Cruel King by Rina Kent

Levi Here, little princess. I’m your king. You have three rules. Bow. Break. Bend the knee. Fight me all you want, but soon enough, you’ll be chanting long live the king. Astrid One day I’m Royal Elite School’s small fly, the next I’m hunted and left to die. He doesn’t only shred my life to parts, but he’s also coming after my heart. He thinks he broke me, but the new princess will bring the king to his knees.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Threats of rape
  • Cheating*
  • Dubious consent scenes
  • Drugging
  • Death of a parent (off-page)
  • Car accident (hit-and-run)
  • Bullying

*Context: The heroine catches the hero about to have oral sex with her step-sister; whether or not the characters were already in a relationship is left to the reader’s discretion. In an on-page sex scene, the hero refuses to stop or ‘pull out’ when the heroine asks repeatedly.

(S)Kin by Ibi Zoboi

Fifteen-year-old Marisol is the daughter of a soucouyant. Every new moon, she sheds her skin like the many women before her, shifting into a fireball witch who must fly into the night and slowly sip from the lives of others to sustain her own. But Brooklyn is no place for fireball witches with all its bright lights, shut windows, and bolt-locked doors.… While Marisol hoped they would leave their old traditions behind when they emigrated from the islands, she knows this will never happen while she remains ensnared by the one person who keeps her chained to her… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny & sexual harassment
  • Infidelity discussed
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned (secondary character)
  • Body horror (on-page, detailed)

More Than This by Krystal Marquis

Newly engaged Ruby Tremaine is eagerly planning her wedding to the love of her life when a nasty rumor threatens her reputation and her marriage. Olivia Davenport has committed to the social justice cause and secretly hopes she’ll be reunited with dashing lawyer Washington DeWight—until her parents decide she’s to marry someone else. Amy-Rose Shepherd is making her lifelong wish of owning a salon come true, but when an incident forces her to return to Freeport Manor, she’s back in the path of John Davenport, who still holds her heart. Helen Davenport… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Period-typical racism, misogyny & classism
  • Slavery mentioned
  • Sexual harassment
  • Police brutality

Fable for the End of the World by Ava Reid

By encouraging massive accumulations of debt from its underclass, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society. Inesa lives with her brother in a half-sunken town where they scrape by running a taxidermy shop. Unbeknownst to Inesa, their cruel and indolent mother has accrued an enormous debt—enough to qualify one of her children for Caerus’s livestreamed assassination spectacle: the Lamb’s Gauntlet. Melinoë is a Caerus assassin, trained to track and kill the sacrificial Lambs. The product of neural reconditioning and physiological alteration, she is a living weapon, known for her cold brutality and deadly beauty… Read more,

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual harassment
  • Adult-minor relationship
  • Blood, gore & injury depiction
  • Emesis
  • Death of a child
  • Gun violence
  • Animal death

Ashes of You by Catherine Cowles

Five years ago, I nearly lost everything. But there was a glimmer of hope on that darkest night. There was him—a stranger I could never forget. Now, I’m finally getting the fresh start I’ve longed for. But when I show up to interview for a nanny position in the small mountain town, the single dad has startlingly familiar blue eyes. Eyes that have haunted my dreams for the past five years. Lawson Hartley is everything I know I can’t have. Older, handsome, and my boss. Not to mention the shadows in his eyes that tell me he has demons, too. Still, he seems to understand me better than anyone I’ve ever met. So gentle and careful of my… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual assault & harassment
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder & panic attacks (on-page)
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping, captivity & torture (on-page & recounted)

Theirs for the Night by Katee Robert

Meg Sanders has spent her life playing by the rules—until tonight. It’s her birthday and she’s determined to be a little wild and a whole lot carefree, at least until she has to get back to reality tomorrow. But the last thing she expects is to be seduced by two gorgeous men on the dance floor. Theo and Galen are each incredibly sexy on their own, and potentially devastating as a pair—and they want her. Meg isn’t down for anything resembling complicated when her life is such a mess, but the pair win her over with the promise of a night out of her deepest, darkest fantasy—and that they walk the next morning with no strings attached.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual harassment (groping)
  • Child neglect recounted
  • Scars (protagonist)

You, Me, U.S. by Brigitte Bautista

Best friends Jo and Liza are as opposite as night and day. Sex worker Jo swears by the worry-free, one-day-at-a-time dance through life. Salesclerk Liza has big plans for her family’s future, and there is nothing bigger than a one-way trip to the U.S. But an almost-kiss, a sex dare, and news of Liza’s engagement to her American boyfriend unveil feelings Jo and Liza never thought they had. Deciding between staying together and drifting apart puts Liza’s best-laid plans and Jo’s laidback life in jeopardy. When love clashes with lifelong ambitions and family expectations, someone has to give in. Question is: who?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic abuse mentioned
  • Infidelity
  • Sexual harassment
  • Sex work & sex work shaming

Glass Half Full by Katia Rose

Back at home with half a college degree after the fiasco of the century sent her packing, it’s safe to say that Renee Nyobé is losing some. She’s a hot mess, and not the cute kind. No, if hot messes had categories, hers would be ‘littering the stairs of the metro station with your sweaty underwear because you were too busy rushing to the job interview you’re already late for to zip up your yoga bag.’ A job—any job—is just what she needs to get her life back on track, and it might as well be at Montreal’s most famous dive bar, Taverne Toulouse. Dylan Trottard is winning some. As Taverne Toulouse’s new manager, he’s got one… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Workplace harassment
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Drug use
  • Incarceration recounted

Latte Girl by Katia Rose

Her grueling shifts at a cafe in the heart of the city’s business sector are rarely punctuated by anything special, so when the gorgeous heir to the security company next door strides into Hailey’s life, it feels like punctuation with a capital P (or D, depending on your preferred terminology.) Jordan Knox is enough to send her heart racing faster than a triple shot of espresso, and when the attraction proves to be mutual, no hidden corners or empty offices are safe from their game of cat and mouse. But when she’s ready to drop the pretenses, Jordan continues to hold back, and Hailey realizes he’s been hiding secrets that could make whatever’s brewing between them boil over and burn.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Workplace sexual harassment & sexism
  • Sexual assault mentioned
  • Parent with heart disease
  • Stroke (parent)

Polaris Rising by Jessie Mihalik

In the far distant future, the universe is officially ruled by the Royal Consortium, but the High Councillors, the heads of the three High Houses, wield the true power. As the fifth of six children, Ada von Hasenberg has no authority; her only value to her High House is as a pawn in a political marriage. When her father arranges for her to wed a noble from House Rockhurst, a man she neither wants nor loves, Ada seizes control of her own destiny. The spirited princess flees before the betrothal ceremony and disappears among the stars. Ada eluded her father’s forces for two years, but now… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual harassment
  • Exile & familial disownment
  • Intimate partner violence
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Dieting & mentions of a secondary character’s stress-related weight loss
  • Physical illness & injury including knife wounds, broken bones & hypothermia
  • Murder & physical assault
  • Torture (off-page)
  • Kidnapping & imprisonment