Category Archives: Contemporary

Ghost by Jason Reynolds

Ghost by Jason Reynolds

Running. That’s all that Ghost (real name Castle Cranshaw) has ever known. But never for a track team. Nope, his game has always been ball. But when Ghost impulsively challenges an elite sprinter to a race—and wins—the Olympic medalist track coach sees he has something: crazy natural talent. Thing is, Ghost has something else: a lot of anger, and a past that he is trying to outrun. Can Ghost harness his raw talent for speed and meld with the team, or will his past finally catch up to him?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence mentioned, including an scene where an drunk man shoots at his wife and child (who remain unharmed)
  • Alcohol consumption & drug & alcohol abuse mentioned (secondary adult characters)
  • Bullying & physical assault (fistfights)

Accidentally in Love by Danielle Jackson

Accidentally in Love by Danielle Jackson

As office manager of the city’s leading luxury boudoir and pinup photography studio, lovable grump Samantha Sawyer has everything under control. With an eventful summer season on the horizon, Sam is balancing a hectic workload while preparing the Buxom Boudoir “Photobus,” a vintage coach bus converted into a mobile photobooth and meeting space, to make the rounds at Chicago’s bustling summer street festival roster. Sam’s busy schedule makes avoiding the difficult parts of her life much easier, but there’s one person who can see right through her to-do lists and icy façade, really see her. A lot has changed… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption
  • Heart attack (secondary character)
  • Protagonist with Graves’ Disease (an autoimmune thyroid condition), including mentions of medical issues, hospitalisation, scarring, and weight gain

Wish by Barbara O’Connor

Eleven-year-old Charlie Reese has been making the same secret wish every day since fourth grade. She even has a list of all the ways there are to make the wish, such as cutting off the pointed end of a slice of pie and wishing on it as she takes the last bite. But when she is sent to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina to live with family she barely knows, it seems unlikely that her wish will ever come true. That is until she meets Wishbone, a skinny stray dog who captures her heart, and Howard, a neighbor boy who proves surprising in lots of ways. Suddenly…. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parent in jail (protagonist)
  • Bullying & minor fistfights (on-page)

Dream by Barbara O’Connor

Idalee Lovett is content with her life in small-town Colby, North Carolina, living in her family’s huge house with rooms for rent. But she has big dreams, just like her mama. While Mama is on tour for the summer with her cover band, Lovey Lovett and the Junkyard Dogs, Idalee decides to hone her craft as a songwriter—since her truest wish is to hear her country songs on the radio one day. When the local radio station announces a songwriting contest with the winning song being recorded by an up-and-coming singer, Idalee is determined to win. It would definitely be possible if only she could buy the shiny blue guitar in… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Amputation mentioned, including a secondary character who lost toes in an axe incident and a cousin who lost a finger in a fireworks incident
  • Parent in jail for assault (secondary character)
  • Fistfight mentioned

ASAP by Axie Oh

Sori has worked her whole life to become a K-pop idol, until she realizes she doesn’t want a life forever in the spotlight. But that’s not actually up to Sori—she’s caught between her exacting mother’s entertainment company and her father’s presidential aspirations. And as the pressure to keep her flawless public image grows, the last person she should be thinking about is her ex-boyfriend. Nathaniel is off limits—she knows this. A member of one of the biggest K-pop bands in the world and forbidden from dating, he isn’t any more of an option now than he was two years ago… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Infidelity
  • Minor illness (fainting)
  • Stalking & cyberbullying

My Best Friend’s Honeymoon by Meryl Wilsner

Elsie Hoffman has been engaged to her college boyfriend for a year and a half. Ginny Holtz has been in love with Elsie for almost a decade and a half. When Elsie discovers her fiancé already planned their wedding and honeymoon as a surprise and she’s expected to be in a white dress in seven days, she swiftly realizes she’s let herself become too comfortable with a future she never wanted. She breaks things off, and a week later is on a plane to the Caribbean for her non-refundable honeymoon with her best friend Ginny instead. Ginny thinks it’s… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Lesbophobia (d slur)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Childhood bullying mentioned

Passion Project by London Sperry

If your twenties are supposed to be the best years of your life, Bennet Taylor is failing miserably . . . with a big emphasis on the miserable. Where’s that zest she keeps hearing about? She’s a temp worker in New York City with no direction, no future, and no social life. And at the painful center of this listlessness is grief over the death of her first love. When Bennet runs into Henry Adams just hours after standing him up for a first date, she makes an alcohol-fueled confession: She’s not ready to date. In fact, it’s been years since she felt passion for something. Not even pottery, or organized sports—not anything. Rather than leaving… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Depression (protagonist)
  • Parent with Alzheimer’s’ Disease mentioned (secondary character)
  • Death of a boyfriend mentioned

Between Now and Forever by Adriana Locke

When Gabrielle Solomon falls, she falls hard. Even if that means literally toppling over a porch railing in nothing but a flimsy towel—right in front of her sexy new neighbor. .Jay Stetson is 100 percent hero material with those arms, that chest, and his deliciously oh-so-sexy smirk. The chiseled hunk in flannel has an irresistible off-limits attitude while plucking Gabrielle out of the bushes and saving her from a snake. Unfortunately, he’s not indulging in what Gabrielle is offering—not with his emotional train wreck of a past. Just neighbors. Just friends. Or so he says. Secretly, he’s… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a partner

Dirty Ties by Pam Godwin

Revenge. I race to finance it. I evade to protect it. I kill to attain it. I planned everything. Except her. The alluring, curvaceous blonde at the finish line. With sapphire eyes that cheat and lie. Whose powerful family murdered mine. I hate her. I want her. I know she’s hiding something. But so am I.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Homophobia
  • Sexual harassment
  • Forced arranged marriage (secondary character)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Death of a mother recounted
  • Murder by knife violence
  • Motorcycle accident (secondary character)

Cage of Ice and Echoes by Pam Godwin

Frankie and her ruthless protectors conquered unspeakable evil. But their fight to escape the hills of shivers and shadows is far from over. Stranded in Alaska, survival becomes paramount against starvation, hypothermia, and the dangerous predators lurking outside their isolated cabin. Sharing precious body heat with her viciously possessive men presents another challenge. She must navigate not only the brutal arctic tundra but also the intricacies of polyamorous love to ensure they make it out alive. Their only hope rests on a plane they can’t fly—unless they unlock the secrets hidden beneath its wings in a cage of ice and echoes.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Paedophilia & child sexual abuse recounted (love interest)
  • Kidnapping & captivity recounted
  • Blizzard & food scarcity (on-page)