Justified

Ugly Love

Colleen Hoover2014

A nurse and a pilot enter a physical relationship with rules against discussing the past. The story alternates between their present and his history.

pace0·prose0·bleak0

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+2·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+2·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

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Final Offer

Lauren Asher2023

An alcoholic heir returns to his family's lake house to secure his inheritance. He finds his ex-girlfriend living there with a child he never knew.

Same earnest register, still contemporary romance

pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

Forbidden Falls

Robyn Carr2009

A widowed reverend trying to fix an abandoned church hires a woman with a difficult past who needs a job to regain custody of her kids.

earnest → warm, still contemporary romance

pace-1·prose-1·bleak-1

Forever My Girl

Heidi McLaughlin

A country music star returns to his hometown to face the woman he left behind and the daughter he never knew existed.

Same earnest register, still contemporary romance

pace0·prose-1·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·prose-1·bleak0

Quantum Radio

A.G. Riddle2023

A scientist at CERN discovers a signal from a parallel universe. He must flee a conspiracy while exploring the implications of the data.

earnest → propulsive

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Savage Prince

Meghan March2018

A powerful man in the New Orleans underworld becomes obsessed with a woman and pursues her despite the danger of his lifestyle.

earnest → propulsive, still enemies to lovers

pace+1·prose-1·bleak0

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+2·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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The Last Letter

Rebecca Yarros2019

A soldier returns from war to help his deceased friend's sister raise her twins in Colorado. The story is told through letters and prose.

earnest → elegiac, still contemporary romance

pace0·prose0·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+1·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

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