Category Archives: Contemporary

Hate to Want You by Alisha Rai

Hate to Want You by Alisha Rai

One night. No one will know. That was the deal. Every year, Livvy Kane and Nicholas Chandler would share one perfect night of illicit pleasure. The forbidden hours let them forget the tragedy that haunted their pasts—and the last names that made them enemies. Until the night she didn’t show up.

Now Nicholas has an empire to run. He doesn’t have time for distractions and Livvy’s sudden reappearance in town is a major distraction. She’s the one woman he shouldn’t want… so why can’t he forget how right she feels in his bed?

Livvy didn’t come home for Nicholas, but fate seems determined to remind her of his presence—and their past. Although the passion between them might have once run hot and deep, not even love can overcome the scandal that divided their families. Being together might be against all the rules . . . but being apart is impossible.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Emotional parental abuse
  • Depression
  • Anxiety
  • Panic attack
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent recounted
  • Death of a sibling recounted
  • Car accident recounted
  • Japanese internment camps mentioned

The Year of the Crocodile by Courtney Milan

The Year of the Crocodile by Courtney Milan

Tina Chen and Blake Reynolds have been together for almost a year. In that time, they’ve grown closer on just about every front. The one exception? Blake’s father has never let anything stop him. Tina’s parents have never let anyone push them around. And they’ve never met.

That’s about to change. But don’t worry—fireworks are traditional at Chinese New Years.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Religious persecution & refugee experiences
  • Chinese education camps
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Eating disorder recovery
  • Substance addiction recovery
  • Heart attack recounted

Turning Pointe by Katherine Locke

Turning Pointe by Katherine Locke

Zedekiah Harrow is Alyona Miller’s other half—the Z to her A, her rock in the chaotic, competitive world of professional ballet. He’s the one person who can talk her anxiety away, the one person she knows will never judge her. That she’s starting to think about him as more than a best friend is something new entirely.

Aly is Zed’s everything, but their “just friends” label is beginning to chafe. When the company embarks on a month-long European tour, the magic of Amsterdam and a nearly indecent pas de deux routine combine, making their chemistry—both on and off the stage—impossible to ignore… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Eating disorder

Second Position by Katherine Locke

Second Position by Katherine Locke

Four years ago, a car accident ended Zedekiah Harrow’s ballet career and sent Philadelphia Ballet principal dancer Alyona Miller spinning toward the breakdown that suspended her own. What they lost on the side of the road that day can never be replaced, and grief is always harshest under a spotlight…

Now twenty-three, Zed teaches music and theatre at a private school in Washington, D.C. and regularly attends AA meetings to keep the pain at bay. Aly has returned to D.C. to live with her mother while trying to recover from the mental and physical breakdown that forced her to take a leave of absence from the ballet world and her adoring fans… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Anxiety
  • Eating disorder
  • Self-harm
  • Loss of limb in a car accident reconted

Shipped by Meredith Tate

Shipped by Meredith Tate

Stella Greene and Wesley Clarke are Gene Connolly Memorial High School’s biggest rivals. While the two have been battling it out for top student, it’s a race to the bottom when it comes to snide comments and pulling the dirtiest prank. For years, Stella and Wes have been the villain in each other’s story, and now it’s all-out war. And there is no bigger battle than the one for valedictorian, and more specifically, the coveted valedictorian scholarship.

But Stella and Wes have more in common than they think. Both are huge fans of Warship Seven, a popular sci-fi TV drama with a dedicated online following, and the two start chatting under aliases—without a clue that their rival is just beyond the screen. They realize that they’re both attending SciCon this year, so they plan to dress in their best cosplay and finally meet IRL… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexism
  • Sexual assault mentioned
  • Cyberbullying
  • Poverty

The Paper Girl of Paris by Jordyn Taylor

The Paper Girl of Paris by Jordyn Taylor

Sixteen-year-old Alice is spending the summer in Paris, but she isn’t there for pastries and walks along the Seine. When her grandmother passed away two months ago, she left Alice an apartment in France that no one knew existed. An apartment that has been locked for more than seventy years.

Alice is determined to find out why the apartment was abandoned and why her grandmother never once mentioned the family she left behind when she moved to America after World War II. With the help of Paul, a charming Parisian student, she sets out to uncover the truth. However, the more time she spends digging through the mysteries of the past, the more she realizes there are secrets in the present that her family is still refusing to talk about… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Parent with depression
  • Attempted suicide of a parent recounted
  • Death of a grandmother, off-page
  • World War Two

The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman 

The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman 

Lilian Girvan has been a single mother for three years ever since her husband died in a car accident. One mental breakdown and some random suicidal thoughts later, she s just starting to get the hang of this widow thing. She can now get her two girls to school, show up to work, and watch TV like a pro. The only problem is she s becoming overwhelmed with being underwhelmed.

At least her textbook illustrating job has some perks like actually being called upon to draw whale genitalia. Oh, and there s that vegetable-gardening class her boss signed her up for. Apparently being the chosen illustrator for a series of boutique vegetable guides means getting your hands dirty, literally. Wallowing around in compost on a Saturday morning can t be much worse than wallowing around in pajamas and self-pity… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a husband in a car accident recounted

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood 

As a third-year Ph.D. candidate, Olive Smith doesn’t believe in lasting romantic relationships–but her best friend does, and that’s what got her into this situation. Convincing Anh that Olive is dating and well on her way to a happily ever after was always going to take more than hand-wavy Jedi mind tricks: Scientists require proof. So, like any self-respecting biologist, Olive panics and kisses the first man she sees.

That man is none other than Adam Carlsen, a young hotshot professor–and well-known ass. Which is why Olive is positively floored when Stanford’s reigning lab tyrant agrees to keep her charade a secret and be her fake boyfriend. But when a big science conference goes haywire, putting Olive’s career on the Bunsen burner, Adam surprises her again with his unyielding support and even more unyielding… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexism
  • Sexual harassment
  • Death of a parent from pancreatic cancer recounted

Wait for You by Jennifer Armentrout

Wait for You by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Travelling thousands of miles from home to enter college is the only way nineteen-year-old Avery Morgansten can escape what happened at the Halloween party five years ago—an event that forever changed her life. All she needs to do is make it to her classes on time, make sure the bracelet on her left wrist stays in place, not draw any attention to herself, and maybe—please God—make a few friends, because surely that would be a nice change of pace. The one thing she didn’t need and never planned on was capturing the attention of the one guy who could shatter the precarious future she’s building for herself.

Cameron Hamilton is six feet and three inches of swoon-worthy hotness, complete with a pair of striking blue eyes… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape of a minor recounted
  • Sexual assault
  • Domestic violence, off-page

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

Frances is twenty-one years old, cool-headed, and darkly observant. A college student and aspiring writer, she devotes herself to a life of the mind–and to the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi, her best friend and comrade-in-arms. Lovers at school, the two young women now perform spoken-word poetry together in Dublin, where a journalist named Melissa spots their potential. Drawn into Melissa’s orbit, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman’s sophisticated home and tall, handsome husband. Private property, Frances believes, is a cultural evil–and Nick, a bored actor who never quite lived up to his potential, looks like patriarchy made flesh. But however amusing their flirtation seems at first, it gives way to a strange intimacy neither of them expects. As Frances tries to keep her life in check, her relationships increasingly resist her control: with Nick, with her difficult and unhappy father, and finally even with Bobbi.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Domestic abuse recounted
  • Self harm
  • Alcohol abuse
  • Miscarriage mentioned
  • Endometriosis