One Small Thing by Erin Watt

One Small Thing by Erin Watt

There’s nothing ordinary about Oakley. This bad-boy pop star’s got Grammy Awards, millions of fangirls and a reputation as a restless, too-charming troublemaker. But with his home life disintegrating, his music well suddenly running dry and the tabloids having a field day over his outrageous exploits, Oakley needs to show the world he’s settling down—and who better to help him than Vaughn, a part-time waitress trying to help her family get by? The very definition of ordinary

Posing as his girlfriend, Vaughn will overhaul Oakley’s image from troublemaker to serious artist. In return for enough money to put her brothers through college, she can endure outlandish Hollywood parties and carefully orchestrated Twitter exchanges. She’ll fool the paparazzi and the groupies. She might even start fooling herself a little. 

Because when ordinary rules no longer apply, there’s no telling what your heart will do…

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slut-shaming
  • Sexual assault
  • Emotional & physical abuse
  • Bullying
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Easy by Tammara Webber

Easy by Tammara Webber

Rescued by a stranger. Haunted by a secret. Sometimes, love isn’t easy…

He watched her, but never knew her. Until thanks to a chance encounter, he became her savior…

The attraction between them was undeniable. Yet the past he’d worked so hard to overcome, and the future she’d put so much faith in, threatened to tear them apart.

Only together could they fight the pain and guilt, face the truth – and find the unexpected power of love.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Attempted rape & sexual assault
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The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean Weir

The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean Weir

Esther Ann Hicks—Essie—is the youngest child on Six for Hicks, a reality television phenomenon. She’s grown up in the spotlight, both idolized and despised for her family’s fire-and-brimstone brand of faith. When Essie’s mother, Celia, discovers that Essie is pregnant, she arranges an emergency meeting with the show’s producers: Do they sneak Essie out of the country for an abortion? Do they pass the child off as Celia’s? Or do they try to arrange a marriage—and a ratings-blockbuster wedding?

Meanwhile, Essie is quietly pairing herself up with Roarke Richards, a senior at her school with a secret of his own to protect. As the newly formed couple attempt to sell their fabricated love story to the media—through exclusive interviews with an infamously conservative reporter named Liberty Bell—Essie finds she has questions of her own: What was the real reason for her older sister leaving home? Who can she trust with the truth about her family? And how much is she willing to sacrifice to win her own freedom? 

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia mentioned
  • Racism mentioned
  • Child sexual assault
  • Incest
  • Teen pregnancy
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All the Pretty Things by Emily Arsenault

All the Pretty Things by Emily Arsenault

All the Pretty Things by Emily Arsenault book cover

Every season in Rockton seems to bring a new challenge. At least that’s what Detective Casey Duncan has felt since she decided to call this place home. Between all the secretive residents, the sometimes-hostile settlers outside, and the surrounding wilderness, there’s always something to worry about.

While on a much needed camping vacation with her boyfriend, Sheriff Eric Dalton, Casey hears a baby crying in the woods. The sound leads them to a tragic scene: a woman buried under the snow, murdered, a baby still alive in her arms… Read more.

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Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexual assault
  • Sexual harassment
  • Domestic violence
  • Suicide ideation
  • Overdose
  • Substance abuse
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Giant Days Vol. 13 by Katherine Arden

Giant Days, Vol 13 by John Allison and Max Sarin

Giant Days, Vol 13 by John Allison and Max Sarin book cover

As Esther re-evaluates the biggest decisions in her life, she enters an essay contest that could change everything for her!

LONDON CALLING!

Everything going fine for Esther – she’s only dealing with a past break up, facing her own mortality and the pressure of an essay contest that could change her life. Don’t worry, she’s got everything figured out…except for the getting everything figured out part. Otherwise she’s not racing towards imminent disaster.

But for McGraw, the tough realities of life hit hard as he learns about the loss of someone close to him and has to find a way to process this shocking news.

The Eisner Award winning team of John Allison (By Night) and Max Sarin return to Sheffield for heartbreak, muscle aches, the very special pain of going corporate…and why the love of good friends is the secret to getting through it all.

Collects Giant Days #49-52.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug-using, specifically smoking
  • Grief and loss depiction
  • Death of a mother, recounted
  • Death of a father, off-page
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Now I Rise by Kiersten White

Now I Rise by Kiersten White

Lada Dracul has no allies. No throne. All she has is what she’s always had: herself. After failing to secure the Wallachian throne, Lada is out to punish anyone who dares to cross her blood-strewn path. Filled with a white-hot rage, she storms the countryside with her men, accompanied by her childhood friend Bogdan, terrorizing the land. But brute force isn’t getting Lada what she wants. And thinking of Mehmed brings little comfort to her thorny heart. There’s no time to wonder whether he still thinks about her, even loves her. She left him before he could leave her.

What Lada needs is her younger brother Radu’s subtlety and skill. But Mehmed has sent him to Constantinople—and it’s no diplomatic mission. Mehmed wants control of the city, and Radu has earned an unwanted place as a double-crossing spy behind enemy lines. Radu longs for his sister’s fierce confidence—but for the first time in his life, he rejects her unexpected plea for help. Torn between loyalties to faith, to the Ottomans, and to Mehmed, he knows he owes Lada nothing. If she dies, he could never forgive himself—but if he fails in Constantinople, will Mehmed ever forgive him?

As nations fall around them, the Dracul siblings must decide: what will they sacrifice to fulfill their destinies? Empires will topple, thrones will be won . . . and souls will be lost.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Victim blaming
  • Rape & sexual assault
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And I Darken by Kiersten White

And I Darken by Kiersten White

No one expects a princess to be brutal. And Lada Dragwlya likes it that way. Ever since she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their homeland of Wallachia and abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to survival. She and Radu are doomed to act as pawns in a vicious game, an unseen sword hovering over their every move. For the lineage that makes them special also makes them targets.

Lada despises the Ottomans and bides her time, planning her vengeance for the day when she can return to Wallachia and claim her birthright. Radu longs only for a place where he feels safe. And when they meet Mehmed, the defiant and lonely son of the sultan, Radu feels that he’s made a true friend—and Lada wonders if she’s finally found someone worthy of her passion.

But Mehmed is heir to the very empire that Lada has sworn to fight against—and that Radu now considers home. Together, Lada, Radu, and Mehmed form a toxic triangle that strains the bonds of love and loyalty to the breaking point. 

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Attempted rape & sexual assault
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Knife violence
  • Strangulation
  • Torture (off-page)
  • Near-drowning
  • Whipping
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The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden

The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden

The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden book cover

The Bear and the Nightingale, Katherine Arden’s enchanting first novel, introduced readers to an irresistible heroine. Vasilisa has grown up at the edge of a Russian wilderness, where snowdrifts reach the eaves of her family’s wooden house and there is truth in the fairy tales told around the fire. Vasilisa’s gift for seeing what others do not won her the attention of Morozko—Frost, the winter demon from the stories—and together they saved her people from destruction. But Frost’s aid comes at a cost, and her people have condemned her as a witch.

In The Girl in the Tower, Vasilisa faces an impossible choice. Driven from her home by frightened villagers, she has only two options left: marriage or the convent. She cannot bring herself to accept either fate and instead chooses adventure, dressing herself as a boy and setting off astride her magnificent stallion Solovey.

But after she prevails in a skirmish with bandits, everything changes. The Grand Prince of Moscow anoints her a hero for her exploits, and she is reunited with her beloved sister and brother, who are now part of the Grand Prince’s inner circle. She dares not reveal to the court that she is a girl, for if her deception were discovered it would have terrible consequences for herself and her family. Before she can untangle herself from Moscow’s intrigues—and as Frost provides counsel that may or may not be trustworthy—she will also confront an even graver threat lying in wait for all of Moscow itself.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape threats
  • Sexual assault, specifically nonconsensual kiss and unwanted touching
  • Childbirth, on-page
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Slayer by Kiersten White

Slayer by Kiersten White

Nina and her twin sister, Artemis, are far from normal. It’s hard to be when you grow up at the Watcher’s Academy where teens are trained as guides for Slayers—girls gifted with supernatural strength to fight the forces of darkness. But while Nina’s mother is a prominent member of the Watcher’s Council, Nina has never embraced the violent Watcher lifestyle. Instead she follows her instincts to heal, carving out a place for herself as the school medic. Until the day Nina’s life changes forever.

Thanks to Buffy, the famous Slayer that Nina’s father died protecting, Nina is not only the newest Chosen One—she’s the last Slayer, ever. As Nina hones her skills with her Watcher-in-training, Leo, there’s plenty to keep her occupied: a monster fighting ring, a demon who eats happiness, a shadowy figure that keeps popping up in Nina’s dreams…

But it’s not until bodies start turning up that Nina’s new powers will truly be tested—because someone she loves might be next.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexual assault mentioned
  • Death of a father recounted
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping
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The Underground Railway by Colson Whitehead

The Underground Railway by Colson Whitehead

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. When a recent arrival from Virginia tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.

In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism & racial slurs
  • White supremacy & the Klu Klux Klan
  • Slavery
  • Rape & sexual assault
  • Paedophilia
  • Domestic violence
  • PTSD
  • Suicide & attempted suicide
  • Sterilization
  • Murder
  • Lynching
  • Whipping
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