Category Archives: Contemporary

Home Field Advantage by Dahlia Adler 

Home Field Advantage by Dahlia Adler

Amber McCloud’s dream is to become cheer captain at the end of the year, but it’s an extra-tall order to be joyful and spirited when the quarterback of your team has been killed in a car accident. For both the team and the squad, watching Robbie get replaced by newcomer Jack Walsh is brutal. And when it turns out Jack is actually short for Jaclyn, all hell breaks loose.

The players refuse to be led by a girl, the cheerleaders are mad about the changes to their traditions, and the fact that Robbie’s been not only replaced but outshined by a QB who wears a sports bra has more than a few Atherton Alligators in a rage. Amber tries for some semblance of unity, but it quickly becomes clear that she’s only got a future on the squad and with her friends if she helps them take Jack down… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexism
  • Queermisia
  • Threatened outing
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Abortion mentioned
  • Miscarriage
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child
  • Car accident
  • Bullying
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The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams 

The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams

Ealing after losing his beloved wife. He shops every Wednesday, goes to Temple, and worries about his granddaughter, Priya, who hides in her room reading while he spends his evenings watching nature documentaries. Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at the local library for the summer when she discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a list of novels that she’s never heard of before. Intrigued, and a little bored with her slow job at the checkout desk, she impulsively decides to read every book on the list.. Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Depression
  • Suicide

The Color Project by Sierra Abrams

The Color Project by Sierra Abrams

Bernice Aurora Wescott has one thing she doesn’t want anyone to know: her name. That is, until Bee meets Levi, the local golden boy who runs a charity organization called The Color Project. Levi is not at all shy about attempting to guess Bee’s real name. But while Levi is everything she never knew she needed, giving up her name would feel like a stamp on forever. And that terrifies her.

When unexpected news of an illness in the family drains Bee’s summer of everything bright, she is pushed to the breaking point. Losing herself in The Color Project—a world of weddings, funerals, cancer patients, and hopeful families that the charity funds—is no longer enough. Bee must hold up the weight of her family, but to do that, she needs Levi.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Anxiety
  • Car accident

Goth Girl, Queen of the Universe by Lindsay Zrull 

Goth Girl, Queen of the Universe by Lindsay S. Zrull

Jess was claimed by the state when her bio mom’s mental illness made her unstable. While their relationship is far from traditional, blood ties are hard to break. There’s only one problem: Jess can’t reunite with her mom in New York City without a bunch of paperwork and she worries her social worker will never approve the trip. That’s when she remembers Oscar’s cosplay group, which is aiming for that big convention in New York . . .

So, Jess joins Oscar’s team—with every intention of using them to get to her mom. But her plan gets complicated when she discovers that, actually, cosplay is pretty great, and so is having friends. And Oscar, who Jess thought was just a shy nerd, can be as gallant and charming as the heroes he pretends to be. As the big convention draws near, Jess will have to decide whether or not chasing a dream of “family” is worth risking the family she’s built for herself.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Schizophrenia
  • Anxiety
  • Panic attacks, on-page
  • Foster care system
  • Bullying

Annihilation Road by Christine Feehan

Annihilation Road by Christine Feehan

Savin “Savage” Pajari is convinced he’s not worth a damn thing. He’s not like his brothers. He’s a sadistic monster, a killer—a man no woman could truly love. So it completely throws him when a stranger risks her life for his, pushing him out of the way and taking the hit that would have sent him six feet under. If he had any kind of sense, he’d leave her alone, but Savage can’t get the woman with a smart mouth and no sense of self-preservation out of his head. With one kiss, he’s lost.

Seychelle Dubois has spent her entire life not feeling much of anything until Savage comes along and sets her whole body on fire. Kissing him was a mistake. Letting him get close would be a catastrophe. He’s the most beautiful—and damaged—man she’s ever met. He has a way of getting under her skin, and what he’s offering is too tempting to resist… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Human trafficking
  • Rape
  • Paedophilia
  • Child abuse
  • Torture

Slingshot by Mercedes Helnwein

Slingshot by Mercedes Helnwein

Grace Welles had resigned herself to the particular loneliness of being fifteen and stuck at a third-tier boarding school in the swamps of Florida, when she accidentally saves the new kid in her class from being beat up. With a single aim of a slingshot, the monotonous mathematics of her life are obliterated forever…because now there is this boy she never asked for. Wade Scholfield.

With Wade, Grace discovers a new way to exist. School rules are optional, life is bizarrely perfect, and conversations about wormholes can lead to make-out sessions that disrupt any logical stream of thoughts… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Slut shaming
  • Sexual harassment
  • Teacher-student relationship
  • Physical parent abuse
  • Cheating

Such a Good Girl by Amanda Morgan

Such a Good Girl by Amanda K. Morgan

Riley Stone is just about perfect. (Ask anyone.) She has a crush on her French teacher, Alex Belrose. And she suspects he likes her, too. Riley has her entire life planned out. The plan is nonnegotiable. She’s never had a secret she couldn’t keep.
Riley is sure that her life is on the right track. And nothing will change that. She’s nothing like a regular teenager.
But she doesn’t have any problem admitting that.

Riley doesn’t usually play games. But when she does, she always wins. She thinks a game is about to start but Riley always has a plan… and she always wins.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Teacher-student relationship

Waking Olivia by Elizabeth O’Roark

Waking Olivia by Elizabeth O’Roark

A failing farm. His father’s debt. And a struggling college track team. Will Langstrom has too many responsibilities, and the last thing he needs is Olivia Finnegan, a beautiful but troubled new transfer student.

A smart mouth. A strong right hook. And a secret that could destroy her. Olivia is her own worst enemy, with a past she can’t seem to escape, and the last person she wants help from is a cocky track coach she can never seem to please.

Refusing to be pushed away, Will is determined to save her. And determined to resist an attraction that could destroy them both.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child abuse recounted
  • Attempted sexual assault mentioned
  • Disordered eating
  • Uxoricide recounted*
  • Disappearance of a sibling
  • Murder of a pet

* Note : As a child, the protagonist witnessed her father murdering her mother.

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

All Lina wanted was to be desired. How did she end up in a marriage with two children and a husband who wouldn’t touch her?

All Maggie wanted was to be understood. How did she end up in a relationship with her teacher and then in court, a hated pariah in her small town?

All Sloane wanted was to be admired. How did she end up a sexual object of men, including her husband, who liked to watch her have sex with other men and women?

Three Women is a record of unmet needs, unspoken thoughts, disappointments, hopes and unrelenting obsessions.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Fatmisia
  • Slut-shaming
  • Rape
  • Statutory rape
  • Eating disorder (anorexia)
  • Suicide mentioned

Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover

Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover

When Tate Collins meets airline pilot Miles Archer, she knows it isn’t love at first sight. They wouldn’t even go so far as to consider themselves friends. The only thing Tate and Miles have in common is an undeniable mutual attraction. Once their desires are out in the open, they realize they have the perfect set-up. He doesn’t want love, she doesn’t have time for love, so that just leaves the sex. Their arrangement could be surprisingly seamless, as long as Tate can stick to the only two rules Miles has for her.

Never ask about the past. Don’t expect a future. They think they can handle it, but realize almost immediately they can’t handle it at all. Hearts get infiltrated. Promises get broken. Rules get shattered. Love gets ugly.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Incest
  • Pregnancy & childbirth
  • Death of a child
  • Car accident