VNs you say? Well I think I might have a few suggestions.
Visual Novels I have PlayedAce Attorney - a series of five games (six in Japan) that follow the adventures of Phoenix Wright & Co in their court room dramas and investigations as he and others yell and point fingers. The first three games focus on Phoenix Wright, the fourth game focuses on a new attorney, Apollo Justice, and the fifth and sixth game focus on Miles Edgeworth. It you be in your best interest to plays the games in the correct order unless you like fucking yourself with spoilers since a lot of things are connected and the writing definitely gets better as the series goes on. Play all of these on a DS emulator or if you're too morally straight for that buy them from amazon or something because the games themselves are pretty hard to get (especially the 2nd and 3rd one). They are really awesome though and if you can't see I'm using an Ace Attorney avatar currently.
Will probably take you two or three weeks to finish. May differ depending on how fast you play them through.
Umineko no Naku Koro ni (When the Seagull's Cry) - a series of eight games that involve the mystery of the Ushiromiya's and the Rokkenjima island. It's a very awesome series that should be played. The only thing is the art is not the best however everything else is really cool like the music and writing. I can say right now the genre is a murder mystery so people will be dying (like in Ace Attorney). This series was purposely made to be similar to
And Then There Were None which you have probably heard of if not read before. It's a pretty famous mystery book. Anyway, I can't really say anything else without spoiling but you should definitely read this series if you want to try VNs. Witch Hunt are a fan translation group who are pretty much done translating the series, by the time you read through this they'll be done with everything. Has a lot of pointing and yelling like Ace Attorney except in a different way. The one problem is it might be complicated to buy these games unless you do a digital purchase or torrent them depending on what your prefer. You should
download the first episode for free since they give the whole first game for free just for you to try it out. If you don't like it then you can just go off and do something else.
Took me a little over a month to catch up with and will probably take you at least three weeks to do.
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (When the Cicada's Cry) - a series of eight games again since this is what the 07th Expansion did before making Umineko. I admit I like Umineko more however Higurashi has good qualities as well. Involves the village Hinamizawa and the mysterious within. Much more creepy then Umineko in a more disturbing way, but still has the mysterious to be solved! I'm only on game 6 right now but so far it has definitely been enjoyable. You should check it out if you thought Umineko was cool. Mangagamers are the ones who translated it however they are a fan translation so you're definitely going to have to pay money unless you pirate. Their translations have a lot of typos but they get better as they go along.
I would estimate it's going to be a little shorter than Umineko however I can't judge fairly because unlike Ace Attorney or Umineko I'm not finished with this one.
I have one more recommendation for a game I haven't even touched yet, Ever17. Even though I know nothing about it I only hear good things about it, so try Ever17 if you'd like. All of the games I have listed are not eroges as well, which is always nice.