Like a House on Fire by Lauren McBrayer

Like a House on Fire by Lauren McBrayer

After twelve years of marriage and two kids, Merit has begun to feel like a stranger in her own life. She loves her husband and sons, but she desperately needs something more than sippy cups and monthly sex. So, she returns to her career at Jager + Brandt, where a brilliant and beautiful Danish architect named Jane decides to overlook the “break” in Merit’s resume and give her a shot. Jane is a supernova—witty and dazzling and unapologetically herself—and as the two work closely together, their relationship becomes a true friendship. In Jane, Merit sees the possibility of what a woman could be. And Jane sees Merit… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Antisemitism mentioned
  • Cheating
  • Divorce mentioned
  • Weight loss
  • Miscarriage
  • Unplanned pregnancy
  • Recreational drug use
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a father from a heart attack
  • Death of a mother from breast cancer recounted
  • Death of a brother from AIDS recounted

Queen Move by Kennedy Ryan

Queen Move by Kennedy Ryan

Dig a little and you’ll find photos of me in the bathtub with Ezra Stern. Get your mind out of the gutter. We were six months old. Pry and one of us might confess we saved our first kiss for each other. The most clumsy, wet, sloppy . . . spectacular thirty seconds of my adolescence. Get into our business and you’ll see two families, closer than blood, torn apart in an instant. Twenty years later, my “awkward duckling” best friend from childhood, the boy no one noticed, is a man no one can ignore. Finer. Fiercer. Smarter. Taken… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Cheating
  • Weight gain discussed
  • Infertility
  • Miscarriage
  • Death of a parent recounted
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Bound by Duty by Cora Reilly

Bound by Duty by Cora Reilly

Dante Cavallaro’s wife died four years ago but her memory still haunts him. On the verge of becoming the youngest head in the history of the Chicago Outfit, Dante needs to remarry or risk appearing weak. Valentina is chosen for the role. She, too, lost her husband, but her first marriage has always been for show. Even after her husband’s death, Valentina carries the weight of his secrets with her— to protect the honour of a dead man and herself. With her wedding to Dante, her castle of lies threatens to crash. Valentina fears the wedding night might reveal her… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Unplanned pregnancy & pregnancy complications
  • Death of a wife recounted
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Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center

Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center

A year after getting divorced, Helen Carpenter, thirty-two, lets her annoying, ten years younger brother talk her into signing up for a wilderness survival course. It’s supposed to be a chance for her to pull herself together again, but when she discovers that her brother’s even-more-annoying best friend is also coming on the trip, she can’t imagine how it will be anything other than a disaster. Thus begins the strangest adventure of Helen’s well-behaved life: three weeks in the remotest wilderness of a mountain range in Wyoming where she will survive mosquito infestations, a… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Divorce recounted
  • Miscarriage recounted
  • Attempted suicide
  • Death of a sibling
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Ice Station by Matthew Reilly

Ice Station by Matthew Reilly

At a remote ice station in Antarctica, a team of US scientists has made an amazing discovery. They have found something buried deep within a 100-million-year-old layer of ice. Something made of METAL. Led by the enigmatic Lieutenant Shane Schofield, a team of crack United States Marines is sent to the station to secure this discovery for their country. They are a tight unit, tough and fearless. They would follow their leader into hell. They just did…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Miscarriage mentioned
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Graphic eyeball trauma
  • Gun violence
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Explosion
  • Death from an animal attack
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When You Disappeared by John Marrs

When You Disappeared by John Marrs

Also known as The Wronged Sons.

When Catherine wakes up alone one morning, she thinks her husband has gone for a run before work. But Simon never makes it to the office. His running shoes are by the front door. Nothing is missing – except him. Catherine knows Simon must be in trouble. He wouldn’t just leave her. He wouldn’t leave the children. But Simon knows the truth – about why he left and what he’s done. He knows things about his marriage that it would kill Catherine to find out. The memories she holds onto are lies. While Catherine faces a dark new reality at home, Simon’s halfway around the … Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Domestic violence
  • Child abuse mentioned
  • Alcohol abuse
  • Attempted suicide
  • Miscarriage
  • Cancer
  • Death of a child recounted
  • Murder
  • Car accident

What Lies Between Us by John Marrs

What Lies Between Us by John Marrs

They say every house has its secrets, and the house that Maggie and Nina have shared for so long is no different. Except that these secrets are not buried in the past. Every other night, Maggie and Nina have dinner together. When they are finished, Nina helps Maggie back to her room in the attic, and into the heavy chain that keeps her there. Because Maggie has done things to Nina that can’t ever be forgiven, and now she is paying the price. But there are many things about the past that Nina doesn’t know, and Maggie is going to keep it that way—even if it kills her…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Child sexual abuse mentioned
  • Drug use
  • Miscarriage
  • Death of a parent
  • Death of an infant (presumed)
  • Murder
  • Imprisonment
  • Fire

Runaway Road by Devney Perry

Runaway Road by Devney Perry

Londyn McCormack didn’t have a typical childhood. She ran away from home at sixteen, escaping parents more interested in drugs than their daughter. She doesn’t have loving siblings or an adorable pet. Her only family is the five other runaway kids who shared her junkyard home. Life pulled them all in separate directions, taking her to Boston. For a short time, she thought she’d found something permanent. But after a devastating divorce, she’s running away again, this time to find a lost friend.
She’s driving across the country in her convertible. As a teenager, the rusty car was her shelter. As… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Miscarriage mentioned

All the Acorns on the Forest Floor by Kim Hooper

All the Acorns on the Forest Floor by Kim Hooper

A couple brimming with the hope of a new pregnancy. A woman coming to terms with the truth behind her adoption. A husband trying to save his marriage from the despair of infertility. These are just a few of the stories in All the Acorns on the Forest Floor, a book about the lengths we go to for the love of our children, our spouses, our mothers, our daughters. All the Acorns on the Forest Floor is a book of connections between people, connections lost and found, across time and space. There are stories of women who never became mothers (by choice or by fate), women who became mothers in unexpected or nontraditional…. Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Miscarriage
  • Terminal illness

Sweet Rome by Tillie Cole

Sweet Rome by Tillie Cole

It makes me laugh when I hear folks think Molly and I rushed into things too fast, spouting that we couldn’t possibly have felt what we did for each other in such a short space of time. I say, how the hell would they know? We made it, didn’t we? She became my whole life, didn’t she? And as for my folks not being real, being true? Tell that to me aged ten, eleven, twelve—damn, all my bastard life—when I was never enough when I was beaten until I bled for being too good at football and not being everything they’d dreamed: the perfectly dutiful son. Tell that to thousands of kids around the world getting wailed on by asshole parents for… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Domestic violence
  • Parent with alcoholism
  • Suicide
  • Unplanned pregnancy
  • Miscarriage
  • Death of parents