Savage Girl

The Essex Serpent

Sarah Perry2017

A widow moves to the Victorian coast to investigate rumors of a sea monster. She debates science and faith with a local vicar.

sardonic → meditative, still historical fiction

pace0·prose0·bleak-1

Amberes

Roberto Bolaño2002

A fragmented series of fifty-six short sections follows a police officer, a redhead, and a hunchback through a series of loosely linked crimes.

sardonic → cold

pace0·prose+1·bleak0

Blood on the dining-room floor

Gertrude Stein1948

A repetitive, circular narrative about a death in a country house. It uses experimental prose to obscure the facts of a traditional mystery.

sardonic → playful

pace-1·prose+1·bleak-1

The Doves Necklace

Raja Alem2014

A detective investigates an unidentified woman's body found in a Mecca alleyway. The city itself narrates parts of the story.

sardonic → dreamlike, still unreliable narrator

pace0·prose+1·bleak0

This Man

Jodi Ellen Malpas2013

An interior designer begins an affair with a wealthy client who demands total control over her life and schedule.

sardonic → tense

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

Real Murders

Charlaine Harris1990

A librarian in a small Georgia town belongs to a club that studies famous crimes. A real murder occurs that mimics a historical case.

sardonic → wry

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

Ready Player One

Ernest Cline2008

A teenager in a dystopian future hunts for a digital easter egg inside a massive simulation. The quest relies on 1980s pop culture trivia.

pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

Behind Closed Doors

B.A. Paris2016

A woman is held captive by her husband in a high-security home. She must find a way to escape before her sister moves in with them.

sardonic → propulsive

pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

Kiss the Girls

James Patterson1995

Detective Alex Cross tracks two serial killers operating on opposite coasts who are communicating and competing with one another.

sardonic → tense

pace+2·prose-2·bleak0

Verity

Colleen Hoover2018

A ghostwriter moves into a secluded estate to finish a series for an injured author and finds a hidden, disturbing autobiography.

sardonic → tense, still unreliable narrator

pace+2·prose-2·bleak0

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.

sardonic → elegiac, still historical fiction

pace-1·prose0·bleak0

Dhalgren

Samuel R. Delany1975

An amnesiac wanderer enters Bellona, a city cut off from the world where time and geography shift. He joins a gang and writes poetry.

sardonic → dreamlike, still unreliable narrator

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.

sardonic → playful

pace-1·prose+1·bleak-2

The Wasp Factory

Iain Banks1984

A teenager living on a remote island performs violent rituals while waiting for his brother to return from an asylum.

sardonic → cold, still gothic

pace0·prose0·bleak+1

Hannibal Rising

Thomas Harris2006

In WWII Lithuania, young Hannibal Lecter survives the death of his family. He later hunts those responsible while studying medicine in France.

sardonic → cold, still historical fiction

pace+1·prose0·bleak+1

Libra

Don DeLillo1988

A fictionalized biography of Lee Harvey Oswald. It follows his life and the CIA conspiracy that leads to the assassination of JFK.

sardonic → eerie, still historical fiction

pace+1·prose0·bleak+1