Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

Gifty is a fifth-year candidate in neuroscience at Stanford School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after a knee injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her.

But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family’s loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Attempted suicide
  • Depression
  • Heroin addiction
  • Death by overdose
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A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum

A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum

In Brooklyn, eighteen-year-old Deya is starting to meet with suitors. Though she doesn’t want to get married, her grandparents give her no choice. History is repeating itself: Deya’s mother, Isra, also had no choice when she left Palestine as a teenager to marry Adam. Though Deya was raised to believe her parents died in a car accident, a secret note from a mysterious, yet familiar-looking woman makes Deya question everything she was told about her past.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Domestic violence
  • Alcoholism
  • Suicide
  • Self harm
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Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

A profoundly moving novel about two neighboring families in a suburban town, the bond between their children, a tragedy that reverberates over four decades, the daily intimacies of marriage, and the power of forgiveness.

Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, two rookie cops in the NYPD, live next door to each other outside the city. What happens behind closed doors in both houses—the loneliness of Francis’s wife, Lena, and the instability of Brian’s wife, Anne—sets the stage for the explosive events to come.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Suicide mentioned
  • Alcoholism
  • Bipolar Disorder
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What Beauty There Is by Cory Anderson

What Beauty There Is by Cory Anderson

Jack Morton has nothing left. Except his younger brother, Matty, who he’d do anything for. Even die for. Now with their mother gone, and their funds quickly dwindling, Jack needs to make a choice: lose his brother to foster care, or find the drug money that sent his father to prison. He chooses the money.

Ava Bardem lives in isolation, a life of silence. For seventeen years her father has controlled her fate. He has taught her to love no one. Trust no one. Now Victor Bardem is stalking the same money as Jack. When he picks up Jack’s trail, Ava must make her own wrenching choice: remain silent or help the brothers survive.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Parental abuse
  • Suicide
  • Addiction
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Animal death
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A Thousand Fires by Shannon Price

A Thousand Fires by Shannon Price

Valerie Simons knows the city’s gang wars are dangerous—her own brother was killed by the Boars two years ago. But nothing will sway her from joining the elite and beautiful Herons to avenge his death—a death she feels responsible for.

But when Valerie is recruited by the mysterious Stags, their charismatic and volatile leader Jax promises to help her get revenge. Torn between old love and new loyalty, Valerie fights to stay alive as she races across the streets of San Francisco to finish the mission that got her into the gangs.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Abusive relationship
  • Graphic self harm
  • Attempted suicide
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Recreational drug use
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Open heart surgery
  • Cancer mentioned
  • Death of a sibling
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Gang violence
  • Gun violence
  • Kidnapping
  • Drowning mentioned
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The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

No one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden.

In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That’s why they’re banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive.

Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life—a society that doesn’t pit friend against friend… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Statutory rape mentioned
  • Sexual assault mentioned
  • Suicide
  • Childbirth
  • Scalping & skinning, off-page
  • Dismemberment mentioned
  • Cannibalism mentioned
  • Starvation
  • Death of a friend
  • Poisoning
  • Torture
  • Lynching
  • Animal death & abuse
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The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson

The lonely young Appalachian woman joins the historical Pack Horse Library Project of Kentucky and becomes a librarian, riding across slippery creek beds and up treacherous mountains on her faithful mule to deliver books and other reading material to the impoverished hill people of Eastern Kentucky.

Along her dangerous route, Cussy, known to the mountain folk as Bluet, confronts those suspicious of her damselfly-blue skin and the government’s new book program. She befriends hardscrabble and complex fellow Kentuckians, and is fiercely determined to bring comfort and joy, instill literacy, and give to those who have nothing, a bookly respite, a fleeting retreat to faraway lands.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Rape
  • Suicide
  • Medical experimentation
  • Death of a child
  • Murder
  • Poverty themes
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Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center

Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center

Cassie Hanwell was born for emergencies. As one of the only female firefighters in her Texas firehouse, she’s seen her fair share of them, and she’s excellent at dealing with other people’s tragedies. But when her estranged and ailing mother asks her to uproot her life and move to Boston, it’s an emergency of a kind Cassie never anticipated.

The tough, old-school Boston firehouse is as different from Cassie’s old job as it could possibly be. Hazing, a lack of funding, and poor facilities mean that the firemen aren’t exactly thrilled to have a “lady” on the crew, even one as competent and smart as Cassie. Except for the handsome rookie, who doesn’t seem to mind having Cassie around… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Fatmisia & body shaming
  • Slut shaming
  • Rape recounted, off-page
  • Attempted suicide
  • Addiction
  • Terminal illness
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The Guest List by Lucy Foley

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

The bride ‧ The plus one ‧ The best man ‧ The wedding planner ‧ The bridesmaid ‧ The body

On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Revenge porn
  • Statutory rape
  • Child abuse
  • Abusive relationship mentioned
  • Cheating
  • Suicide
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Graphic self harm
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Abortion
  • Death of a sibling recounted
  • Death of a child recounted
  • Murder
  • Hazing
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The Lights of Prague by Nicole Jarvis

The Lights of Prague by Nicole Jarvis

In the quiet streets of Prague all manner of otherworldly creatures lurk in the shadows. Unbeknownst to its citizens, their only hope against the tide of predators are the dauntless lamplighters – a secret elite of monster hunters whose light staves off the darkness each night. Domek Myska leads a life teeming with fraught encounters with the worst kind of evil: pijavice, bloodthirsty and soulless vampiric creatures. Despite this, Domek find solace in his moments spent in the company of his friend, the clever and beautiful Lady Ora Fischerová– a widow with secrets of her own.

When Domek finds himself stalked by the spirit of the White Lady – a ghost who haunts the baroque halls of Prague castle – he stumbles across the sentient essence of a will-o’-the-wisp, a mischievous spirit known to lead lost travellers to their death, but who, once captured, are bound to serve the desires of their owners… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Antisemitism
  • Racism
  • Classism
  • Misogyny
  • Suicide
  • Blood & gore depiction
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