Shabby European with rather bad novel (10)
I believe the answer is:
threadbare
'shabby' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'european with rather bad novel' is the wordplay.
'european' becomes 'e' (abbreviation e.g. EU).
'with' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'novel' indicates an anagram.
'rather'+'bad'='ratherbad'
'ratherbad' is an anagram of 'threadbar'.
'e' put after 'threadbar' is 'THREADBARE'.
(Other definitions for threadbare that I've seen before include "Thin, tattered, worn out" , "poor" , "Hackneyed" , "Tired" , "the worse for wear" .)