Past Kindle Book Deals but Still Must Read Books!
Looking for must read books you missed the first time around? You’re in the right place. This is where all of our past Kindle book deals live—the ones good enough to click, even if the discount’s gone. Every book here was hand-picked by our team, featured in a daily deal, and still earns a spot on your TBR.
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159 past books matching Contemporary Fiction
A good pick for readers who like contemporary fiction about first loves, hometown ties, and complicated romantic choices.
Love You More
Literary Fiction · Contemporary Fiction · Women's Fiction
Our take
A New York Times bestseller, Love You More drew this comparison from The New York Times Book Review: “Remember Sweet Home Alabama? Giffin has given us a modern Midwestern update of that classic story.” Newly engaged New York doctor Billie hears from Mick, her high-school sweetheart, for the first time in nearly a decade. His urgent news sends her back to Wisconsin to reconsider her past and the future she’s planned with Dean. A good pick for readers who like contemporary fiction about first loves, hometown ties, and complicated romantic choices.
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About the book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A woman is newly engaged to a man she adores when she receives a call from her first love with news that shatters her carefully ordered world, in this emotionally powerful novel from the author of All We Ever Wanted, The Lies That Bind, and The Summer Pact.
"Remember Sweet Home Alabama? Giffin has given us a modern Midwestern update of that classic story.”—The New York Times Book Review
Billie has built the perfect life. Her medical practice in New York City is thriving, and she’s finally found the right partner in Dean after years spent trying to move on from her high-school sweetheart, Mick. Their young love had been intense and true, but distance and ambition pulled them apart when she left Wisconsin for medical school.
Then one morning, just after she’s accepted Dean’s romantic marriage proposal, Billie’s phone rings. It’s Mick—calling for the first time in nearly a decade. His news is urgent and in a moment, everything changes.
As Billie boards a plane back to Wisconsin, her past comes rushing in—her hometown friendships, the love she and Mick shared, and the choices that shaped them all. What awaits her is a reckoning with what she’s lost, what she’s built, and what she still wants.
Gripping and deeply moving, Love You More is a story about the plot twists life throws at us—and how love, in all its forms, has the power to change everything.
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Called “tough love at its finest” by Booklist in a starred review, this humorous novel is a great fit for readers who enjoy contemporary fiction about family, fresh…
Limelight
Literary Fiction · Contemporary Fiction · Women's Fiction
Our take
After moving her family from suburban Dallas to Manhattan, Allison Brinkley finds herself overwhelmed by city life, a lost job, and an unexpected encounter with Carter Reid, a famous teenage pop star preparing for Broadway. Their unlikely connection opens the door to an opportunity that helps Allison find her footing in New York. Called “tough love at its finest” by Booklist in a starred review, this humorous novel is a great fit for readers who enjoy contemporary fiction about family, fresh starts, and unexpected friendships.
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About the book
In a smart and funny novel by the award-winning author of the critically acclaimed “big-hearted, charming” (The Washington Post) Small Admissions, a family’s move to New York City brings surprises.
Allison Brinkley—wife, mother, and unflappable optimist—discovers that her decision to pack up and move her family from suburban Dallas to the glittery chaos of Manhattan may have been more complicated than she and her husband initially thought. New York is more unruly and bewildering than she expected, defying the notions she developed from romantic movies and a memorable childhood visit. After a humiliating call from the principal’s office and the loss of the job she was counting on, Allison begins to accept that New York may not suit her after all.
When she has a fender-bender, witnessed by a flock of mothers at her son’s new school, she is led to the penthouse apartment of a luxurious Central Park West building and encounters a spoiled, hungover, unsupervised teenager who looks familiar. It doesn’t take long to recognize him as Carter Reid—a famous pop star who has been cast in a new Broadway musical. Through this brush with stardom, Allison embraces a unique and unexpected opportunity that helps her find her way in the heart of Manhattan.
“A tribute to Broadway, teen celebrity life, and a mother who has now seen it all, this work is tough love at its finest and a great read for those wanting a ride on the wild side” (Booklist, starred review).
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Best for readers who enjoy experimental literary fiction, speculative technology, and interconnected characters.
The Candy House
Literary Fiction · Contemporary Fiction · Psychological Fiction
Our take
A New York Times bestseller, this literary novel follows tech entrepreneur Bix Bouton and the people affected by his invention, which allows users to access and share their memories. Through interconnected stories, Jennifer Egan examines privacy, identity, and human connection in a world transformed by technology. Best for readers who enjoy experimental literary fiction, speculative technology, and interconnected characters.
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About the book
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
ONE OF THE TOP 10 BOOKS OF THE YEAR: THE NEW YORK TIMES • ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY • SLATE • THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
Also named one of the BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR by Vanity Fair, Time, NPR, The Guardian, Oprah Daily, Self, Vogue, The New Yorker, BBC, Vulture, and many more!
OLIVIA WILDE to direct A24’s TV adaptation of The Candy House and A Visit from the Goon Squad!
From one of the most celebrated writers of our time comes an “inventive, effervescent” (Oprah Daily) speculative novel about memory, technology, privacy, and the quest for authenticity and human connection.
The Candy House opens with the staggeringly brilliant Bix Bouton, whose company, Mandala, is so successful that he is “one of those tech demi-gods with whom we’re all on a first name basis.” Bix is forty, with four kids, restless, and desperate for a new idea, when he stumbles into a conversation group, mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or “externalizing” memory. Within a decade, Bix’s new technology, “Own Your Unconscious”—which allows you access to every memory you’ve ever had, and to share those memories in exchange for access others’—has seduced multitudes.
In the world of Egan’s spectacular imagination, there are “counters” who track and exploit desires and there are “eluders,” those who understand the price of taking a bite of the Candy House. Egan introduces these characters in an astonishing array of interconnected narratives and narrative styles—from omniscient to first person plural to a duet of voices, an epistolary chapter, and a chapter of tweets. Intellectually dazzling, The Candy House is also a moving, speculative fiction testament to the tenacity and transcendence of human longing for connection, family, privacy, and love.
“A beautiful exploration of loss, memory, and history” (San Francisco Chronicle), “this is minimalist maximalism. It’s as if Egan compressed a big 19th-century novel onto a flash drive” (The New York Times).
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This will appeal to readers who want contemporary literary fiction with suspense, family conflict, dark humor, and a fractured modern America.
So Far Gone
Literary Fiction · Contemporary Fiction
Our take
Reclusive former journalist Rhys Kinnick is forced out of his off-grid life when his daughter disappears and his grandchildren need rescuing from a dangerous militia, with a 3.9-star average from more than 32,000 Goodreads ratings. This will appeal to readers who want contemporary literary fiction with suspense, family conflict, dark humor, and a fractured modern America.
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About the book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
FINALIST FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE MARK TWAIN AMERICAN VOICE IN LITERATURE AWARD
"A warm, funny, loving novel. . . . It's an American original."—Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of Tom Lake
"Searing and sublime … Walter is a slyly adept social critic, and has clearly invested his protagonist with all of the outrage and heartbreak he himself feels about the dark course our world has taken ... What gets us all through … are novels like this one.” Leigh Haber, Los Angeles Times.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins—and in the propulsive spirit of Charles Portis’ True Grit—comes a hilarious, empathetic, and brilliantly provocative adventure through life in modern America, about a reclusive journalist forced back into the world to rescue his kidnapped grandchildren.
Rhys Kinnick has gone off the grid. At Thanksgiving a few years back, a fed-up Rhys punched his conspiracy-theorist son-in-law in the mouth, chucked his smartphone out a car window and fled for a cabin in the woods, with no one around except a pack of hungry raccoons.
Now Kinnick’s old life is about to land right back on his crumbling doorstep. Can this failed husband and father, a man with no internet and a car that barely runs, reemerge into a broken world to track down his missing daughter and save his sweet, precocious grandchildren from the members of a dangerous militia?
With the help of his caustic ex-girlfriend, a bipolar retired detective, and his only friend (who happens to be furious with him), Kinnick heads off on a wild journey through cultural lunacy and the rubble of a life he thought he’d left behind. So Far Gone is a rollicking, razor-sharp, and moving road trip through a fractured nation, from a writer who has been called “a genius of the modern American moment” (Philadelphia Inquirer).
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A good pick for fans of irreverent comic fantasy that mixes mythology, romance, and absurd situations.
Coyote Blue
Fantasy · Literary Fiction · Contemporary Fiction · Indigenous Fiction
Our take
Called “Downright laugh-out-loud, can't-put-the-book-down funny.” by The Philadelphia Inquirer, this novel follows insurance salesman Samuel Hunter, whose carefully invented life is disrupted by love and the arrival of the trickster god Coyote. A good pick for fans of irreverent comic fantasy that mixes mythology, romance, and absurd situations.
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About the book
From the master of subversive humor Christopher Moore comes a quirky, irreverent novel of love, myth, metaphysics, outlaw biking, angst, and outrageous redemption.
As a boy, he was Samson Hunts Alone—until a deadly misunderstanding with the law forced him to flee the Crow reservation at age fifteen. Today he is Samuel Hunter, a successful Santa Barbara insurance salesman with a Mercedes, a condo, and a hollow, invented life. Then one day, destiny offers him the dangerous gift of love—in the exquisite form of Calliope Kincaid—and a curse in the unheralded appearance of an ancient god by the name of Coyote. Coyote, the trickster, has arrived to reawaken the mystical storyteller within Sam...and to seriously screw up his existence in the process.
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Ideal for readers looking for contemporary literary fiction about midlife change, family, friendship, identity, and rebuilding after loss.
skin & bones
Literary Fiction · Contemporary Fiction · People of Color
Our take
At 40, Lena Baker believes her life is steady until a confession on her wedding day upends her future. As she navigates heartbreak, motherhood, friendship, and her own self-worth, she also works to preserve the often-overlooked Black history of Oregon, with a 4.3-star average from more than 3,200 Goodreads ratings. Ideal for readers looking for contemporary literary fiction about midlife change, family, friendship, identity, and rebuilding after loss.
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About the book
Best Book of May 2024 by New York Post. Finalist for the 2024 Westport Prize for Literature.
From the acclaimed #1 New York Times bestselling author comes a soulful and lyrical novel exploring sisterhood, motherhood, faith, love, and ultimately what gets passed down from one generation to the next
At 40, Lena Baker is at a steady and stable moment in life—between wine nights with her two best friends and her wedding just weeks away, she’s happy in love and in friendship until a confession on her wedding day shifts her world.
Unmoored and grieving a major loss, Lena finds herself trying to teach her daughter self-love while struggling to do so herself. Lena questions everything she’s learned about dating, friendship, and motherhood, and through it all, she works tirelessly to bring the oft-forgotten Black history of Oregon to the masses, sidestepping her well-meaning co-workers that don’t understand that their good intentions are often offensive and hurtful.
Through Watson’s poetic voice, skin & bones is a stirring exploration of who society makes space for and is ultimately a story of heartbreak and healing.
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This will appeal to readers who want literary fiction built around premonitions, family separation, regret, and the natural world.
About Grace
Literary Fiction · Contemporary Fiction · Psychological Fiction
Our take
David Winkler sometimes dreams events before they happen, but when he dreams that his infant daughter will drown, he flees his family in an attempt to prevent the future he has seen. Years later, he begins a journey back toward the people he left behind, with a 3.8-star average from more than 2,600 Goodreads ratings. This will appeal to readers who want literary fiction built around premonitions, family separation, regret, and the natural world.
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About the book
The first novel by Anthony Doerr, the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning author of Cloud Cuckoo Land, and the Pulitzer Prize–winning #1 New York Times bestseller All the Light We Cannot See, a luminous work of literary fiction and one of the most beautiful, wise, and compelling debuts of recent times.
David Winkler begins life in Anchorage, Alaska, a quiet boy drawn to the volatility of weather and obsessed with snow. Sometimes he sees things before they happen—a man carrying a hatbox will be hit by a bus; Winkler will fall in love with a woman in a supermarket. When David dreams that his infant daughter will drown in a flood as he tries to save her, he comes undone. He travels thousands of miles, fleeing family, home, and the future itself, to deny the dream.
On a Caribbean island, destitute, alone, and unsure if his child has survived or his wife can forgive him, David is sheltered by a couple with a daughter of their own. Ultimately it is she who will pull him back into the world, to search for the people he left behind.
Doerr's characters are full of grief and longing, but also replete with grace. His compassion for human frailty is extraordinarily moving. In luminous prose, he writes about the power and beauty of nature and about the tiny miracles that transform our lives. About Grace is heartbreaking, radiant, and astonishingly accomplished.
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A quiet, reflective choice for readers interested in Japanese fiction, music, craftsmanship, and finding one’s path.
The Forest of Wool and Steel
LGBTQIA+ · Literary Fiction · Contemporary Fiction · Magical Realism
Our take
Winner of the Japan Booksellers’ Award, this novel follows Tomura, a young man who discovers his calling after hearing a piano being tuned at his school. He begins an apprenticeship under experienced craftsmen while learning to develop his own skill and purpose, with a 3.8-star average from more than 4,700 Goodreads ratings. A quiet, reflective choice for readers interested in Japanese fiction, music, craftsmanship, and finding one’s path.
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About the book
OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD
''A mesmerising reading experience for all of us seeking a meaningful life' JAPAN TIMES
What he experienced that day wasn’t life-changing . . . It was life-making.
Tomura is startled by the hypnotic sound of a piano being tuned in his school. It seeps into his soul and transports him to the forests, dark and gleaming, that surround his beloved mountain village. From that moment, he is determined to discover more.
Under the tutelage of three master piano-tuners – one humble, one jovial, one ill-tempered – Tomura embarks on his training, never straying too far from a single, unfathomable question: do I have what it takes?
Set in small-town Japan, this warm and mystical story is for the lucky few who have found their calling – and for the rest of us who are still searching. It shows that the road to finding one’s purpose is a winding path, often filled with treacherous doubts and, for those who persevere, astonishing moments of revelation.
Mega-bestselling winner of the Japan Booksellers Award, selected by bookshop staff as the book they most wanted to hand-sell: A tender and uplifting novel for fans of A WHOLE LIFE by Robert Seethaler.
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A strong fit for readers drawn to epistolary literary fiction about aging, family, regret, connection, and second chances.
The Correspondent
Literary Fiction · Contemporary Fiction · Women's Fiction
Our take
A #1 New York Times bestseller and Women's Prize for Fiction winner hailed by Ann Patchett as “A cause for celebration,” The Correspondent tells Sybil Van Antwerp's life through letters as she confronts old grief, family relationships, and forgiveness, with a 4.6-star rating from more than 155,000 Amazon reviewers. A strong fit for readers drawn to epistolary literary fiction about aging, family, regret, connection, and second chances.
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About the book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OVER TWO MILLION COPIES SOLD • Discover the word-of-mouth hit hailed by Ann Patchett as “A cause for celebration”—an intimate novel about the transformative power of the written word and the beauty of slowing down to reconnect with the people we love.
“This novel is a complete and utter joy.”—Ann Napolitano, author of Hello Beautiful
“Quietly dazzling.”—The New York Times
“I cried more than once as I witnessed this brilliant woman come to understand herself more deeply.”—Florence Knapp, author of The Names
In development as a major motion picture
WINNER OF THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION • LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE AND THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Elle, Christian Science Monitor, She Reads
“Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle. . . . Isn’t there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one’s life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?”
Filled with knowledge that only comes from a life fully lived, The Correspondent is a gem of a novel about the power of finding solace in literature and connection with people we might never meet in person. It is about the hubris of youth and the wisdom of old age, and the mistakes and acts of kindness that occur during a lifetime.
Sybil Van Antwerp has throughout her life used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it. Most mornings, around half past ten, Sybil sits down to write letters—to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter.
Sybil expects her world to go on as it always has—a mother, grandmother, wife, divorcee, distinguished lawyer, she has lived a very full life. But when letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life, she realizes that the letter she has been writing over the years needs to be read and that she cannot move forward until she finds it in her heart to offer forgiveness.
Sybil Van Antwerp’s life of letters might be “a very small thing,” but she also might be one of the most memorable characters you will ever read.
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A warm, atmospheric fit for readers drawn to multigenerational literary fiction, small-town history, magical realism, and interconnected lives.
The Red Garden
Literary Fiction · Contemporary Fiction · Magical Realism · People of Color
Our take
A New York Times bestseller praised in a starred Booklist review as “gloriously sensuous, suspenseful, mystical, tragic, and redemptive,” The Red Garden traces 300 years in Blackwell, Massachusetts, through fourteen linked stories about its residents and the land connecting them. At the center is a garden where only red plants grow, with a 4.2-star rating from more than 4,200 Amazon reviewers. A warm, atmospheric fit for readers drawn to multigenerational literary fiction, small-town history, magical realism, and interconnected lives.
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From the author of Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick The Rules of Magic comes a transfixing glimpse into a small American town where a mysterious, magical garden holds the truth behind three hundred years of passion, dark secrets, loyalty, and redemption.
“[A] dreamy, fabulist series of connected stories . . . [These] tales, with their tight, soft focus on America, cast their own spell.”—The Washington Post
The Red Garden introduces us to the luminous and haunting world of Blackwell, Massachusetts, capturing the unexpected turns in its history and in our own lives. From the town's founder, a brave young woman from England who has no fear of blizzards or bears, to the young man who runs away to New York City with only his dog for company, the characters in The Red Garden are extraordinary and vivid: a young wounded Civil War soldier who is saved by a passionate neighbor, a woman who meets a fiercely human historical character, a poet who falls in love with a blind man, a mysterious traveler who comes to town in the year when summer never arrives.
At the center of everyone’s life is a mysterious garden where only red plants can grow, and where the truth can be found by those who dare to look.
Beautifully crafted and shimmering with magic, The Red Garden is as unforgettable as it is moving.
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A warm fit for readers who like contemporary women’s fiction about unexpected motherhood, lost possibilities, humor, and midlife reinvention.
The Life I Didn’t Plan
Literary Fiction · Contemporary Fiction · Women's Fiction
Our take
Called “Extremely funny” by the Belfast Telegraph, The Life I Didn’t Plan follows Beth, who became pregnant at seventeen and lost contact with her daughter’s father. At a 2026 school reunion, a time-capsule letter offers a clue to his identity and forces Beth to reconsider the life she expected. A warm fit for readers who like contemporary women’s fiction about unexpected motherhood, lost possibilities, humor, and midlife reinvention.
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About the book
Beth didn't expect to get pregnant at seventeen.
Nor did she think she'd lose the name and address of the father of her child. Swept up in romance on her French exchange, all she remembers is that his hair smelt like mangoes.
Now, in 2026, at her school reunion, she opens the time capsule she wrote to herself at that time. Inside she finds a letter that alters everything Beth thought she knew about her past, and provides an all important clue for finding the father of her 19-year-old daughter, Maisie.
Hit hard by the difference between the life she hoped for and the one she’s living, Beth is faced with a choice: chase the adventures she once dreamed of, or embrace the new opportunities life presents?
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A good pick for readers drawn to literary historical fiction, courtroom mysteries, and layered community memory.
Snow Falling On Cedars
Literary Fiction · Contemporary Fiction
Our take
Called “Compelling...heart-stopping. Finely wrought, flawlessly written” by the New York Times Book Review, Snow Falling on Cedars centers on a 1954 murder trial after a Japanese American man is charged with killing a local fisherman on isolated San Piedro Island. The case opens old wounds involving forbidden love, lost land, and the wartime internment of the island’s Japanese residents. A good pick for readers drawn to literary historical fiction, courtroom mysteries, and layered community memory.
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About the book
Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award ▪ American Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award
"Haunting....A whodunit complete with courtroom maneuvering and surprising turns of evidence and at the same time a mystery, something altogether richer and deeper."—Los Angeles Times
San Piedro Island, north of Puget Sound, is a place so isolated that no one who lives there can afford to make enemies. But in 1954 a local fisherman is found suspiciously drowned, and a Japanese American named Kabuo Miyamoto is charged with his murder. In the course of the ensuing trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than a man's guilt. For on San Pedro, memory grows as thickly as cedar trees and the fields of ripe strawberries—memories of a charmed love affair between a white boy and the Japanese girl who grew up to become Kabuo's wife; memories of land desired, paid for, and lost. Above all, San Piedro is haunted by the memory of what happened to its Japanese residents during World War II, when an entire community was sent into exile while its neighbors watched. Gripping, tragic, and densely atmospheric, Snow Falling on Cedars is a masterpiece of suspense—one that leaves us shaken and changed.
"Compelling...heart-stopping. Finely wrought, flawlessly written."—New York Times Book Review
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