dime novel 
noun North American dated
A cheap, popular novel, typically a melodramatic romance or adventure story.The old dime novel was not palmed off as literature upon an unsuspecting public as the new dime novel is....
- As the distant thunder rumbled and came closer, I thought of the next dime novel I had been planning to read, a ghost story.
- Then I began reading my ghost story dime novel, about the young American woman who went to Europe to write a book.