Pen Pal by J.T. Geissinger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The first letter arrived the day my husband was buried. It was postmarked from the state penitentiary, and contained a single sentence:
Pen Pal
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.
”There are no such things as ghosts!”
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💙🖤💚❤️💖
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌍
Character development: 😠😘🤓🥰😍
Narrator(s): 🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Duet Narration
The heroine: Kayla – her husband Michael has died and she is drowning in grief when she gets a letter in the mail. The letter was from Washington State Penitentiary and the writer says he will wait forever if he has to. The letter is signed Dante. She gets a feeling that something is coming and it isn’t good. Kayla is trying to get used to life on her own, taking care of a house that seems to have a mind of its own and learning to go on without her husband.
The Hero: Dante – He says he knows Kayla, the sight, sound and taste of her, all her dreams and desires. He keeps writing to her, knowing that he is making her nervous, but he has plans and they include her.
The Story: Kayla’s house is driving her crazy. She had the wiring checked out, but the worker said that nothing is wrong, but her lights go on and off at odd times, her doorbell chimes when nobody is there and lightbulbs burst for no reason. Adding to that, she keeps getting mail from a prisoner who thinks he knows her, and she is somehow compelled to write back.
This was an odd one. I thought I knew how it would go based on the blurb. Though it ended up going completely different with Kayla meeting a handsome contractor named Aiden, then later seeing him in a bar and flirting with him. Things got a bit steamy so I was wondering how this was going to end up. Is Aiden really Dante and not in jail or what? To add more confusion, Kayla hears things in her house plus all the electrical oddities, so is there a ghost, a stalker or is she going crazy?
I won’t say more about what may or may not be going on in this book, but to say it was super steamy and kept me guessing and on the edge of my seat throughout most of the book. I liked the characters and though I usually hate it when one of the main characters is suffering from grief over the loss of a significant other, I did like this one.
“We skipped the dinner dates and polite conversation and jumped straight to kinky fuckery.”
This book is told in dual points of view via duet narration and was narrated by Troy Duran and Tara Langella. Troy Duran is my favorite narrator, with a deep, smoky voice which works well for any type of romance. I love his narration. I don’t think I have ever heard Tara Langella before but she has a distinctive and seductive sounding voice, which I enjoyed. I love that many of J.T. Geissinger uses duet narration for most of her books. It isn’t as common as it should be.
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