Tag Archives: Overdose

If We Were Villains by ML Rio

Oliver Marks has just served ten years in jail – for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he’s released, he’s greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago. As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Slut-shaming
  • Antiziganism (g slur)
  • Suicide
  • Drug use
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Overdose
  • Blood depiction
  • Murder

The Celebrants by Steven Rowley

t’s been a minute—or five years—since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they’ve reunited in Big Sur to honour a decades-old pact to throw each other living “funerals,” celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living—that their lives mean something, to one another if not to themselves. But this reunion… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Divorce recounted
  • Infidelity recounted
  • Drug overdose
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Cancer
  • HIV/AIDs
  • Death of a friend
  • Plane crash

Love Songs for Skeptics by Christina Pishiris

Zoë Frixos gets the whole love song thing. Truly, she does. As an editor at a major music magazine in London, it’s part of her job description. But love? Let’s just say Zoë’s been a bit off-beat in that department. After falling hard for her best friend, Simon, at thirteen and missing every chance to tell him how she felt before he left town, Zoë came to one grand conclusion: Love stinks. Twenty years later, Simon is returning to London, newly single and as charming as ever, and Zoë vows to take her second chance. But Zoë’s got other problems now: In order to save her… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted suicide mentioned
  • Drug abuse
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Overdose

Equivalent Exchange by Christina C. Jones

Keris Bradford is a woman on the brink. Of what? She doesn’t quite know. Her life is shifting, rapidly, and the sudden, captivating intrusion of Laken Kimble isn’t exactly… reassuring. For Keris, Laken is comfort and risk wrapped in one very appealing package. For Laken, Keris is barrier and providence all at once. For both, there arises a need to navigate those contrasts to a conclusion neither was looking for… a need to answer a simple question. If you want this… what are you willing to offer in exchange?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableist language
  • Slut-shaming
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Rape by a partner recounted
  • Domestic violence
  • Divorce recounted
  • Infertility issues mentioned
  • Ectopic pregnancy recounted
  • Mentions of physical injury and facial scars sustained during a car accident
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a brother form an overdose mentioned
  • Death of a father from an undiagnosed brain tumor, heart failure & seizure recounted

Asking for Trouble by Tessa Bailey

Brent Mason and Hayden Winstead can’t stand each other. She plans exclusive parties for her rich family’s charities. He’s a rough and tumble cop who rigs explosives for a living. Could two people be any less suited for conversation? They think not and prefer to keep it that way. Unfortunately, their two best friends are deeply, disgustingly in love. Forced together, the mutual attraction simmering beneath the surface of Brent and Hayden’s non-relationship grows with every argument until it explodes into a scintillating night of mind-blowing sex. And it wont be the last, as far as Brent’s concerned. Hayden has a secret… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Sexual harassment
  • Death of a father from overdose recounted

Lying in the Deep by Diana Urban

After being jilted by her ex-boyfriend and best friend, Jade couldn’t be more ready to embark on the adventure of a lifetime—11 countries in 4 months, all from the luxurious Campus on Board ship—and to wedge an entire globe between her and the people who broke her heart. But when Jade discovers the backstabbing couple are also setting sail, her obsession with them grows and festers, leading to a shocking murder. And as their friends begin to drop like flies, Jade and her new crush must race to clear her name and find the killer they’re trapped at sea with….before anyone else winds up in body bags.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Infidelity
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Overdose mentioned (opiates)
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Murder
  • Death from hanging
  • Gun & knife violence
  • Car accident

The Vines by Shelley Nolden

In the shadows of New York City lies forbidden North Brother Island, where the remains of a shuttered hospital hide the haunting memories of century-old quarantines and human experiments. The ruins conceal the scarred and beautiful Cora, imprisoned by contagions and the doctors who torment her. When Finn, a young urban explorer, arrives on the island and glimpses an enigmatic beauty through the foliage, intrigue turns to obsession as he seeks to uncover her past—and his own family’s dark secrets. By unraveling these mysteries, will he be able to save Cora? Will Cora meet the same tragic ending as the thousands who’ve already perished on the island?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexist and racist language
  • Nazism
  • Rape
  • Attempted suicide & suicidal ideation
  • Overdose
  • Cancer
  • Nonconsensual human & animal experimentation

The After Party by AC Arthur

Three women form an unbreakable bond in a sexy, suspenseful, and adventurous novel about empowerment and sisterhood through thick and thin. Venus McGee, Draya Carter, and Jackie Benson are coworkers with a lot in common. They’re smart, independent, driven, and deserving of recognition, certainly more than they’ve been handed by a demoralizing boss. He’s the topic of conversation at their impromptu get-together after the company holiday party, where the threesome fantasizes about a life without him. There has to be an alternative to taking a deep breath and sucking it up. There is… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Disownment mentioned
  • Sexual assault
  • Sexual & workplace harassment
  • Infidelity
  • Hospitalisation
  • Death of a sibling from a drug overdose
  • Murder, off-page
  • Car accident
  • Stalking

Full Moon Over Freedom by Angelina M. Lopez

Gillian Armstead-Bancroft—Pride of the East Side and once-perfect bruja, wife, and mother—is going to spend her summer getting good at being bad. The first time she left Freedom, Kansas, behind, she did it by doing everything right. This time, she’ll hide from the large Mexican American family welcoming her home and work in secret to break the curse that’s erased her magical life. Only by doing it all wrong can Gillian get herself and her two children away from the ghosts of her hometown by summer’s end. Nicky Mendoza is an answer to her prayers. He was the practical solution to the problem of her virginity when they… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism and internalised racism
  • Emotional, verbal and financial intimate partner abuse, on- & off-page
  • Divorce
  • Parent with alcoholism discussed
  • Death of a relative from an overdose recounted
  • Animal attack recounted

Mercury Boys by Chandra Prasad

After her life is upended by divorce and a cross-country move, 16-year-old Saskia Brown feels like an outsider at her new school—not only is she a transplant, she’s biracial in a population of mostly white students. One day while visiting her only friend at her part-time library job, Saskia encounters a vial of liquid mercury, then touches an old daguerreotype—the precursor of the modern-day photograph—and makes a startling discovery. She is somehow able to visit the man in the portrait: Robert Cornelius… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Drug abuse
  • Overdose
  • Amputation
  • Drowning
  • Arson