Content Guidance — Every Almost

I believe readers deserve to know what they're walking into, so they can meet a story on their own terms. Below is a spoiler-light guide to the heat level, language, and content in Every Almost. None of it is gratuitous, but all of it is present and given real weight.

If you'd rather go in completely unspoiled, feel free to close this page now — the blurb tells you everything you truly need. This is here for the readers who want a little more.

Heat Level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ / 5 — Open Door

Every Almost is a slow burn, and it means it. The romance builds across the entire book, and the intimacy, when it arrives, is on-page rather than fade-to-black. The register is sensory and emotional rather than clinical or explicit — the connection is the point of the scene, not just the payoff. If you love a long ache with a tender, earned resolution, you're in the right place.

Language

Strong language throughout, including frequent profanity and casual exclamatory use of "God" and "Jesus." Charlie is an engineer with an engineer's mouth. If profanity tends to pull you out of a story, this is worth knowing going in.

Content Notes

Every Almost is a warm, hopeful book with a guaranteed happily ever after — but it moves through real grief and hard moments to get there. It contains:

  • Family rejection and homophobia, including a parent's disownment (period-accurate 1980s context)

  • The death of beloved characters, including a terminal illness arc, with on-page grief

  • Sustained grief and loss as an emotional throughline

  • The involuntary loss of home, family, and everything familiar

  • Anxiety and recurring nightmares

  • WWII references through a veteran character's memories (combat and loss, treated with care and never glorified)

  • Brief references to the AIDS crisis, within its 1980s setting

  • On-page intimacy between adult women

It does not contain: sexual violence, self-harm, suicide, eating-disorder content, or substance-abuse storylines. The action and mission sequences are adventure-level, not graphic.

The Short Version

A cozy, funny, deeply hopeful sapphic slow burn — that isn't afraid to sit with grief on the way to joy. Bring your whole heart. It ends well. I promise.

Questions about content? You're always welcome to reach out at info@emberpoppy.com.

Book cover of 'Every Almost' by Elizabeth Hale featuring two people standing and looking at a colorful cosmic galaxy with purple, pink, and blue hues.