Contemporary Fiction Titles

Contemporary fiction refers to realistic stories set in modern times that don’t include elements of fantasy.

Works are alphabetized by author. Sub-genres are listed beside works. For details about a specific work, refer to author’s Substack. The Library is not responsible for content on individual authors’ Substacks.

(N) Novel / (NA) Novella / (NT) Novelette (B) Nonfiction Book

(C) Complete / (I) Serial In Progress

(F) Free / ($) Paid / (F)→($) Preview Available

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The Pelican Crossing | Adrian P Conway | Urban (NA) (C) ($)

Love conquers all, they say. The streets disagree. Two teenagers connect across the divides of London’s gangs. Meteor, a WMD, and Jaycee, from a different postcode. Yet their deepening relationship feels matched at every turn by the hostility of the world around them. To escape its grasp they’ll need all their smarts, and faith in one another. To survive what’s coming, they’ll need something far greater. 

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Dream House Number Four: A story of murder in Vermont | Bella Currie | Contemporary (N) (C) (F)

Sheltered and naïve Amy, who grew up in an alcoholic family, unwittingly marries into a family of sociopaths. It takes a brutal murder to finally wake her from her slumber. Follow her as she struggles to escape their control and build a new life with her children on her own. Her journey of self discovery takes her from Japan to rural Vermont to a major university, a new career, and finally real love.

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Remembrance | Sara Dietz | Sci-Fi Realism (N) (I) (F)→($)

Free through April 2024, after that, first 5 chapters will be free, rest paid

Leah Harvey has suffered migraines for years. Due to a car accident, she misses a session with her neurologist, who has enrolled her in a clinical trial for a potential new treatment. After the missed session, Leah begins to experience increasing paranoia, anxiety, and irritability. At first, she chalks it up to residual effects of the accident, or of missing her treatment, but she’s quickly drawn into a complex network of secrets threatening to burst. Not only is her view of her condition changed forever, but her understanding of her very self.

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Lamb | Mr. Troy Ford | LGBTQ+ (N) (I) (F)

Two friends on different but parallel paths, from private school through college and their raging twenties, until the abrupt, mysterious end of their friendship. Told through reminiscences, journal excerpts, letters, and short stories, Lamb is a snapshot in episodes of young men coming of age after the decimation of AIDS—a new, sometimes shiny, sometimes dark afterparty of gay awakening.

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Hunting for Destiny | Alina Goldie | Fantasy (N) (I) (F)

Aina is a Dryad; a descendant of the three Great Fae Queens and a creature of awesome power. Hadrin is the crown prince of Laird Mackenzie, and determined to declare the Scottish Highlands for human kind. A chance encounter has him star struck; will he succeed in killing her, to absorb what's left of the power of the once-mighty Fae?

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Things That Can’t Be Broken | Shannon Haynes | (N) (I) (F)

Things That Can’t Be Broken takes place from 1980 to the present day across four seemingly unrelated lives that are swept up and dispersed in the wake of a child’s violent death, a child some of them never even met. Yet there is hope for healing through human connection and the strength of her promise.

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Sisterly Love | D.L. Lee | Contemporary (N) (I) (F)

Sisterly Love is the story of two sisters who grow apart. It explores the intertwined issues of sexuality, politics, family and gender through the relationships and career of the protagonist, Summer O'Flynn.

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Theories of Haunting | Macey Phillips | Contemporary, Upmarket (N) (I) (F)

Theories of Haunting is a serialized novel about a mother-scientist who is studying the ghost she accidentally picks up at a graveyard in order to establish a theory of haunting and reconnect with her deceased daughter. The book is a mix of baking, graveyards, ghosts, grief, and motherhood. Kind of like Lincoln in the Bardo meets Ghosts the television show (the BBC version, of course) meets the Great British Bake Off.

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The World Outside | Rosalind Stanley | Women’s Fiction (N) (I) (F)

The World Outside follows Joanna through her teens and early twenties as she struggles to integrate her desires for love, family, community, sophistication, and art in a world that makes her feel like she has to choose.

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The Wee Small Hours | Rosa Temple | Romance (N) (I) (F)

A serialised contemporary romance. Insomniac and physiotherapist, Annie lives in a sleepy market town. She has a group of unlikely friends that become invaluable when her family moves to the other side of the world. Shy and retiring unwittingly becomes the object of attraction of not only social media but two very different suitors.

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Eulogies for Strangers | Tracy Edward Wymer | Fiction (N) (I) (F)

Brief encounters with (dead) people. Fictional eulogies connecting humans in unexpected ways.

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