What is a contemporary novel?

Contemporary comes from the Latin word "tempus", which means "time". Con-temporary means set in the same time. Written by living authors.

A different thing would be saying that a novel has "a contemporary setting". It means that the novel is set in our days. (It's similar, because only an author who's living in our days can write about our days, unless in the future they have a time machine and have come back here...)

Set in the present day.

It's set in the same period and events.

Are you looking for titles of contemporary novels, or a definition of 'contemporary novel'?

A contemporary novel is a modern novel - one published now. A look at recent best-seller lists will give you some titles of contemporary novels.

50 shades of gray.

The Hobbit I guess... or Call of the Wild.

I found that book overrated, but it seems immortal in the book-reading world.