The Summer Wives

The Second Duchess

Elizabeth Loupas2011

In Renaissance Italy, Barbara of Austria marries a Duke whose first wife died mysteriously. She investigates the death to ensure her own survival.

Same tense register, still historical mystery

pace-1·prose0·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.

tense → playful

pace-2·prose+2·bleak0

The Sound and the Fury

William Faulkner1929

The decline of a Southern family told through four perspectives, including a non-linear stream of consciousness from a man with a disability.

tense → elegiac

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

Briefing for a Descent into Hell

Doris Lessing1971

A man is found wandering London and placed in a psychiatric ward. The narrative shifts between the hospital and his internal cosmic hallucinations.

tense → dreamlike

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

To die for

Linda Howard2004

After witnessing the murder of a woman who was impersonating her, a fitness club owner must work with a skeptical detective to find the killer.

tense → wry, still romantic suspense

pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

Better Off Dead

Lee Child2021

Jack Reacher investigates a staged car crash in Arizona and infiltrates a dangerous local crew to find a missing woman.

tense → propulsive

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The McCaffertys

Lisa Jackson2000

An investigator is hired to protect a woman and her secret child. He attempts to uncover her past while guarding her from unknown threats.

tense → propulsive, still romantic suspense

pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

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.

tense → propulsive, still romantic suspense

pace+1·prose-1·bleak0

The Pursuit

Janet Evanovich2016

An FBI agent tracks down a kidnapped con man she was secretly working with. The chase moves from Hawaii to the remote mountains of Europe.

tense → playful, still romantic suspense

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

New York to Dallas

J.D. Robb2011

A homicide lieutenant pursues a serial killer who escaped prison. The chase takes her back to her childhood home in Dallas to face her own trauma.

Same tense register, still romantic suspense

pace+1·prose-1·bleak+1

Umbrella

Will Self2013

A psychiatrist in 1971 treats a woman who has been catatonic for decades. The prose shifts between eras and consciousnesses without paragraph breaks.

tense → clinical

pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1

Translated Accounts

James Kelman2001

Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.

tense → bleak

pace-2·prose+2·bleak+2

The English Patient

Michael Ondaatje1992

Four people shelter in a ruined Italian villa at the end of WWII. They care for a burned, anonymous man who recounts his past in the desert.

tense → elegiac

pace-2·prose+1·bleak+1

Oryx and Crake

Margaret Atwood2003

A man survives a genetic apocalypse in a world of engineered creatures. He remembers his past with a scientist and the woman they both loved.

tense → sardonic

pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

A Little Life

Hanya Yanagihara2015

Four friends in New York over thirty years. One of them is being destroyed, and the book does not look away.

pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2

Slaughterhouse-Five

Kurt Vonnegut1969

Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time, experiencing his life out of order, from his chaplaincy in WWII to his abduction by aliens.

tense → sardonic

pace0·prose0·bleak+2