Branded by Saffron Kent

My Rating: ⭐

Spice Rating: 🌶🌶🌶

Blurb: 

Pen Pal meets Yellowstone in this dark, western romance featuring a college student using a false identity to exchange spicy letters with a prison inmate, only to be hunted down when the convicted cowboy is released.

It all began with letters. Every word he wrote etched itself into my mind, into my soul. I had no choice but to fall in love with him.  
Was it really so bad that the letters were part of a pen pal program, sent from a penitentiary?
Or that they weren't really addressed to me?

It's not as if he'd ever find out the truth.
It's not as if I'd ever get to look those eyes that are as blue as the sky over his ranch he left behind. 
Or that I'd ever get to feel his work-roughened hands dominating my body as he does my fevered dreams.

Until one afternoon when I find myself standing in front of him—pretending to be someone I am 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.

My Review:

Okay, okay! I know I always try to see the best in every book I read, and I am definitely not a quitter, and yes, for the record, I did finish this one. I kept going even when I felt like my brain was threatening to unravel, mostly because I was already about 90% in and it just didn’t make sense to stop at that point. I hate writing reviews like this, but I’d rather explain what didn’t work for me than just slap a low rating on it and move on.

This book actually started with so much promise. A dark romance with a locked-up cowboy and a pen-pal situation? I was immediately intrigued and fully on board. The setup alone had me thinking this was going to be right up my alley.

Where things started to lose me was with the character dynamics. The FMC came across as very immature, which made the age gap between her and the MMC feel a little confusing rather than intentional. Arsen fit that rugged, masculine cowboy archetype perfectly, the kind of man you can easily picture building fences and working cattle, but Reverie (and listen, I didn’t choose the names, I’m just reporting them) felt like she existed in a completely different world. I understand wanting unique names in a sea of Haydens and Erics, but this pairing just felt mismatched.

While the FMC’s immaturity was at least consistent, her ability to stand up to the MMC after being kidnapped felt less believable. The constant whining quickly became overwhelming, especially when her internal dialogue jumped to, I think I love him territory. That emotional leap just didn’t land for me.

The MMC also didn’t quite hit the mark. His attempts at dominance never crossed into sexy for me and instead felt uncomfortable in a way that pulled me out of the story. I never want to yuck anyone’s yum, but certain scenes, particularly involving intimacy in disturbing contexts, were not something I personally found appealing.

By the end, the romance itself felt improbable, and I struggled to fully buy into their love story.

And finally… the repeated use of the word snatch. Lord, help me. It completely broke my concentration every single time. It hit the same way wet folds do for me, instant mental shutdown.

All that said, this book will absolutely work for someone. The concept is there, and I can see why it might click for the right reader; it just wasn’t for me.