The Reading Nook and the Decade Between Then and Now: Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren
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Contemporary Romance
Contemporary romance books are the ones set in a world you already live in — no crowns, no corsets, no portals. The obstacle is a lease, a custody arrangement, a job in the same building, or a person who was there the whole time. Below are the ones worth your evening, each with a note on what it actually delivers rather than what the cover promises.
The Boss Who Was Wrong About What the Place Was Worth: The Fine Print by Lauren Asher
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The Woman Who Processes the World in Facts: Neanderthal Seeks Human by Penny Reid
Looking for more contemporary romance books? Browse the whole shelf → Romance heroines are rarely allowed to be eccentric. They are allowed to be bookish, occasionally clumsy, professionally competent in nonthreatening ways — but genuinely, specifically odd, in ways that make other people in the narrative slightly puzzled by them?
The Mountain Man Who Decided She Was Staying: The Gamble by Kristen Ashley
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The Fake Boyfriend Who Turned Out to Have Everything in Common: Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall
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The Letters Neither of Them Were Supposed to Write: Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez
Looking for more contemporary romance books? Browse the whole shelf → Abby Jimenez occupies a specific corner of contemporary romance: she writes emotional, sometimes very funny novels about people who are competent adults managing difficult lives, and her great skill is making the warmth and the depth coexist without either undermining the other.
The Novel She Wrote From a Secret: Seven Days in June by Tia Williams
Looking for more contemporary romance books? Browse the whole shelf → Some second chance romances are about two people who drifted apart. Some are about two people who were separated by circumstances.
Ten Summers and the Night That Ended Them: Every Summer After by Carley Fortune
Looking for more contemporary romance books? Browse the whole shelf → Summer romance has its own grammar in contemporary fiction — it runs on nostalgia and heat and the particular openness that comes from time that belongs to no one in particular.
The Second Chance Where the Problem Was Never That They Stopped: Happy Place by Emily Henry
Looking for more contemporary romance books? Browse the whole shelf → Most second chance romances hinge on a misunderstanding that can be resolved.
The Man at the Edge of Town: Archer’s Voice by Mia Sheridan
Looking for more contemporary romance books? Browse the whole shelf → Driving until you cannot anymore is its own kind of decision — the miles doing the deciding when you cannot.