The Castaways by Lucy Clarke

You wake on a beautiful, remote island. Sparkling blue seas, golden sunsets, barely a footprint in the sand. Yet this is no ordinary escape. Next to the wreck of a plane, a stranger paces. Another sharpens a knife, scoring a list of the dead onto a palm tree. Others watch from the shadows of a campfire – all with untold stories, and closely-guarded secrets. This is no ordinary holiday. This is no ordinary island. This is no ordinary beach read….

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Spousal & parental abandonment
  • Attempted rape (on-page)
  • Sexual assault (unwanted non-consensual kiss, on-page)
  • Spousal infidelity discussed
  • Suicidal ideation, including an on-page scene where the protagonist begins an attempt by jumping
  • Alcohol consumption & abuse
  • Drug use and abuse mentioned
  • Parent with alcoholism mentioned
  • Starvation and food scarcity
  • Infertility discussed
  • Blood & gore depiction including physical injuries and dead bodies
  • Death of a lover by shark attack (off-page)
  • Disappearance of a sibling (theme)
  • Murder by drowning in self-defence from attempted rape
  • Attempted murder by strangulation
  • Near-death of an infant from choking
  • Plane crash (theme)
  • Animal hunting & butchering (mostly fish)

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results. Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Attempted rape & sexual assault
  • Workplace sexual harassment
  • Child abuse mentioned
  • Death of a parent
  • Car accident, on-page

The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult

The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult

Fourteen-year-old Trixie Stone is in love for the first time. She’s also the light of her father, Daniel’s life — a straight-A student; a pretty, popular freshman in high school; a girl who’s always seen her father as a hero. That is, until her world is turned upside down with a single act of violence. Suddenly everything Trixie has believed about her family — and herself — seems to be a lie. Could the boyfriend who once made Trixie wild with happiness have been the one to end her childhood forever? She says that he is, and that is all it takes to make Daniel, a seemingly mild-mannered comic book artist with a secret tumultuous past he… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape

Songs of the Humpback Whale by Jodi Picoult

Songs of the Humpback Whale by Jodi Picoult

Jodi Picoult’s powerful novel portrays an emotionally charged marriage that changes course in one explosive moment….For years, Jane Jones has lived in the shadow of her husband, renowned San Diego oceanographer Oliver Jones. But during an escalating argument, Jane turns on him with an alarming volatility. In anger and fear, Jane leaves with their teenage daughter, Rebecca, for a cross-country odyssey charted by letters from her brother Joley, guiding them to his Massachusetts apple farm, where surprising self-discoveries await. Now Oliver, an expert at tracking humpback whales across vast oceans, will search for his wife across… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Statutory rape
  • Adult-minor relationship

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

At the dawn of the new millennium, Colombia is a country devastated by half a century of violence. Elena and Mauro are teenagers when they meet, their blooming love an antidote to the mounting brutality of life in Bogotá. Once their first daughter is born, and facing grim economic prospects, they set their sights on the United States. They travel to Houston and send wages back to Elena’s mother, all the while weighing whether to risk overstaying their tourist visas or to return to Bogotá. As their family expands, and they move again and again, their decision to ignore their exit dates plunges the young family into the… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Rape

Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez

Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez

In the 1950s, ex-boxer Norman Alonso is a determined and humble Jamaican who has immigrated to Britain with his wife and children to secure a brighter future. Blighted with unexpected illness and racism, Norman and his family are resilient, but are all too aware that their family will need more than just hope to survive in their new country. At the turn of the millennium, Jesse seeks a fresh start in London, escaping a broken immediate family, a repressive religious community and his depressed hometown in the industrial Black Country. But once he arrives he finds… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Rape
  • Sex work
  • Drug use

Stronger Than You Know by Jolene Perry

Stronger Than You Know by Jolene Perry

After police intervention, fifteen-year-old Joy has finally escaped the trailer where she once lived with her mother and survived years of confinement and abuse. Now living with her aunt, uncle, and cousins in a comfortable house, she’s sure she’ll never belong. Wracked by panic attacks, afraid to talk to anyone at her new school, Joy’s got a whole list of reasons why she’s crazy. With immense courage, Joy finds friends and grows closer to her new family. But just when hope is taking hold, she learns she must testify in her mother’s trial. Can she face her old life… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism & internalised ableism
  • Child abuse
  • Rape of a child
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Panic attacks

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

In Norse Mythology, Gaiman stays true to the myths in envisioning the major Norse pantheon: Odin, the highest of the high, wise, daring, and cunning; Thor, Odin’s son, incredibly strong yet not the wisest of gods; and Loki—son of a giant—blood brother to Odin and a trickster and unsurpassable manipulator. Gaiman fashions these primeval stories into a novelistic arc that begins with the genesis of the legendary nine worlds and delves into the exploits of deities, dwarfs, and giants. Through Gaiman’s deft and witty… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Marital rape mentioned
  • Sexual harassment
  • Cheating
  • Forced arranged marriage
  • Suicide
  • Pregnancy & childbirth mentioned
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood, gore and injury depiction
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a son & father
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Physical assault
  • Fire
  • Kidnapping
  • Blackmail
  • Hanging
  • Graphic animal death & cruelty
  • War themes

Wanderlust by Skye Warren

Wanderlust by Skye Warren

Evie always dreamed of seeing the world, but her first night at a motel turns into a nightmare. Hunter is a rugged trucker willing to do anything to keep her—including kidnapping. As they cross the country in his rig, Evie plots her escape, but she may find what she’s been looking for right beside her.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape & gang rape (theme)
  • Child abuse
  • Kidnapping
  • Torture
  • Incarceration recounted (false conviction)

Salvation by Sloane Kennedy

Salvation by Sloane Kennedy

Trauma surgeon Ronan Grisham lost everything the day the man he loved was stolen from him in a brutal attack. Driven by a thirst for vengeance, he turns his hatred into building an underground group that can do what he couldn’t that fateful day…take the lives of the guilty to save the lives of the innocent. But years later, he’s forced to confront the one link to his past that he can’t sever. Seven years after the loss of his parents in a violent home invasion that left him permanently scarred both inside and out, 21-year-old Seth Nichols is trying to put his life back together so he… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Anxiety
  • Death of a partner mentioned
  • Murder of parents in a home invasion recounted
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