Pen Pal
J.T. Geissinger
Publisher: Self-published
Publication date: Aug. 16, 2022
Genre: Thriller, Paranormal Romance
Rating:
The first letter arrived the day my husband was buried. It was postmarked from the state penitentiary, and contained a single sentence:
I’ll wait forever if I have to.
It was signed by Dante, a man I didn’t know.
Out of simple curiosity, I wrote back to ask him what exactly he was waiting for. His reply?
You.
I told the mystery man he had the wrong girl. He said he didn’t. I said we’d never met, but he said I was wrong.
We went back and forth, exchanging letters every week that grew increasingly more intimate. Then one day, the letters stopped. When I found out why, it was already too late.
Dante was at my doorstep.
And nothing on earth could have prepared me for what happened next.
My thoughts…
You NEED to go into this book with zero idea what’s going on, because it’s supposed to be that way.
From the synopsis you think this is a book about some mystery dude in prison who knows Kayla and just shows up one day… but it’s not. I honestly don’t even know where the synopsis came from. It should have talked about burying her husband, living in a haunted house that’s falling apart, and slowly feeling like she’s losing her mind. THAT is the feel of this book. That and a lot of cringey romance with a guy she doesn’t really know who is supposed to be there to fix her leaky roof… and no, that’s not a metaphor for something kinky.
However, when you get to the end of the book you’re given this twist that puts pieces into place.
There’s a reason why she keeps getting letters from someone in prison who acts like he knows her. There’s a reason why the house seems to be haunted with drawers opening, electricity flicking on and off, and things flying off the shelf. There’s a reason why she has this really weird, deep, quick connection with a character that pops up to fix her roof. When you get to the end of the book, you will want to reread the whole thing again with a new understanding of what is actually going on.
I will admit that I wasn’t a fan of the romance in this. I felt like it was unnecessary, in the sense of just how much and how in depth the author went with it. I pretty much just skimmed over those parts to get back to the story because they were a bit cringey for me. If it weren’t for the big reveal in this story, I would have given this a 1/5. The only thing really keeping me invested was wanting to know what ghost was haunting her house and why.
