Mystery and intrigue is rippling through a Lower Hutt community, where random letterboxes have been stuffed with romantic literature over the past week.

Erotica and romance - or smut - has been soaring in popularity amongst Generation Z, but the books being delivered to letterboxes from Eastbourne to Lowry Bay are no modern reads.

They mostly appear to be tales from the 1980s, like Lovestorm by Barbara Benedict, in which the protagonist is “stripped of her pride by a dashing rogue” and learns “the sweet fury of passion’s tempest”.