Jet

Lord of the Desert

Diana Palmer2000

A woman from a small town travels to a desert kingdom and meets its ruler. They navigate cultural differences and his secret past.

pace0·prose0·bleak-1

Madame Bovary

Gustave Flaubert1856

A doctor's wife in provincial France seeks escape from her mundane life through expensive tastes and extramarital affairs.

earnest → tense

pace0·prose+3·bleak+1

Paradise Logic

Sophie Kemp2025

A young woman follows advice from a magazine to become a perfect partner. Her quest involves surreal jobs and messages from the beyond.

earnest → epic

pace0·prose+3·bleak+1

Mad Mabel

Sally Hepworth2025

An eighty-one-year-old woman with a history of killing people tries to hide her past when a curious young girl moves into the neighborhood.

earnest → dark

pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

Talk Nerdy to Me

Vicki Lewis Thompson2006

A fashion model enlists her neighbor to help build an invention in her garage, leading to a relationship between the two.

earnest → playful, still contemporary romance

pace0·prose+1·bleak-1

The Sheik's Arranged Marriage (Desert Rogues, No. 2)

Susan Mallery2000

A prince pressured to marry finds himself drawn to a studious woman who uses a secret persona to test his affections.

earnest → playful, still contemporary romance

pace0·prose0·bleak-1

Fix Her Up

Tessa Bailey2019

A professional clown enters a fake relationship with her brother's best friend, a retired athlete. They stage the romance to change their images.

earnest → playful, still contemporary romance

pace0·prose0·bleak-1

Victory at Prescott High

C.M. Stunich

A high school girl seeks revenge against the boys who bullied her while navigating a complex relationship with all of them at once.

earnest → propulsive, still contemporary romance

pace+1·prose0·bleak0

Burn for Me

Ilona Andrews2014

A private investigator with the ability to tell truth from lies is hired to find a fire-user. She is forced to work with a dangerous billionaire.

earnest → propulsive

pace+1·prose+1·bleak0

Hounded

Kevin Hearne2011

A two-thousand-year-old Druid lives in modern Arizona and runs an occult bookshop. He must fight a vengeful Irish god who wants his sword.

earnest → wry

pace+1·prose+1·bleak0

Gödel, Escher, Bach

Douglas R. Hofstadter1979

An exploration of how cognition emerges from hidden neurological patterns. It uses math, art, and music to explain self-referential systems.

earnest → playful

pace-2·prose+3·bleak-1

Ulysses

James Joyce1914

Three characters wander through Dublin on a single day in 1904. Each chapter uses a different literary style to mimic thoughts and sensations.

earnest → playful

pace-2·prose+3·bleak0

Absalom, Absalom!

William Faulkner1936

The rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen is recounted through multiple, conflicting memories. The prose uses extremely long, complex sentences.

earnest → elegiac

pace-2·prose+3·bleak+2

Wuthering Heights

Emily Brontë1846

Two families on the Yorkshire moors deal with the arrival and subsequent revenge of an adopted orphan. The story is told through nested narrators.

earnest → bleak

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

A Farewell to Arms

Ernest Hemingway1929

An American ambulance driver and a British nurse conduct a love affair during the Italian campaign of World War I.

earnest → elegiac

pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2

Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Thomas Hardy

A country girl is sent to claim kinship with wealthy relatives. Her life is derailed by a sequence of social betrayals and rigid moral standards.

earnest → elegiac

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2