American Love Story by Adriana Herrera

American Love Story by Adriana Herrera 

Haitian-born professor and activist Patrice Denis is not here for anything that will veer him off the path he’s worked so hard for. One particularly dangerous distraction: Easton Archer. The Assistant District Attorney who last summer gave Patrice some of the most intense nights of his life, and still makes him all but forget they’re from two completely different worlds.

All-around golden boy Easton forged his own path to success, choosing public service over the comforts of his family’s wealth. With local law enforcement unfairly targeting young men of colour, and his career—and conscience—on the line… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial profiling
  • Homomisia
  • Forced outing recounted
  • Parental abandonment
  • Cheating mentioned
  • Heart surgery mentioned
  • Police brutality
  • Immigration & political asylum

American Fairytale by Adriana Herrera

American Fairytale by Adriana Herrera

New York City social worker Camilo Santiago Briggs grew up surrounded by survivors who taught him to never rely on anything you didn’t earn yourself. He’s always dreamed of his own happily-ever-after, but he lives in the real world. Men who seem too good to be true…usually are. And Milo never ever mixes business with pleasure…until the mysterious man he had an unforgettable hookup with turns out to be the wealthy donor behind his agency’s new, next-level funding.

Thomas Hughes built a billion-dollar business from nothing: he knows what he wants and isn’t shy about going after it. When the enthralling stranger… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Cheating recounted
  • Domestic violence & abuse (theme)
  • Suicide joke
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Parent with depression
  • Murder of an aunt by intimate partner violence recounted
  • Death of a father from cancer recounted

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang

Khai Diep has no feelings. Well, he feels irritation when people move his things or contentment when ledgers balance down to the penny, but not big, important emotions—like grief. And love. He thinks he’s defective. His family knows better—that his autism means he just processes emotions differently. When he steadfastly avoids relationships, his mother takes matters into her own hands and returns to Vietnam to find him the perfect bride.

As a mixed-race girl living in the slums of Ho Chi Minh City, Esme Tran has always felt out of place. When the opportunity arises to come to America and meet a potential husband, she can’t turn it down, thinking this could be the break her family needs… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Ableism & internalised ableism
  • Parental abandonment
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a relative in a car accident

The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne

The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Homomisia
  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Slut shaming
  • Hate crimes
  • Paedophilia
  • Rape
  • Incest
  • Child abuse
  • Depression
  • Anxiety
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Bullying

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

Patricia Campbell had always planned for a big life, but after giving up her career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor and become a mother, Patricia’s life has never felt smaller. The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they’re more likely to discuss the FBI’s recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.

But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighbourhood, the book club’s meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Classism
  • Victim blaming
  • Graphic rape
  • Cheating
  • Domestic violence
  • Suicide & attempted suicide
  • Drug use
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Body horror & eyeball trauma
  • Nonconsensual psychiatric hospitalisation
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a spouse
  • Lynching mentioned
  • Home invasion
  • Animal death

American Dreamer by Adriana Herrera

American Dreamer by Adriana Herrera

For Nesto Vasquez, moving his Afro-Caribbean food truck from New York City to the wilds of Upstate New York is a huge gamble. If it works? He’ll be a big fish in a little pond. If it doesn’t? He’ll have to give up the hustle and return to the day job he hates. He’s got six months to make it happen—the last thing he needs is a distraction.

Jude Fuller is proud of the life he’s built on the banks of Cayuga Lake. He has a job he loves and good friends. It’s safe. It’s quiet. And it’s damn lonely. Until he tries Ithaca’s most-talked-about new lunch spot and works up the courage to flirt with the handsome owner. Soon he can’t get enough—of Nesto’s food or of Nesto. For the first time in his life, Jude can finally taste the kind of happiness that’s always been just out of reach… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Coming out
  • Homomisia
  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Disordered food & weight thoughts
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Terminal cancer
  • Heart attack mentioned
  • Death of a parent, off-page

The Love Con by Seressia Glass

The Love Con by Seressia Glass

Sometimes Kenya Davenport believes she was switched at the hospital–how else could a lover of anime, gaming, and cosplay come from STEM parents? Still, Kenya dreams of being able to turn her creative hobby into a career. She finally has a chance to make it big when she joins the reality show competition Cosplay or No Way.

There’s just one catch: the challenge for the final round is all about iconic pairs, and the judges want the contestants’ significant others to participate. Unfortunately, Kenya is as single as can be at the moment. Luckily her best friend, Cameron Lassiter, agrees to be her fake boyfriend for the show.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Child neglect recounted
  • Parent with alcoholism
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Bullying

Vampires Never Get Old edited by Zoraida Córdova and Natalie Parker

Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bites edited by Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker with contributions by Samira Ahmed, Julie Murphy, Dhonielle Clayton, Tessa Gratton, Heidi Heilig, Mark Oshiro, Rebecca Roanhorse, Laura Ruby, V.E. Schwab and Kayla Whaley

Eleven fresh vampire stories from young adult fiction’s leading voices! In this delicious new collection, you’ll find stories about lurking vampires of social media, rebellious vampires hungry for more than just blood, eager vampires coming out―and going out for their first kill―and other bold, breathtaking, dangerous, dreamy, eerie, iconic, powerful creatures of the night. Welcome to the evolution of the vampire―and a revolution on the page.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Seven Nights for Dying by Tessa Gratton– Alcohol consumption
– Grief & loss depiction
Death of a parent
Mirrors, Windows & Selfies by Mark Oshiro– Blood depiction
– Murder
– Captivity mentioned
The House of Black Sapphire by Dhonielle Clayton– Slavery mentioned
– Blood depiction
The Boy from Blood River by Rebecca Roanhorse– Homomisia
– Terminal illness
– Death of a parent
– Murder
– Bullying
Senior Year Sucks by Julie Murphy– Animal abuse mentioned
The Boy and the Bell by Heidi Heilig– Transmisia
– Misgendering
– Threatened outing (blackmail)
– Vivisepulture (being buried alive)
In Kind by Kayla Whaley– Abelsim
– Parental abuse
– Attempted murder by overdosing (filicide)
A Guidebook for the Newly Sired Desi Vampire by Samira Ahmed– Colonialism
– Racism
Bestiary by Laura Ruby– Parental abuse & neglect
– Abandonment
– Alcohol consumption
– Drug abuse
– Murder mentioned
Vampires Never Say Die by Zoraida Córdova & Natalie C. Parker– Blood depiction
First Kill by V.E. Schwab– Anxiety
– Murder mentioned

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

1932, Minnesota—the Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to an orphan named Odie O’Banion, a lively boy whose exploits earn him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee, he and his brother Albert, their best friend Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Sex work mentioned
  • Paedophilia & child sexual abuse, implied
  • Child abuse & neglect
  • Alcoholism
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Murder
  • Gun violence

While We Were Dating by Jasmine Guillory

While We Were Dating by Jasmine Guillory

Ben Stephens has never bothered with serious relationships. He has plenty of casual dates to keep him busy, family drama he’s trying to ignore and his advertising job to focus on. When Ben lands a huge ad campaign featuring movie star Anna Gardiner, however, it’s hard to keep it purely professional. Anna is not just gorgeous and sexy, she’s also down to earth and considerate, and he can’t help flirting a little…

Anna Gardiner is on a mission: to make herself a household name, and this ad campaign will be a great distraction while she waits to hear if she’s booked her next movie. However, she didn’t expect Ben Stephens to be her biggest distraction… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Car accident, off-page