Books Tagged With potential trigger - self-harm

Word Count: Click here to reveal110000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealAromantic, Bisexual, Demisexual, Pansexual, Polyamorous (Click here to hide)

Summary: Shattered by betrayal, Aria's Companions have separated. Aven and Del have retreated to the safety of the Water tribe, leaving Owyn and Treesi behind on land to stand with Aria and help their wounded Heir heal. Despite their best efforts, Aria retreats, rejecting them both. Owyn knows that he and Treesi can't do this alone. He starts riding out to the coastal villages surrounding Terraces, sending messages out to the deep, begging Aven to come back, telling him that the Heart can reach the Heir. Then he returns from one such trip to find Aria and Treesi have left Terraces, leaving him behind. Abandoned, Owyn leaves Terraces. Instead of following Aria, he goes north, trying to find a way to contact the Water tribes. Trying to find a way to save everything before it's too late. To do that, he must face his deepest fear, risk losing his heart, and accept help from the most unlikely of allies.

Word Count: Click here to reveal60000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Standoffish Aiden is content keeping people at a distance and ensuring his boundaries are impenetrable. There’s safety in not opening up, but there’s also a loneliness he doesn’t realise exists until he meets Riley, a new member of the LGBTQIA+ adventure group Outback Boys. Fascinated by the new guy, Aiden is quick to discover his flirtation skills are rusty and his sweet-talking is cringeworthy. But sweet and clumsy Riley doesn’t seem to mind so much. Even though Riley doesn’t quite know how to handle Aiden’s intensity, he’s willing to step out of his comfort zone and see how their tentative friendship unravels. Between a surf lesson that resembles a kangaroo on acid and paddle boarding that is trickier than walking a tightrope, Aiden and Riley discover love may be a possibility after all. Happiness relies on honesty and openness, though. And with both men holding on tightly to past struggles, their future together is at risk. Can the two Aussies bounce back and heal themselves and each other, or are some wounds too raw to recover from? Outback Boys is a sweet and sexy M/M romance series complete with bruised butts, rope burn, and overworked muscles… all in the pursuit of adventure, of course!

Trigger Warning: Contains themes (discussions) of mental illness and suicide.

Word Count: Click here to reveal71000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealLesbian (Click here to hide)

Summary: Vivian Chastain is an adrenaline addicted veteran, transitioning to civilian life in Sacramento, California. She settles into a new routine while she finishes up college and works as a bartender, covering up her intense anxiety with fake bravado and swagger. All Vivian wants is peace and quiet, but her whole trajectory changes when she stumbles upon a heinous crime in progress and has to fight for her life to get away. While recovering from the fight, she falls in love with someone who is tall in stature but short on emotional intelligence, and this toxic union provides Vivian the relationship that she thinks she needs. Given Vivian’s insecurities and traumatic past, she clings to the relationship even while it destroys her. Vivian’s relationships are strained to their breaking points as she continues to seek balance. She turns to her best friend for support, only to be left empty handed and alone until she finds comradery and care from the last person she would have thought.

Word Count: Click here to reveal10,000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay, Polyamorous (Click here to hide)

Summary: Clockwork mummies, thieving deities, airship pirates, psychic queens, mechanical scarabs, unrepentant scoundrels, mysterious museums, trickster djinns, suspicious werewolves, abducted scientists, fearless spies, and vengeful gods... All this and more wait inside the pages of Clockwork Cairo. Featuring stories from: George Mann, Gail Carriger, Nisi Shawl, Tee Morris & Pip Ballantine, David Barnett, Rod Duncan, Tiffany Trent, P. Djeli Clark, Jonathan Green, E. Catherine Tobler, Chaz Brenchley, K. Tempest Bradford, Benjanun Sriduangkaew and others...

Word Count: Information not available

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: When your only goal is to save the world who's there when you need to be rescued? Boss Most of my life I'd been the savior and sought when anyone found themselves in trouble. It could be to atone for sins of my past or because I was a natural caregiver. Whatever it was I didn't understand how to do anything else. My Outreach Program cared for everyone in the city who needed help and I wouldn't say I hadn't made enemies, but when the protector needed protection I wasn't prepared for Dolan Sharp. Dolan No one did anything for free or out of the kindness of their hearts. That wasn't how the world worked and it was always survival of the fittest. I didn't care what anyone said about the man named Boss. When I witness Boss in action, what I thought I'd believed shattered and I didn't know how to handle that. There's always threats at every turn, it's just a matter of when they catch up with you, but when one jaded man and another with a seemingly deep death wish have to work together who's going to survive the aftermath? (TW: Mentions of childhood sexual, physical and mental abuses. Passive Suicidal Ideation, self-harm and mental illness. These are mainly off-page, but there are details flashbacks and conversations of said acts. Yet if these are triggering for you, please feel free not to read the story. Your self-care and mental health are more important. Thank you.)

Word Count: Information not available

Character Identities: Click here to revealBisexual, Gay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Life and Death sometimes made you believe in second chances Robert One thing I was sure of in my life was I'd never start over after my marriage of thirty years ended. Yet when our kids formed lives of their own, we'd grown apart. I'd signed the papers and tried to move on. My work as a Homicide Detective became my life. It left me with no time to think, but I couldn't exist for my job alone. All that changed when they assigned Remy Bosley as my new partner. He was too good to be true, but in a short time, he became my friend—maybe something more. Remy For twenty-eight years, I'd worked to leave my past behind. Although, when the horrors shaped you into the person you were, there was no escape. Being a cop for me was making sure no one else turned out like me. My partner, Robert Kauffman, made it clear how far I'd shoved my dreams down. I was too old and damaged for fairy tales, yet that's exactly what I wanted. In a few short years, his family became mine, and I couldn't lose that no matter how much I wanted more than friends. When he was in danger, I did what needed to be done, and nothing was ever the same. When a serial killer makes Remy’s old turf his hunting ground, how far will he go to protect the innocent? (TW: Mentions of childhood sexual, physical, and mental abuses. Passive Suicidal Ideation, self-harm, and mental illness. These are off-page, but there are detailed flashbacks and conversations of said acts. Yet if these are triggering for you, please feel free not to read the story. Your self-care and mental health are more important. Thank you.)

Word Count: Click here to reveal106000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealBisexual, Gay (Click here to hide)

Summary: When two broken men find redemption together, will one survive to accept it?
 Chance 
Everyone assumed I was a magnet for trouble, or maybe I searched it out on my own. By the age of forty, I almost destroyed my life. The tragic event that changed my entire perception of myself is haunting me. When a friend is in danger, I volunteer to keep them safe and momentarily distract myself from my problems. Yet my demons keep hunting me down.
 Bart
 For twenty years since my divorce, I'd completely cut myself off from all physical connection with another person. PTSD has taken everything from me, and a time bomb lives in my head—ready to go off at any moment. For the most part, I've learned to control it. When Chance needs help learning a healthier coping mechanism, I offer my assistance, but when he’s healed, will I be able to let him go like I'd promised? 
Nothing had prepared two traumatized men for each other. Can they heal and find redemption, or will the danger around them take one from the other before they realize they have more than their demons? 
(TW: Mentions of childhood sexual, physical, and mental abuses. Passive Suicidal Ideation, self-harm, eating disorders, and mental illness. These are mainly off-page, but there are detailed flashbacks and conversations of said acts. Yet if these are triggering for you, please feel free not to read the story. Your self-care and mental health are more important. Thank you.)


Word Count: Click here to reveal64548 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealBisexual, Non Binary, Transgender (Click here to hide)

Summary: What if cyborgs suffered body dysphoria? In his mid-forties, former cop turned career bureaucrat Nolan Rogers is diagnosed with terminal cancer. His best friend Elly Takahara convinces him to undergo the process of body conversion, where his brain is transplanted into a robotic body. The operation is successful, but Nolan quickly finds himself adrift in a body that doesn't eat or physically react to emotion. For the first time in years, he's suffering from a new kind of body dysphoria, a sensation he hoped to have left behind when he transitioned to male decades ago. During this crisis, he meets Tallis, a proud nonbinary body convert who sued his parents for the right to give up his flesh and blood body. Tallis is fire to Nolan's water, and whereas Nolan just wants to fit in, Tallis is determined to stand out in a world where being a cyborg marks one for discrimination and worse. Despite hitting it off poorly, an undeniable attraction blossoms between the pair, and they become entwined in a complicated relationship. Nolan can't understand Tallis, but he wants to. Trapped in his own narrow confines of what he believes the world to be, Tallis challenges everything he thought he knew. Can Nolan learn to love who he is now, or will he find himself drawn into the ranks of the Regretters, an organization of cyborgs campaigning to outlaw body conversion altogether?

Word Count: Information not available

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Welcome to Brawlers Bar… A quick pit stop for a comfortable bed to sleep turned into an eight-year stay. Vincent “Crave” Butler hit the road the day after college graduation and hadn’t looked behind him since. He’d swore to never stop moving, but the night he drove into Powers, Georgia changed the course of his life. He’d hit a bar called Brawlers with its rundown exterior and pride flag beside the door, the next day he had a job. Second in command to the Head of Brawler security, Crave found the place he didn’t have to run from. No one would call Crave sane. He lived to make people as uncomfortable as possible just for his own twisted amusement. That all changed when a certain cute as fuck bartender walked in for an interview. No one wanted Twitch Harrison around. He was small, femme and annoying on his best days, downright abhorrent on his bad ones. When college turned out to be a no-go, and the parents canceled his credit cards he’d needed a job. Walking into Brawlers, the roughest gay bar in his hometown, was like a game of pick the thing that didn’t belong—him. The two owners, Scary and Tank, hired him on and four years later he was still that thing that didn’t belong. No one made it more apparent than bouncer Crave Butler who didn’t hide the fact he barely tolerated Twitch’s presence. Crave threatened every man who thought they’d get the pretty Twitch but would Twitch rather be in their beds than his? Only one way to find out and he hoped Twitch was ready for forever because that’s what Crave was determined to have.

Word Count: Click here to reveal252 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealBisexual, Gay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Sloan Driscoll is a talented graphic artist but compared to his father and younger brother—all star athletes—he’s never measured up. A lifetime of insecurity leads him down dark paths. His childhood friend, Cole Fujiwara, a former major league pitcher, embodies all of Sloan’s hidden aspirations. Cole is physically fit, attractive, intelligent, and successful. Seemingly perfect. When Sloan shows up on Cole’s NYC doorstep needing a place to stay, their reunion is anything but simple. Sloan has always been drawn to Cole, but now, even though there’s a girlfriend on the periphery, the attraction seems mutual. One night, inhibitions slip away. But both men are hiding a multitude of secrets. Salvation could be found within each other’s arms. But only if they let it.

Word Count: Click here to reveal60000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Josh’s idea of a romance is curling up alone and reading a novel with a happily ever after. His flat is his safe haven—the walls covered with stories and poems, a thousand words that help him cope, and his living room ceiling is a map of the universe. Angus may be shy and inexperienced, but he's incapable of hiding anything, especially his attraction to his older neighbour. When Josh admits to Angus that he’s gay, he doesn't expect Angus’s reaction. Angus’s obvious interest terrifies Josh. For years he’s managed to keep the world at arm’s length and avoid getting too close to anyone. Well, anyone except Eleanor, Angus’s mother, who helped Josh rebuild his life after he was hospitalised for depression. But Josh still thinks he’s broken. His past has left scars he’s convinced are too deep to heal. Despite Josh’s defenses, Angus begins to mean more to him than just the cute boy next door. If Josh can take a risk and let someone into his isolated world, he might have a chance for a real life happy ending.

Word Count: Click here to reveal32k (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: The life of rock star, Dorian Gray and his lover, award winning film director Scott Newland, has been filled with highs and lows. Their love has transcended drug addiction and insecurities, but will it survive another’s revenge against Dorian?   This story shows the progression of these two men from friends to lovers and a backstage look at what a rock star faces onstage and off. As David would say, “My Name is Dorian Gray and I’m here For Your Entertainment.”  PLEASE NOTE: This story deals with drug and alcohol addiction. If these are triggers for you please skip this one!

Word Count: Click here to reveal82000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealBisexual, Demisexual (Click here to hide)

Summary: Jasper and Hamish have no intention of seeking out adventure, but adventure comes looking for them. Jasper's curiosity has carried him through encounters with ghouls, demons, world gates, and megalomaniac sorcerers. He plans to spend the next few years cataloging the mansion's vast and moldering library, and experimenting with magical construction. Professor Xsing, the raccoon not-quite-familiar who's decided to work with him, has fascinating opinions. Hamish, the sorcerer they rescued, is becoming a friend. It's silly for Jasper to wish for anything more. Hamish spent months chained in one small room. Now he lives free in a mansion full of books and friendly people, but adjusting isn't as simple as it should be. When his past weighs heavily, he can ramble the woods and fields. When he can't sleep, there's a nocturnal raccoon happy to share his explorations. But he's lonely, he misses his own long-lost familiar, and when he thinks he hears her ghost— even though familiars don't have ghosts— his life is about to be overturned. Something's afoot— ghost, spirit, familiar, wood mouse? With Silas, Darien, and their familiars headed off to France, Jasper and Hamish join forces to help those in need. And as they work together, an unexpected chance at love may fill the lonely corners of both their hearts. Found by Jasper is a novel in the Necromancer series, with our past heroes as side characters. Older MCs, friends to lovers, first times, demisexual. *Content warning for secondary character self-harm on page.*

Word Count: Click here to reveal119000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealBisexual (Click here to hide)

Summary: One night. A second chance. The perfect match he never saw coming… On the outside, Mayr seems to have it all: a successful career as Head of the Guard for a prominent politician, family and friends who rely on him, and the attention of beautiful lovers. But appearances are a good way to bury secrets, including mistakes he can never fix and a broken heart that never seems to heal, forever searching for the one person to share his life with. When his last girlfriend takes him back and suggests an intimate night together with Tash, one of her lovers, Mayr reluctantly agrees. The last thing he expects is to fall hard for Tash, who is nothing like Mayr’s previous lovers… and much too difficult to forget. Tash is a secretive priest with deep, dark truths connected to a past he will never completely outrun. He keeps romance at a distance, knowing it can destroy him. Except with Mayr in his life, love might just ignore all the rules and push his limits. But when Tash undertakes the Uldana Trials, love may ruin them both. If Tash fails, he'll likely die. If he succeeds, he must give up Mayr and break both their hearts…

Word Count: Click here to reveal100000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay, Genderfluid, Non Binary (Click here to hide)

Summary: Big-hearted Danny finds interaction difficult and must keep his world small in order to survive. By day he lives in an abandoned swimming pool and fixes electrical devices to trade for supplies, but by night, alone, he hunts sharks—a reckless search for the dangerous men who prey on the vulnerable. A search for his best friend’s killer. A chance meeting with an American boy selling himself on the streets throws Danny’s lonely existence into disarray. Micky is troubled, fragile, and Danny feels a desperate need to protect him. Though from what, he doesn't know. As Danny discovers more about Micky, he realises that what Micky needs saving from is the one thing Danny has no idea how to fight. To save Micky, Danny must risk expanding his world and face something that scares him more than any shark ever could: trusting he will be accepted for who he is. If a freezing winter on the streets, a sadistic doctor, and three thousand miles don't tear them apart first, that is.

Word Count: Information not available

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: The forbidden is the sweetest lure. Trenton Security’s Public Relations go-to was Hayden Gage. He loved his job, and it kept him distracted from the demons haunting his nightmares. His past wasn’t up for discussion, and Hayden wouldn’t allow it to intrude on his future. Yet, that was easier said than done when his best friend came to him desperate for help, and it put him right on the path to his one weakness. Young didn’t equal lost. Derrick Thorpe lived in the shadow of his father’s mistakes. Although he was adopted by Linus Trenton, he wanted to prove that he wasn’t like his biological father. When he was asked to go undercover to help at Trenton Security, it put him in close quarters with Gage. Being Gage’s was only an act, but when lines blur, what happens when the operation ends?

Word Count: Information not available

Character Identities: Click here to revealAce, Bisexual, Pansexual, Straight (Click here to hide)

Summary: Still reeling from his final encounter with the Elders, Matthias finally reaches the promised safety of Haven. There, he is met with suspicion and accusations, learning too late that the new world he’s entered is built on as many illusions and lies as the world he’s left behind, and that the safe home he’s been searching for isn’t safe after all. When all the illusions come crashing down, and Matthias barely escapes with his life and his friends, he finds himself going back to the start—and finds himself one step closer to the truth.

Word Count: Click here to reveal33680 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Hateful words and eight years separated Joey from his family, but a shocking discovery changes everything. After avoiding his hometown for years, Joey Waters reluctantly returns for his parents’ anniversary. Within moments of his arrival, he’s confronted with the ghost of his past: Patrick “Trick” Harrison, the man who’d shattered his heart with just a few cruel words. Joey believed he’d left those painful years behind, but seeing Trick again ignites a whirlwind of emotions he thought he’d buried. As old wounds break open, Joey is determined to ignore the man who’d caused him so much pain and sent him on a downward spiral in his college years. However, a staggering revelation about Trick forces Joey to reconsider everything he thought he knew. Can the two men overcome their troubled history, or will the scars of the past keep them apart forever? Tags: enemies to lovers, brother's best friend, Trick's secret, mm romance, gay romance, Joey's first love, jealous ex-lover / stalker, off page unalive reference, anxiety and depression, tattoos, family reunion Joey's Trick is a brother's best friend / enemies to lovers 33k word novella. There is, as always, a HEA in the cards for my two characters.

Word Count: Click here to reveal49000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealBisexual, Gay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Insanity was in the eye of the beholder. Harmon Little was a surveillance expert. He lived in the shadows, and he liked it there. There wasn’t a place he couldn’t get in and out of without detection. As usual with his mischievous nature, his current assignment went south, and he ran. He thought he was free and clear until he knocked someone over in a grocery store aisle. Sanity wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Solomon “Solo” Poe was counting calories. Working out until he fell into bed hungry and exhausted. He was plain and pudgy, plus he couldn’t remember when he’d last gone on a date. He wanted more than the occasional, lights out, one-night stand. So, he was going to lose the weight and find himself a man. At least that was the plan, then a big man with a huge smile tried to kill him in a store aisle. There was one thing he was sure of, Harmon was his.

Word Count: Click here to reveal46,000 (Click here to hide)

Character Identities: Click here to revealGay (Click here to hide)

Summary: Can he build his dreams with a destroyer? Beautiful young Elarhe, crown prince of Ayklinn, leaves his homeland disguised in rags because he wants to learn how to use his magic. He travels to a border city in the Grandimanderian Empire, where magic isn’t forbidden. But that land isn’t fond of immigrants; fear permeates its streets, and cruel things lurk in its shadows. One of these cruel things is a man who wields a terrible magic that—instead of healing or mending—deals only in death…. And Elarhe wants to rule his heart. As a child, Kite destroyed an entire city with his dark magic. Now, he serves the Overfather of Grandimanderia. Feared and alone, Kite is content with the ice in his veins…until a talented young immigrant challenges everything he thought he knew. This gay erotic romance depicts two lovers testing each other’s boundaries and discovering new experiences together. It contains sexually explicit scenes, including scenes with BDSM and various fetishes such as bondage (cuffs, suspension, straitjacket), pony play, spanking, flogging, gut punching, wax play, and others. Some scenes are extreme. (But there’s actually a story!)