I don't want historical, I don't want mystery/thriller, YA is obviously out, and cookie-cutter mass market romance has been helpful to me in the past, but right now if I see one more bland summary of fluff I am going to do a book murder. I want it to be somewhat serious, so all of chick lit is also out, which makes my job much harder, despite my full willingness to allow adultery, which opens at least 50% more doors
I was actually two steps away from thinking it might be finally time to take on The Horse Whisperer, until I found out it had explicit sex and also[about the ending]the title character dies, which is pretty the opposite of how I needed things to turn out.
What I'd really like is for Goodreads to just magically tell me what I'd like via a bouquet of tailored recs. Which it can usually do. Except I have yet to shelve any of the general-adult-fiction books I've read, because I don't know how to define it (or if I should include all non-YA fiction to cover my bases, or exclude the specialty genres from it in order to hone my recs).
I'm thinking, for example, of Sophie Littlefield's House of Glass. Obviously, that book was a bit violent and will not work for what I need. But that type of serious contemporary setting. And I'm at a loss for what other adult novels I've read, besides Billie Letts, that don't also fall under chick-lit.