Naomi and Luca have been pen-pals since fifth-grade. Well, more like bitter rivals caught in an epic battle of insults and verbal jousting…
But what starts as a hilarious chain of hate filled letters, slowly develops into a friendship spanning coasts and years. That is until one day, years later, when the letters suddenly stop.
It’s been two years since Naomi last heard from Luca. Two years since the letter that changed everything.
But when a new envelope turns up out of the blue at her desk at the local news station, Naomi is determined not to let Luca have the final word.
| Title: | Hate Mail |
| Author: | Donna Marchetti |
| Series: | n/a |
| Pages: | 355 |
| Category / Genre(s): | Contemporary |
| Trope(s): | Enemies-to-Lovers |
| Point of View: | First Person, Present Tense, Dual Viewpoint (H & h) |
| Location: | Miami, Florida, USA (and other places across USA) |
| HEA: | ✔️ |
| Release Date: | 14th March, 2024 |
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A wonderful debut romance
This is Donna Marchetti’s debut novel and I was sucked in by the cute premise and even cuter cover. A pair of duelling penpals and a cute pink cartoon? Gimme.
Naomi is a local weather girl who, at the start of the book receives a fairly disturbing letter from her former penpal at her place of work. But it soon transpires that she has a ‘penemy’ – a penpal who she has been writing and receiving mean letters to since primary school days (except in America). But there’s no return address on the letter which leads to several cross-country trips to find her mysterious penpal, Luca.
Naomi is a very likeable character. She’s fun, funny, kind and sensible but willing to throw caution to the wind – especially when compelled by her bestie, Annie. I found Naomi to be really relatable and was really rooting for her to get her perfect man.
We find out more about Luca over the course of the book and his story is at times sad, at times heartbreaking but you can’t help but like the snotty little kid that turns into a decent man. His mean letters to Naomi made me laugh out loud but through each and every one, I wanted him to get his happily ever after.
“…fun, interesting and left me with a goofy smile on my face by the end.”
The story is told in the present day mostly (if not all) from Naomi’s point of view. We then pop back in time to read some of the mean letters that Naomi and Luca send to each other. We also hear from Luca’s point of view at the time of some of the letters. I’m not normally a huge fan of books in this style but it really worked on this occasion probably as the ‘flashback’ chapters were short.
I really adored this book. It was that rare read where I kept wanting to tell friends / family / colleagues about what happened and ask them if they’d heard the gossip – like these characters were my friends instead of fictional people. Reading it was effortless showing that the writing was impeccable. I was caught up with these characters and their story almost from the very first page.
This has been a difficult book to review without giving away spoilers so my advice is, if you like the sound of this story – give it a go without reading too many reviews where you might learn things it’s better off not knowing until you read the book.
I’ve heard a lot about this book in the run up to its publication and for once, the hype is well deserved. This was the kind of romance that makes me remember why I fell in love with the genre in the first place – it was fun, interesting and left me with a goofy smile on my face by the end. 5 stars and one of my best of 2024 so far.
Most people can easily tell you where they grew up, but for Donna, the answer lies somewhere between Florida, Chile, and Arizona. As an American child living in a Spanish-speaking country for a good chunk of her childhood, one of Donna’s first attempts at writing was when she was seven years old. It was a book about a dog written entirely in Spanish. Upon moving to Arizona, Donna played in high school marching band and raised and showed rabbits for 4-H, but she never stopped enjoying writing.
When Donna isn’t burying her face in a good book or tapping away at a keyboard writing her own, she can usually be found spending time with her family and competing in agility with her Dalmatian.
Donna currently lives in New York with her husband, her daughter, and three dogs.
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