Pen Pal

Author: J.T. Geissinger

Genre: Dark Romance / Erotic Thriller – Contemporary, Suspense, Paranormal Elements, Non-traditional HEA

Book Rating:⭐ 8/10

Spicy Rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️5/5

Romance.io / romance-bot: 5/5 – “explicit and plentiful”; reviews emphasize very graphic, frequent on-page sex plus heavy kink and power dynamics.

Description:
After her husband dies in a freak accident, lonely children’s book illustrator Kayla is drowning in grief when the first letter arrives from a state prison: “I’ll wait forever if I have to.” It’s signed by Dante, a man she’s never met. Curious, Kayla writes back, and their letters quickly become intimate, turning this stranger on death row into the one person who really sees her. At the same time, she hires Aiden, a charming contractor, to repair her crumbling Victorian house—just as eerie, possibly supernatural events begin to escalate around her. Torn between the dark pull of the inmate who knows her secrets and the flesh-and-blood man fixing her home, Kayla uncovers a twisted truth that ties love, obsession, and something otherworldly together in a way she never imagined.

Trope/Mood:
Dark, non-traditional romance; widow heroine; prison pen-pal letters; mystery/suspense with paranormal/otherworldly twist; intense power-play and CNC-adjacent dynamics; Washington-state coastal setting; very high angst, grief, and psychological tension with max-heat explicit spice and a controversial, non-standard ending.