Tuesday, November 5, 2019

Dirty Letters by Vi Keeland & Penelope Ward - ARC Review, Excerpt & Giveaway!

She had yet to meet him but had never forgotten the British boy who’d warmed her heart.

As childhood pen pals, Griffin Quinn and Luca Vinetti couldn’t have been more different. Over the years, through hundreds of letters, they became best friends, sharing their deepest, darkest secrets.

Until one day it ended.

Griffin never understood why Luca disappeared. She was special. She knew the real him like no one else. He writes her a drunken letter, an angry one, never expecting her to write back.

Before they know it, they’re right where they left off. This time with heat.

But as playing catch-up goes from fun to flirty to downright dirty, Luca wants more. She wants Griffin in the flesh. That’s where it gets risky. Because when they meet, the mystery will be over. And once they really get to know each other, there’ll be no going back.\



I really enjoyed this story, I liked the characters and I was drawn to the story, the people in it, and the way in which the story was told.  I loved the idea that Griffin and Luca were lapsed pen pals, that they kept in contact with one another for years, without knowing each other's real names, and that they drifted apart until one night, Griffin does something very human and something that we have all wanted to do, I think, in different situations.  He writes to Luca, and he tells her how upset it made him when she stopped replying to his letters.

Luca has...struggles.  We all do, and we rarely have reasons for them as good as the ones she has.  I will not spoil it here, but I do feel that I can say it made Luca not only sympathetic but it also made it feel like she was dealing with something that all of us could potentially face, even though most of us haven't.

Griffin has secrets.  Things that he doesn't want to tell Luca, as he thinks it will ruin the relationship they had in the past if she knows who he is in the present.

In order for them to work in the present, both of them have to find away to not only come to terms with the things that happened in the past, but also find a way to make the people they are now into people who can work in the lives they have each built.

It's hard to say more about this without spoilers, so I will avoid those and say that I enjoyed and recommend this title.





The small dining room table had a pile of mail. I’d had Dad’s mail forwarded to my house, so mostly it was just catalogs and junk. Once a month, Mrs. Cascio sent me everything that arrived, even though I’d told her it wasn’t necessary. I mindlessly fingered through the pile, not expecting to see anything worth keeping. But I stopped at an envelope addressed to me—well, not me, but Luca Ryan. That was a name I hadn’t heard in a long time. In second grade, my teacher, Mrs. Ryan, started a pen pal writing program with a small town in England. We weren’t allowed to use our real last names for safety reasons, so the entire class used her last name—hence I was Luca Ryan. I checked out the return address for the sender’s name.

G. Quinn

Wow, really? It couldn’t be.

I squinted at the postmark. It was from a PO box in California, not England, but I didn’t know any other Quinn other than Griffin. And the handwriting did look pretty familiar. But it had been close to eight years since we’d exchanged letters. Why would he write now? Curious, I ripped it open and scanned right to the bottom of the letter for the name. Sure enough, it was from Griffin. I started at the beginning.

Dear Luca,

Do you like scotch? I remember you said you didn’t like the taste of beer. But we never did get around to comparing our taste in hard liquor. Why is that, you might ask? Let me remind you—because you stopped answering my letters eight damn years ago. I wanted to let you know, I’m still pissed off about that. My mum used to say I hold grudges. But I prefer to think of it as I remember the facts. And the fact of the matter is, you suck. There, I’ve said it. I’ve been holding that shit in for a long time. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not obsessive or anything. I don’t sit in my house thinking about you all day long. In fact, there have been months that go by when thoughts of you don’t even enter my brain. But then some random thing will pop into my head out of the blue. Like I’ll see some kid in a pram eating black licorice, and I’ll think of you. Side note—I’ve tried it again as an adult, and I still think it tastes like the bottom of my shoe, so perhaps it’s that you just have no taste. You probably don’t even like scotch. Anyway, I’m sure this letter won’t find its way to you. Or if by some miracle it does, you won’t answer. But if you’re reading this, you should know two things.

1. The Macallan 1926 is worth the extra cash. Goes down smooth.

2. You SUCK.


Later, traitor, Griffin


What in the hell?


About the Authors


Vi Keeland is a #1 New York Times, #1 Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author. With millions of books sold, her titles have appeared on more than one hundred bestseller lists and are currently translated into twenty-six languages. She resides in New York with her husband and their three children, where she is living out her own happily ever after with the boy she met at age six.

Penelope Ward is a New York Times, USA Today, and #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of more than twenty novels. A former television news anchor, Penelope has sold more than two million books and has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list twenty-one times. She resides in Rhode Island with her husband, son, and beautiful daughter with autism.

Together, Vi and Penelope are the authors of Dirty Letters, Hate Notes, and the Rush Series. For more information about them, visit www.vikeeland.com and www.penelopewardauthor.com.

Vi Keeland
Vi Keeland Website
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Penelope Ward
Penelope Ward Website
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