to live up to his potential. He’s obsessed with serial killers but really doesn’t want to become one. So for his own sake, and the safety of those around him, he lives by rigid rules he’s written for himself, practising normal life as if it were a private religion that could save him from damnation. Dead bodies are normal to John. He likes them, actually. They don’t demand or expect the empathy he’s unable to offer. Perhaps that’s what gives him the objectivity to recognize that… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Pyromania
  • Dead bodies
  • Graphic murder
  • Animal cruelty mentioned

When You Find Me by PJ Vernon

When You Find Me by P.J. Vernon

Visiting her family’s South Carolina estate, socialite Gray Godfrey wakes from a night out to an empty bed. Her husband Paul is gone and a thrashing hangover has wiped her memory clean. At first, she’s relieved for the break from her tumultuous marriage; perhaps Paul just needed some space. But when his car is found abandoned on the highway, Gray must face the truth: Paul is gone. And Gray may not want him found. When a stranger named Annie calls claiming to know Paul’s whereabouts, Gray reluctantly accepts her help. But this ally is not what she seems: soon Annie is sending frightening messages and revealing… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault of a child
  • Trauma
  • Alcohol abuse
  • Disappearance of a spouse

If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha

If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha

Kyuri is a beautiful woman with a hard-won job at a “room salon,” an exclusive bar where she entertains businessmen while they drink. Though she prides herself on her cold, clear-eyed approach to life, an impulsive mistake with a client may come to threaten her livelihood. Her roommate, Miho, is a talented artist who grew up in an orphanage but won a scholarship to study art in New York. Returning to Korea after college, she finds herself in a precarious relationship with the super-wealthy heir to one of Korea’s biggest companies. Down the hall in their apartment building… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Cheating*
  • Parental abandonment
  • Body dysmorphia
  • Suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Alcoholism
  • Mutism
  • Pregnancy
  • Miscarriage
  • Cancer
  • Emesis
  • Surgery recounted & discussed
  • Murder of sex workers discussed
  • Physical assault, on- & off-page

*Context : Miho’s boyfriend is engaged to another woman and cheats on her with a sex worker.

Total Exposure by JA Huss

Total Exposure by J.A. Huss

Evangeline’s life is dark and lonely. She’ll do anything to change that. Anything. Even play a game with a stranger she’s never met. What starts out as “therapy” soon turns into a passionate anonymous love affair. Her blindfold is like a security blanket and his touch is what lights a fire inside her. I have no idea who he is, what he looks like, or why he agreed to play this game with me. But I don’t care. I don’t even care that I have to wear a blindfold before he’ll come into my room. I don’t care that he watches me sleep, and dress and wants to know all my deepest, darkest, saddest secrets… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child emotional neglect
  • Mental illness (scopophobia)
  • Stalking & voyeurism

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..

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

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

Daddy’s Secret by MC Roth

Daddy’s Secret by M.C. Roth

This Christmas promises to be the loneliest of Sullivan’s life and he’s set to brave the season alone until he receives an amazing, yet heartbreaking, Secret Santa gift that was inspired by his best friend’s pen pal, Lincoln. What starts as a thank-you letter to Lincoln soon becomes more as Sullivan finds himself drawn to a man he’s never met—a man who somehow seems to know him. The problem is, Sullivan needs a friend more than he needs a hookup, so he pretends to be married, taking an intimate relationship out of the equation. Soon pen and paper aren’t enough, and he writes his phone number in his next letter, hoping… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Alcoholism discussed

Burden Falls by Kat Ellis

Burden Falls by Kat Ellis

Also known as Wicked Little Deeds.

The town of Burden Falls drips with superstition, from rumours of its cursed waterfall to Dead-Eyed Sadie, the disturbing spectre who haunts it. Ava Thorn grew up right beside the falls, and since a horrific accident killed her parents a year ago, she’s been plagued by nightmares in which Sadie comes calling—nightmares so chilling, Ava feels as if she’ll never wake up. But when someone close to Ava is brutally murdered and she’s the primary suspect, she begins to wonder if the stories might be more than legends—and if the ghost haunting her dreams might be terrifyingly real. Whatever secrets Burden Falls is hiding, there’s a killer on the loose . . .

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Alcoholism
  • Body mutilation
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a parent
  • Fire
  • Car accident