He Is Poison by K.A. Merikan

Domenico Acerbi. The Villani Family’s best assassin. Ruthless. Vicious. With no patience for weakness. Seth Villani. The Don’s son. Clueless. Stubborn. In dire need of someone to keep him in line. Domenico Acerbi grew up ready to give his life for the Family. Ready to follow orders and exceed expectations. A proud man of honor. The last thing he wants to deal with is training the Don’s son for his future role within the organization. Lazy, annoying, spoiled, and as hot as a Sicilian summer, Seth Villani is no mafia material. But a man who could never become a threat might just be what Domenico needs. Seth Villani wants… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transphobia & misogyny

Be With Me by Samantha Young

While Arran Adair might have followed the call of wanderlust in his younger years, it isn’t the reason he stayed away from Ardnoch. Home now, desperate to put the sins of his past behind him, and rebuild his life in the Scottish Highlands, Arran could never have predicted Eredine Willows. The Ardnoch Estate Pilates instructor is a complicated mystery and one Arran can’t help but want to solve. Eredine has spent the last eight years hiding in Scotland and building walls between her and the people she cares about. Arran is the first Adair who doesn’t treat her as if she’s fragile and demands a genuine friendship. Yet, the attraction… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Rape & sexual assault mentioned
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent mentioned
  • Knife violence
  • Drowning
  • Stalking

There With You by Samantha Young

For Regan Penhaligon, there’s no better place to run to than the exclusive Ardnoch Estate in the remote Scottish Highlands. Her impulsive behaviour has finally caught up with her and Regan’s visit with her sister, Robyn, is an opportunity to hide from someone who has grown dangerously obsessed with her. Determined to make amends for her mistakes, Regan plans to repair her relationship with Robyn by staying close. And when an offer of help comes from Thane Adair, Regan gratefully accepts. Widower, Thane, needs… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted rape
  • Death of a wife
  • Attempted murder
  • Car accident mentioned
  • Stalking & doxing

Here With Me by Samantha Young

After narrowly escaping death, police officer Robyn Penhaligon leaves behind her life in Boston in search of some answers. Starting with Mac Galbraith, the Scottish father who abandoned her to pursue his career in private security. To re-connect with Mac, Robyn will finally meet a man she’s long resented. Lachlan Adair. Hostility instantly brews between Robyn and Lachlan. She thinks the head of the Adair family is high-handed and self-important. And finding closure with Mac is proving more difficult than she ever imagined. Robyn would sooner leave Ardnoch, but when…. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault mentioned
  • Murder
  • Gun & knife violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Car accident
  • Animal death

Beyond the Thistles by Samantha Young

It’s been a long time since Walker Ironside left behind Scotland and the memories that haunt him. Yet after years of traveling the world as a bodyguard, Walker misses his homeland enough to return. To a village in the Scottish Highlands that plays host to an exclusive members-only club, Ardnoch Estate. If not happy, Walker is content working with the elite security at the club and maintaining his bachelor lifestyle. What he doesn’t need is distraction in the form of the enticing but too-young newcomer, single mother Sloane Harrow. Sloane never imagined she’d get pregnant at sixteen. Or that a decade later she’d escape from… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted rape
  • Domestic violence
  • Death from an overdose mentioned
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Murder
  • Gun violence

The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill

When Theodosia Benton abandons her career path as an attorney and shows up on her brother’s doorstep with two suitcases and an unfinished novel, she expects to face a few challenges. Will her brother support her ambition or send her back to finish her degree? What will her parents say when they learn of her decision? Does she even have what it takes to be a successful writer? What Theo never expects is to be drawn into a hidden literary world in which identity is something that can be lost and remade for the sake of an audience. When her mentor, a highly successful… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted paedophilia & child sexual assault recounted
  • Attempted sexual assault by a teacher recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Murder & attempted murder by gun & knife violence
  • Police violence (shooting)

Context : The protagonist was nearly assaulted by a paedophile when she was 10 years old, but her brother stabbed her attacker and saved her.

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn’t pan out. The program is a who’s who of crime writing royalty: the debut writer (mc!), the forensic science writer, the blockbuster writer, the legal thriller, the literary writer, the psychological suspense writer. But when one of us is murdered, the remaining authors quick… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child sexual abuse, implied
  • Sexual assault mentioned
  • Murder
  • Poisoning
  • Death of children and spouse in a fatal car accident

The Last Girl To Die by Helen Sarah Fields

In search of a new life, sixteen-year-old Adriana Clark’s family moves to the ancient, ocean-battered Isle of Mull, far off the coast of Scotland. Then she goes missing. Faced with hostile locals and indifferent police, her desperate parents turn to private investigator Sadie Levesque. Sadie is the best at what she does. But when she finds Adriana’s body in a cliffside cave, a seaweed crown carefully arranged on her head, she knows she’s dealing with something she’s never encountered before. The deeper she digs into the island’s secrets, the more urgent her quest to find the killer grows. Because what if Adriana is not the last girl to die?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence mentioned
  • Sexual assault
  • Murder & torture
  • Animal death (off-page)

The Darkness Within Us by Tricia Levenseller

By hiding her intelligence and ambition behind the mask of a beautiful air-headed girl, she has become a wealthy duchess. And, once her elderly husband dies, she will have all the freedom, money, and safety she’s ever wanted. Or so she thought.A man claiming to be the estranged grandson of Chrysantha’s lecherous late husband has turned up to steal her inheritance. To make matters worse, her little sister is going to be queen and is rubbing it in her face. Chrysantha decides that the only thing to do is upstage Alessandra at her own wedding. And as for this grand… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Attempted sexual assault
  • Murder by poisoning

The Sea Knows My Name by Laura Brooke Robson

If there’s one thing Thea Fowler has learned from her mother, it’s that the only way for a woman to survive in a man’s world is to make herself strong—invulnerable, even. Strength, after all, is how Clementine Fowler survived after her world was washed away by ash and lava and became one of the most notorious pirates the world has ever known. Unfortunately, Thea has inherited none of her mother’s ruthlessness and grit. After a lifetime of being told she is a disappointment, Thea longs to escape life under her mother’s thumb. And when she falls for a handsome sailor… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault (theme)
  • Physical injury
  • Gun & knife violence
  • Earthquake
  • Animal death