Just for Now

Stay with Me

J. Lynn2014

A college student returns to her hometown to confront her mother's debts. She works at a bar and begins a relationship with a man she meets there.

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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

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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

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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

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This Girl

Colleen Hoover2013

A husband retells the story of his early relationship to his wife. It uses dual timelines to revisit events from the first book in the series.

Same earnest register, still contemporary romance

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Walking Disaster

Jamie McGuire2013

This novel retells the events of 'Beautiful Disaster' from the perspective of Travis Maddox. It follows his college years and obsession with Abby.

earnest → propulsive, still contemporary romance

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Come A Little Bit Closer

Bella Andre2014

A business manager for actors falls for her client on a film set. She struggles to maintain professional boundaries despite their attraction.

earnest → warm, still contemporary romance

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

Either/Or

Søren Kierkegaard1992

A collection of papers presents two life philosophies: the aesthetic pursuit of pleasure and the ethical commitment to duty.

earnest → meditative

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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

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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

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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

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