Category Archives: Contemporary

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)

Knotted by Pam Godwin

I try to forget her. It’s impossible. Growing up together, Conor and I shared all our firsts. First love, first kiss, first… Not all our firsts. We were sixteen the night she was violently assaulted while I helplessly watched.
I’ll never forget the sounds of her suffering. Or my inconsolable agony when she left Oklahoma. Years later, she returns to honor our teenage pact. Except the boy she loved is gone, replaced by a ruthless cattle rancher knotted with secrets. She doesn’t know my dark cravings or the trails of sin that lead to her. I don’t deserve her, but one truth remains. She’s mine.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Graphic rape of a minor (protagonist)
  • Child abuse (physical assault by parent)
  • Graphic murder

Training the Heart by Paisley Hope

Wade Ashby is a closed book. With the weight of the family business on his shoulders, and his ongoing battle to escape a failed marriage, he only has time for one looking after his ranch. Life has dealt Ivy Spencer some tough blows. So when the opportunity to work on the Silver Pines ranch presents itself, she grabs it by the horns. Nothing will stand in the way of her dream of training a racehorse on route to the Kentucky Derby. Wade might be determined to keep his heart under lock and key, but Ivy’s constant presence soon ignites a passion he thought he’d lost long ago… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Emotionally abusive relationship recounted & gaslighting
  • Parent with alcoholism
  • Infertility discussed

Protect by Paisley Hope

Imagine coming into the town pub with my crew, dirty and exhausted, only to walk right into my biggest regret. The twin sister of my lost best friend and the one who got away. I haven’t seen Violette Taylor in years but I haven’t forgotten her either. I used to be Rowan to her. Now, I’m just King, the guy who broke her heart, but not for the reasons she thinks. Violette is back in town for good, she’s a single mom and a nurse in the burn unit I accidentally wind up in. Can you call that fate? Maybe, if she wasn’t doing her best to stay far away from anyone who reminded her of her past, especially… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Burn injury from fire
  • Grief & loss depiction

Holding the Reins by Paisley Hope

CeCe Ashby is looking for a fresh start after escaping the toxic relationship that has consumed her adult life. Unsure of what the future holds, she returns to the small town of Laurel Creek and her family’s ranch. Nash Carter is the recently retired hockey superstar of the Dallas Stars, Laurel Creek’s hometown hero, and notorious bachelor. He may look good in a cowboy hat, but he is also CeCe’s brother’s best friend… and therefore off limits. When CeCe reappears in her hometown in need of a job, Nash knows he has to have her, and not entirely for business… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Insomnia & nightmares (protagonist)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of parents in a car accident recounted

When Rain Turns to Snow by Jane Godwin

Lissa is home on her own after school one afternoon when a stranger turns up on the doorstep carrying a baby. Reed is on the run – surely people are looking for him? He’s trying to find out who he really is and thinks Lissa’s mum might have some answers. But how could he be connected to Lissa’s family – and why has he been left in charge of a baby? A baby who is sick, and getting sicker… Reed’s appearance stirs up untold histories in Lissa’s family, and suddenly she is having to make sense of her past in a way she would never have imagined. Meanwhile, her brother is dealing with a devastating secret of his own.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism
  • Substance addiction mentioned
  • Bullying & cyberbullying