His and Hers by Alice Feeney

His & Hers by Alice Feeney

There are two sides to every story: yours and mine, ours and theirs, His & Hers. Which means someone is always lying. When a woman is murdered in Blackdown, a quintessentially British village, newsreader Anna Andrews is reluctant to cover the case. Detective Jack Harper is suspicious of her involvement until he becomes a suspect in his own murder investigation. Someone isn’t telling the truth, and some secrets are worth killing to keep.

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Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Rape, sexual assault & grooming
  • Dementia
  • Alcoholism
  • Suicide & self harm
  • Death of a child from SIDS
  • Blackmail
  • Animal abuse & cruelty
  • Bullying

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

Sooner or later the dead catch up. When Judas Coyne heard someone was selling a ghost on the internet, there was no question. It was perfect for his collection of the macabre: the cannibal’s cookbook, the witch’s confession, the authentic snuff movie. As an ageing death-metal rock-god, buying a poltergeist almost qualifies as a business expense.

Besides, Jude thinks he knows all about ghosts. Jude has been haunted for years… by the spirits of bandmates dead and gone, the spectre of the abusive father he fled as a child, and the memory of the suicidal girl he abandoned. But this ghost, delivered to his doorstep in a black heart-shaped box, is different. It makes the house feel cold. It makes the dogs bark. And it means to chase Jude from his home and make him run for his life.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape of a child
  • Death of a parent
  • Animal death (dog)
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The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner 

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

Hidden in the depths of eighteenth-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to an unusual kind of clientele. Women across the city whisper of a mysterious figure named Nella who sells well-disguised poisons to use against the oppressive men in their lives. But the apothecary’s fate is jeopardized when her newest patron, a precocious twelve-year-old, makes a fatal mistake, sparking a string of consequences that echo through the centuries.

Meanwhile, in present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, running from her own demons. When she stumbles upon a clue to the unsolved apothecary murders that haunted London two hundred years ago, her life collides with the apothecary’s in a stunning twist of fate—and not everyone will survive… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child sexual assault
  • Abusive relationship
  • Suicide
  • Pregnancy
  • Miscarriage
  • Murder
  • Poisoning
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My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher.

2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager—and who professed to worship only her—may be far different from what she has always believed? … Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slut-shaming
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Adult-minor relationship
  • Student-teacher relationship
  • Paedophilia, grooming & child sexual abuse
  • Rape, including statutory rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Child pornography
  • Emotional abuse & gaslighting
  • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
  • Dissociation
  • Suicide
  • Substance addiction
  • Alcoholism
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Recreational drug use
  • Disordered eating
  • Death of a dog
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Naked in Death by JD Robb

Naked in Death by J.D. Robb

It is the year 2058, and technology now completely rules the world. But New York City Detective Eve Dallas knows that the irresistible impulses of the human heart are still ruled by just one thing-passion.

When a senator’s granddaughter is killed, the secret life of prostitution she’d been leading is revealed. The high-profile case takes Lieutenant Eve Dallas into the rarefied circles of Washington politics and society.

Further complicating matters is Eve’s growing attraction to Roarke, who is one of the wealthiest and most influential men on the planet, devilishly handsome… and the leading suspect in the investigation.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Child sexual abuse recounted
  • Incest
  • Rape
  • Murder of sex workers
  • Gun violence
  • Blackmail
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Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell

Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell

How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn’t true?

While tackling these questions, Malcolm Gladwell was not solely writing a book for the page. He was also producing for the ear. In the audiobook version of Talking to Strangers, you’ll hear the voices of people he interviewed–scientists, criminologists, military psychologists. Court transcripts are brought to life with re-enactments. You actually hear the contentious arrest of Sandra Bland by the side of the road in Texas. As Gladwell revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, and the suicide of Sylvia Plath, you hear directly from many of the players in these real-life tragedies. There’s even a theme song – Janelle Monae’s “Hell You Talmbout.”

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Graphic rape & child sexual abuse (theme)
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The Deal by Elle Kennedy

The Deal by Elle Kennedy

Hannah Wells has finally found someone who turns her on. But while she might be confident in every other area of her life, she’s carting around a full set of baggage when it comes to sex and seduction. If she wants to get her crush’s attention, she’ll have to step out of her comfort zone and make him take notice… even if it means tutoring the annoying, childish, cocky captain of the hockey team in exchange for a pretend date.

All Garrett Graham has ever wanted is to play professional hockey after graduation, but his plummeting GPA is threatening everything he’s worked so hard for. If helping a sarcastic brunette make another guy jealous will help him secure his position on the team, he’s all for it. But when one unexpected kiss leads to the wildest sex of both their lives, it doesn’t take long for Garrett to realize that pretend isn’t going to cut it. Now he just has to convince Hannah that the man she wants looks a lot like him.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Slut-shaming
  • Date rape of a teenager recounted
  • Domestic violence
  • Physical & emotional child abuse
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a parent from cancer, off-page
  • Blackmail
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The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray

The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray

It has been a year of change since Gemma Doyle arrived at the foreboding Spence Academy. Her mother murdered, her father a laudanum addict, Gemma has relied on an unsuspected strength and has discovered an ability to travel to an enchanted world called the realms, where dark magic runs wild. Despite certain peril, Gemma has bound the magic to herself and forged unlikely new alliances.

Now, as Gemma approaches her London debut, the time has come to test these bonds. The Order – the mysterious group her mother was once part of – is grappling for control of the realms, as is the Rakshana. Spence’s burned East Wing is being rebuilt, but why now? Gemma and her friends see Pippa, but she is not the same. And their friendship faces its gravest trial as Gemma must decide once and for all what role she is meant for.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia
  • Queermisia
  • Paedophilia recounted
  • Incest
  • Parent with substance addiction
  • Self harm
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Switch by A. S. King

Switch by A. S. King

Switch by A. S. King

Tru Beck is a teenage girl from Pennsylvania who lives in a world that has become trapped in a fold in time and space, where “real” time has stopped but humanity continues to mark artificial time based on a website called N3WCLOCK.com. Tru lives in a house that has a switch at its center. No one knows what the switch controls, but her father continually builds larger and larger boxes around the switch (Tru lives in Box #7). Tru leaves the box through a Tru-shaped hole to go to school, where she pays no attention to the new “Solution Time” curriculum. In fact, the only interesting thing that’s ever happened to Tru at school is when she discovers (on her first try) that she can throw a javelin farther than any human has ever thrown anything before in human history.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Toxic relationship
  • Domestic abuse
  • Emotional abuse
  • Physical abuse
  • Paedophilia implied
  • Statutory mentioned
  • Mental illness
  • Suicidal thoughts
  • Animal cruelty
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The Golden Sheep, Vol. 1 by Kaori Ozaki

The Golden Sheep, Vol. 1 by Kaori Ozaki

The Golden Sheep Vol. 1 by Kaori Ozaki

Tsugu Miikura, a high schooler who loves to play guitar, due to family circumstances, moved away from the rural town where she had spent her childhood. After several years, she’s back in her old hometown. She reunites with her childhood friends—Sora, Yuushin, and Asari—the friends she’d buried a time capsule with back in elementary school. Tsugu is overjoyed to be with her friends once more, but the bonds that she thought would never change have in fact started to grow major cracks…

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Adult-minor relationship
  • Paedophilia mentioned
  • Attempted suicide
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Bullying
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