Charlotte writes the sweetest, sexiest smut around. Her books never disappoint, and neither do her heroines. Fully realized, broken but not needy, intelligent but never overwrought, Stein’s heroines are a delight to read.
We’ve gushed similarly over Cara McKenna’s books over the years. Not just because they are hot, but because she writes real life love and sex complete with guys who you know are actually out there somewhere, waiting to give the right girl endless orgasms. Her regular, blue-collar heroes are the stuff your real life fantasies are made of.
They are masters of the erotic romance craft. And with the new release, Way Down Deep, they are teaming up to bring Stein’s penchant for heroines and Cara’s perfected skill for heroes together.
The Art of the Love Letter
Way Down Deep is an erotic romance told entirely through text messages. The hero sends off an angsty, alcohol fueled text into the void late one night, expecting no response because the person he thinks he’s texting would never text back. But he gets Stranger instead, and the concern coming through his phone embarrasses and intrigues him.
What follows is a novel of modern love letters. Hero and heroine exchange lengthy text exchanges, waiting hours and days for the other to respond fully, in a fashion that they themselves admit is reminiscent of a bygone era of communication. It’s not about instant gratification, dickpics and snapchat.
They just write. They bare their souls. They are honest without ever knowing anything real about the other. And of course, so much eventually comes out about who they really are, in fits and starts. It’s lovely. It’s engrossing. It’s voyeuristic. And I completely fell in love with everything about this novel.
I love that McKenna and Stein developed this amazing romance … with an ending that will leave readers frustrated and in awe of its perfection. Pre-order it here.
More Novels That Love Letters
I love books that utilize love letters. It has long been a literary kink, shall we say, of mine. So much can be read into a character when they take the time to pen something to someone else. It’s often fervent. It’s always revelatory.
Here are some other great romances that employ the love letter, modern and otherwise.
Hard Time
Oh look. Cara McKenna wrote one of my favorite erotic romance novels that includes letters. Blow me over with a feather tickler. This book is a kinktastic treat. Annie is taking a new job as a teacher/librarian in a prison, and Eric is an inmate with a literacy problem. She’s instantly drawn to him, and helps him figure out that he has dysgraphia and that writing with a typewriter will aid him. But before he gets a chance to use it, he has her pen a letter for him (spoiler alert: it’s for her. He’s saying all of this, in low tones, to her face, while she dictates. Y’all. It’s so hot.)
Darling, I’ve missed you since our last visit. A few minutes a week without you is almost more cruel than it’s worth. I miss you every minute we’re apart … I miss how you smell … I miss your face and how you smile sometimes. I want to make you smile like that. I wish we could be together, in ways I haven’t been with a woman in five years … Sometimes I watch your hands. I watch your hands and imagine them on me.
Guys, that last part? You got it … he’s staring AT HER HANDS while she writes it. It only gets better from there. He writes her letters every week, and it just gets hotter and sweeter.
Attachments
Rainbow Rowell writes some of the best nostalgia in the business, and Attachments is probably lesser known than Eleanor & Park or Fangirl, but it’s actually my favorite novel of hers. Set in 1999, Lincoln is tasked with monitoring his company’s emails, and Beth and her friend Jennifer could not care less. They continue a very hilarious email correspondence meant to redflag to death, all the while not knowing who exactly is peeping on their conversations. In the midst of it, Lincoln begins to fall for Beth.
Attachments is not typical love letter fare. They aren’t writing letters to each other. Lincoln falls for Beth as she is, as she talks to another person, without knowing her face at all. But it’s lovely all the same.
Last Letter from Your Lover
In true Jojo Moyes fashion, Last Letter from Your Lover is not a romance novel wherein the protagonists sweetly fall in love over letters. It’s a rip your guts out tour-de-force of pain and joy. But as its title suggests, it’s wrapped around the agony of a love story made of letters, and it doesn’t disappoint on that score.
Way Down Deep comes out June 6, 2017. You can pre-order it here or at your favorite e-book retailer.
