The Devil Wears Tartan by Katia Rose

Raised as the shining prodigies of warring highland dance schools, the two grew up with blaring bagpipes as the backing track for a feud that took them all the way to the world championships. Moira could never keep Kenzie’s icy glares from getting under her skin, and Kenzie could never hold back an eye-roll as she watched the crowds fawn over her rival’s happy-go-lucky charm. Starting college has forced both women to hang up their kilts, but when their local highland dance association announces a scholarship for a life-changing amount of money, they find themselves back onstage for one last season…. Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Depression (secondary character)
  • Substance addiction, drug abuse & overdose (off-page, secondary character)

Hideaway by Penelope Douglas

Buried in the shadows of the city, there’s a hotel called The Pope. Ailing, empty, and dark, it sits abandoned and surrounded by a forgotten mystery. But you think it’s true, don’t you, Kai Mori? The story about the hidden twelfth floor. The mystery of the dark guest who never checked in and never checks out. You think I can help you find that secret hideaway and get to him, don’t you? You and your friends can try to scare me. You can try to push me. Because even though I struggle to hide everything I feel when you look at me–and have ever since I was a girl–I think maybe what you seek is so much closer than you’ll ever realize… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism & slut-shaming
  • Attempted rape, sexual assault & sexual harassment (protagonist)
  • Physical & emotional child and sibling abuse (protagonist)
  • Incestuous child sexual abuse recounted
  • Parental infidelity mentioned
  • Forced marriage
  • Familial estrangement & disownment
  • Alcohol consumption & smoking (cigars, cigerattes)
  • Emesis
  • Alcoholism & substance addiction (secondary character)
  • Murder recounted
  • Arson & burn scars from child abuse
  • Physical assault recounted
  • Animal abuse (dog)

Context : The protagonist’s father orders her bodyguard to assault her but she is able to get away; her cousin also hired someone to grope her at a party. A secondary character also kissed and assault her while she was asleep. The protagonist was hidden in a closet with headphones while her half-brother’s mother abused him; later, he beats her. The protagonist’s father burned her with cigarettes.

Luck of the Draw by Kate Clayborn

Sure, winning the lottery allows Zoe Ferris to quit her job as a cutthroat corporate attorney, but no amount of cash will clear her conscience about the way her firm treated the O’Leary family in a wrongful death case. So she sets out to make things right, only to find gruff, grieving Aiden O’Leary doesn’t need—or want—her apology. He does, however, need something else from her. Something Zoe is more than willing to give, if only to ease the pain in her heart, a sorrow she sees mirrored in his eyes Aiden doesn’t know what possesses him to ask his family’s enemy to be his fake fiancée. But he needs a bride if he hopes to be the win… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Medical emergencies & treatment including mentions of seizures and chronic asthma
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a twin brother from opioid overdose recounted
  • Death of a father from a heart attack recounted

Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn

Longtime personal assistant Georgie Mulcahy has made a career out of putting others before herself. When an unexpected upheaval sends her away from her hectic job in L.A. and back to her hometown, Georgie must confront an uncomfortable truth: her own wants and needs have always been a disconcertingly blank page. But then Georgie comes across a forgotten artifact—a “friendfic” diary she wrote as a teenager, filled with possibilities she once imagined. To an overwhelmed Georgie, the diary’s simple, small-scale ideas are a lifeline—a guidebook for getting started… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Familial estrangement
  • Emotional child abuse
  • Anxiety
  • Substance addiction & depression recovery
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Pregnancy & childbirth mentioned (secondary character)
  • Parent with rheumatoid arthritis
  • Death of a mother from cancer mentioned (secondary character)
  • Bullying recounted
  • Dog attack & minor injuries to pet dog

Heavy Hitter by Katie Cotugno

With four chart-topping albums, Lacey Logan is a superstar whose life no longer feels like her own. Her every move is photographed, videoed, and dissected online, and her carefully curated Instagram feed studied by fans worldwide. To maintain her privacy, Lacey skilfully controls her narrative, showing fans and paparazzi what she wants them to see. But when Lacey discovers her boyfriend is hiding two devastating secrets—a bad cocaine habit and a pregnant girlfriend—she begins to lose confidence and control of her own story. Then big-shouldered baseball play… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity recounted
  • Parental divorce recounted
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Chronic knee, back & shoulder pain (protagonist)
  • Panic attack
  • Parent with alcoholism
  • Death of a brother from a heroin overdose recounted
  • Cyberstalking & stalking discussed
  • Car accident

Context : The protagonist receives minor injuries from paparazzi in a hit-and-run accident chasing her car. The protagonist’s ex-partner cheated and got his mistress pregnant.

For She Is Wrath by Emily Varga

Three hundred and sixty-four days. Framed for a crime she didn’t commit, Dania counts down her days in prison until she can exact revenge on Mazin, the boy responsible for her downfall, the boy she once loved—and still can’t forget. When she discovers a fellow prisoner may have the key to exacting that vengeance–a stolen djinn treasure–they execute a daring escape together and search for the hidden treasure. Armed with dark magic and a new identity, Dania enacts a plan to bring down those who betrayed her and her family, even though Mazin stands in her way. But seeking revenge becomes a complicated game of.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Abusing and addiction to a magical substance (on-page & discussion)
  • Physical injury (protagonist)
  • Murder of a father
  • Murder by sword violence & fire
  • Torture during imprisonment by physical beating
  • Kidnapping mentioned

Sleep Tight by J.H. Markert

Father Silence once terrorized the rural town of Twisted Tree, disguising himself as a priest to prey on the most vulnerable members of society. When the police finally found his “House of Horrors,” they uncovered nineteen bodies and one survivor–a boy now locked away in a hospital for the criminally insane. Nearly two decades later, Father Silence is finally put to death, but by the next morning, the detective who made the original arrest is found dead. A new serial killer is taking credit for the murder and calling himself the Outcast. The detective’s daughter, Tess Claibourne, is a detective herself, haunted by childhood trauma… Read more,

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Substance addiction & recovery

Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White

On the night Miles Abernathy—sixteen-year-old socialist and proud West Virginian—comes out as trans to his parents, he sneaks off to a party, carrying evidence that may finally turn the tide of the blood feud plaguing Twist Creek: Photos that prove the county’s Sheriff Davies was responsible for the so-called “accident” that injured his dad, killed others, and crushed their grassroots efforts to unseat him. The feud began a hundred years ago when Miles’s great-great-grandfather, Saint Abernathy, incited a miners’ rebellion that ended with a public execution at the… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Ableism discussed & mentions of disfiguremisia
  • Transphobia, misgendering & deadnaming
  • Emotional & physical intimate partner violence
  • Sexual assault mentioned
  • Drug dependency discussed (protagonist)*
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Murder
  • Animal death (dog, deer, off-page)

Context : The protagonist uses opioids after surgery and undergoes withdrawal after quitting without medical supervision

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion Prison Castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Substance addiction & drug abuse
  • Attempted suicide & self-harm
  • Discussion of residential schools

Icarus by K. Ancrum

Icarus Gallagher is a thief. He steals priceless art and replaces it with his father’s impeccable forgeries. For years, one man—the wealthy Mr. Black—has been their target, revenge for his role in the death of Icarus’s mother. To keep their secret, Icarus adheres to his own strict rules to keep people, and feelings, at bay: Don’t let anyone close. Don’t let anyone touch you. And, above all, don’t get caught. Until one night, he does. Not by Mr. Black, but by his mysterious son, Helios, now living under house arrest in the Black mansion. Instead of turning Icarus in, Helios bargains for something even more dangerous—a friendship that breaks… Read more,

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse & domestic violence
  • Alcohol consumption & drug abuse
  • Substance addiction discussed
  • Overdose mentioned
  • Death of a loved one from terminal cancer
  • False imprisonment
  • Religious self-flagellation mentioned