BRANDED
Genre: Dark Wester Romance
Author: Saffron Kent
Release Date: October 28, 2025
In this dark western romance, a college student uses a false identity to exchange spicy letters with a prison inmate, only to be hunted down when the convicted cowboy is released—perfect for fans of J.T. Geissinger’s Pen Pal and the Yellowstone TV series.
It all began with letters. Every word he wrote etched itself into my mind, into my soul.
I had no choice but to fall for him. Was it really so bad that the letters were part of a penpal program … for prisoners? Or that they weren’t addressed to me?
It’s not as if we’d ever meet. It’s not as if I’d ever get to look into Beau’s eyes that yearn for the ranch he left behind. Or that I’d ever get to feel his work-roughened hands dominating my body just as he does my fevered dreams. What harm could there be?
Until one afternoon when I find myself standing in front of Beau—pretending to be someone I’m not. But the joke’s on me because for all my pretenses, his deception is much crueler … The hardened, dangerous, impossibly beautiful man is nothing like the man in the letters.
And it’s too late for me to run.
Content Guidance:
The contents of this dark romance book may be triggering to some readers. It contains explicit sexual content and a morally gray hero.
Trigger warnings: false identities, stalking/obsession, revenge/retribution, abduction, drugging, blackmail/coercion, forced marriage, violence, bondage, knife play, gun play, dubious consent, non-consent, off-the-page domestic abuse set in the past, off-the-page murder set in the past, parental grief
He’s my adventure. The one I’ve been waiting for my whole life.
Did this take me a hot minute to read? Yes it did. I started this in audio back in December, and definitely enjoyed the narrators. But then somewhere around the 40% mark, I began to slightly lose interest and so I decided to finish it on ebook because I read faster than I listen. Look. It is what it is.
Now I love me a dark western romance especially when there’s a delicious revenge plot. So the premise of this book was calling to me like nothing else. Pen Pal meets Yellowstone, yes please. Though I wouldn’t really compare it to Pen Pal, per se. Does the FMC exchange letters with a convict? Yes. But that’s about where the parallel ends. It definitely does give Yellowstone vibes.
The writing is a bit different than what I’m used to from Saffron. This gave me old school Lora Leigh vibes. If you know, you know. And if you don’t know, think uber alphas and the dirtiest of dirty talk. And usually this works for me. And I mean I will gobble it up. But somewhere around the 40% mark, it began to slide from hot into cringey. The dirty talk just didn’t land. Something about “college girl snatch” and the constant reminders of how monster his c*ck is and how little her snatch is just got tiresome. So did the dialogue. The virgin FMC with much older and experienced MMC just got weird, if I’m being perfectly honest. And while virgin FMC isn’t my fave, I’ll read it and enjoy it when it’s written in a way that lands for me. This one sadly didn’t land.
“D-doggie style,” I whisper and then blush like crazy.
His lips stretch up in a lopsided smile as he praises, “Good girl.”
God, he shouldn’t say things like this when I’m so scared. Because then I become even more turned on and I don’t know what to do with myself.
“You read that in a book?” he asks next.
“Yes,” I reply, clenching and unclenching my thighs.
His smile widens and so does the fondness in his eyes, in his tone. “Yeah, you did. ’Cause my sweet wife is a college girl, ain’t she? Straight-A student, no less. Except sociology though. That’s how she got stuck with a no-good ex-con like me.”
“Arsen, you—” “And the reason it’s called that is ’cause that’s how dogs fuck,” he says, making me flinch and somehow even hornier. “That’s how all animals fuck, by the way. Don’t know if they taught you that in your big, fancy college but you grow up on a ranch, you know these things. But the point is I’m gonna fuck you like that.
As much as I enjoyed Arsen in some parts, I couldn’t for the life of me connect with Reverie. There was absolutely no depth to this girl. Beyond her body issues even though she’s described as having a bombshell body with curves, there were was nothing else to her. She was just…flat. No pun intended. Her character was two dimensional and I so wanted something more from her that sadly never came.
One moment she’s a virginal ingenue that blushes and gets offended over vulgar sex talk. The next moment she’s using that sex talk herself without so much as a stutter. She was frustrating and the more I turned the pages, the more frustrating she became.
The story was interesting for the first 30-40% but then it just began to lose me. The sex began to take over the story and I began to skim. And don’t get me wrong, I love me some spice. And I can enjoy a sex driven story for the most part. But I felt like by the last 50% of this book, the sex was really the only thing in the story and I just lost interest. The story dragged and I found myself zoning in and out.
The only thing that kept me reading was the snippets of Peyton and Rad. I loved Peyton’s fiery personality and I’m so curious about her book (which is next).
Sadly, her bestie Reverie just didn’t evoke anything other than frustration and eye rolls from me by the end.
And while I didn’t love this book, I am intrigued enough by the premise of the family feud and definitely Peyton’s storyline to want to read the next one.
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