Mara loves her husband.

That’s the problem.

Eli is good in all the ways people tell you to be grateful for. He makes the coffee the night before so it’s ready when she wakes. He does the groceries because crowds make her anxious. He notices when she forgets to eat. He kisses her forehead like a promise. He builds a life that feels safe—quietly, consistently, without fanfare.

And Mara keeps trying to make herself match that safety.

But there is a hunger in her that doesn’t fit neatly inside a good life.

It starts as a joke in her Notes app—something to laugh at and then delete. A list with a stupid title, one she would die if anyone ever saw: PINS.

Not push-pins. Not cute little hearts.

Locations. Coordinates.

A pin for every place her desire has ever sharpened into something physical. A bar booth that feels like confession. A hotel hallway with too-soft carpet and too-bright lights. A rideshare back seat at midnight. A rooftop where the air tastes like metal. A stairwell. A parking garage. An elevator that takes a second too long between floors.

Each entry is short. Clinical, almost. Like she’s collecting evidence. Like she’s proving to herself she still exists under the routines and the school lunches and the polished “we’re fine” smile.

At first, the list is just fantasy—a private pressure valve. A way to want without doing. A way to stay loyal while her mind does what her body won’t stop asking for.

But lists change people.

They create patterns. They make the imaginary feel inevitable. They turn a passing thought into a plan you can revisit. And the more Mara pins, the more she begins to notice how her real life is arranged around avoidance: the conversations she won’t have, the requests she keeps softening until they sound like nothing, the part of herself she keeps shrinking to keep the peace.

Meanwhile, Eli remains exactly who he is—tender, dependable, certain that love should be enough.

Mara doesn’t want to betray him.

She just wants to stop betraying herself.

As the pins multiply, so do the questions Mara doesn’t know how to ask out loud:

What do you do when you’re loved… but not met?
How much silence can a marriage hold before it becomes a second life?
And what happens when the safest man you’ve ever known is also the one you can’t confess to?

THE PINS I KEEP is a sensual, psychologically intimate novel about love that is real—and desire that refuses to be polite. It’s about the quiet bargains women make to stay “good.” The private fantasies they use to survive. And the moment a secret map becomes a door.

Because sometimes the most dangerous affair isn’t with another person.

It’s with the version of you that finally stops asking permission.

Perfect for readers who love:

• erotic tension and emotional intimacy (more ache than explicit)

• “hot lit” / sexy literary fiction

• secret diaries, private obsessions, and morally complicated choices

• domestic tenderness colliding with unspoken need

• sharp, modern prose with a slow-burn heat

Adult themes. Sensual and tension-forward.