Three Guesses

by Chris McClain Johnson

Three strangers, connected only by a mesmerizing painting named Three Guesses, embark on an extraordinary journey of friendship. Compelled by their agreement to communicate only by mail, Sam Brooks of Memphis, Tennessee, Richard Mabry of Phoenix, Arizona, and Pete Wren of New York City reveal surprisingly intimate, personal details in a series of letters over the course of seven years. Then, as each contends with critical turning points in their lives, the unlikely trio breaks their mail-only pact and makes a life-changing decision to finally meet in person at the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Humorous and heartbreaking, soulful and breathtaking, Three Guesses celebrates the power of friendship to carry us through the most joyful and the most difficult chapters of our lives

Genres: Fiction

196 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 17, 2025

About the author

Writing is a joyful obsession for me, rich with muses that first appeared in my childhood, inspired by the beauty and wonders of our family farms in western Kentucky, where I daydreamed then and still today about characters and scenes beyond my back yard, even beyond our dimension where old souls live on, people can fly, and animals do indeed talk.

From my home in Memphis, alongside two adorable and somewhat bossy rescue kitties, I love giving light and love to stories of all kinds, but mostly my writing is literary/contemporary fiction and a bit speculative at times. My characters are usually trying to find their places in this crazy world or doing their very best to manage the world they’re in—soul searchers, daydreamers, lovers, family, friends, and mere acquaintances whose one-time meeting just might change the very threads of their life tapestries.

Three Guesses is my debut novella at the age of 60, one of those happy 'never give up' stories.

Reviews

[Angela M · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I had a hard time buying into the premise of this epistolary novella. Three strangers who have never met connect through a painting created by one of them. They become penpals and write letters to each other for years, handwritten letters sent by mail. But I went with it and as they opened themselves up to each other by sharing their lives, present happinesses and difficulties, past childhood memories , some good, some traumatic, grief, love and self discovery, I connected with them. This was sad, funny, and hopeful. It reflected true friendship. When I finished it I realized that I was able to buy into this seemingly unlikely connection among these characters because this could and does happen everyday in this world. I couldn’t help but think of the friends I’ve made on Goodreads with people I have never met, but yet consider to be true friends sharing pieces of ourselves, having found each other because we love to read. Life’s all about connections .


I received a copy of this book from Regal House Publishing through Edelweiss.

[Anastasia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finishing this book left me teary-eyed.
Three Guesses is a novella that thrives on the power of connection, and its epistolary format amplifies that intimacy. The letters are direct and unfiltered, immersing the reader in the characters' emotions and experiences. I wasn’t merely observing their correspondence, I felt like an active participant in their unfolding lives. This speaks to what both German and English Romantics have emphasized: form and content are inextricably linked. The novella’s structure isn’t just a storytelling choice; it’s integral to its emotional depth and thematic resonance.
The characters feel astonishingly real: people who could have been our childhood friends, neighbors, classmates, or family members. Each is meticulously developed, with a past, a present, and a future that extend beyond the pages. They are round, complex figures. Flawed yet profoundly human. Despite their differences, they share an underlying similarity that underscores the novella’s central theme: the deep, sometimes unspoken bonds that unite us. Through them, this book restored or perhaps reignited my faith in humanity.
It also navigates difficult themes: family, loss, mental health struggles, but does so with grace and authenticity. The writing never feels didactic or heavy-handed; instead, it raises questions rather than imposing answers, leaving space for the reader to reflect. Social issues are woven naturally into the narrative, enhancing its depth without overshadowing the characters’ personal journeys.
I think many readers will recognize fragments of themselves in Sam, Richard, and Pete. I certainly did, finding pieces of my own personality scattered across them.
I didn’t realize I was approaching the book’s final pages until I found myself lingering on their lives, contemplating what was, what could have been, and what might still be. These characters now reside within me.
An ode to friendship. An ode to being human: imperfect, but beautifully so.

**I received an advanced copy of this book through Edelweiss. All opinions are my own.**

[Martha Anne Toll · Rating 5 out of 5]

This quirky wonderful book is a paean to friendship and love and creativity. I couldn’t put it down. I felt uplifted on every page. For readers who loved 84 Charing Cross Road, Three Guesses is a delightful successor.

[Beth Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three Guesses is a beautifully creative book! I appreciate books that aren't the same old plot and story. This is a unique approach to a story about friendship that captivated me as a reader. Three cheers for Chris McClain Johnson's work.

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a fun book. Loved the step back in time before we let electronics consume us. The joy of the letter arriving in the mail, not just our electronic inbox. The authenticity of building friendships with strangers and bonding over the written word. Only 4 stars as I was left wanting more.

[Jennifer Beck Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting premise that brings three strangers into an unlikely friendship. I’m impatiently waiting for the sequel so I can find out what happens next!

[Jillian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to author Chris McClain Johnson for the chance to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

-Novella
-Epistolary
-Three VERY unlikely friends
-Found family

This (and really any) full epistolary novella requires us to open our mind and take it all in from page one. We don't know any backstory. We don't have a narrator. It's JUST like discovering a box of letters in grandma's attic. Given that the start of their correspondence was set in 1999, I found it to be so believable. While I was only 15 then- corresponding with a stranger wasn't that crazy through pen pal services- friends of friends, etc.

Our three pen pals are SO uniquely different from one another. They are each at different ages, genders, life stages and socioeconomic statuses. I enjoyed every ebb and flow of this story- the mood swings, the inconsistencies, the rambling, the shared articles, poems, and art. This novella realistically explores adult connections in a raw and contemplative way.

[Jennifer Oko · Rating 5 out of 5]

An epistolary celebration of creativity, art, and the written word, Three Guesses is an enchanting treat of a novella. I absolutely adored it. When a bored temp worker sends an illicit letter to both an artist and to a man who owns one of his paintings, these three very different people start a correspondence that develops into an unlikely friendship. Only communicating through the mail, this odd trio will come to sustain each other in the most unexpected ways. With vivid, poetic storytelling and warm humor, Chris McClain Johnson weaves their loneliness and longing into a life-affirming and joyful tapestry of connection. Warning, you might find happy tears rolling down your cheeks as you turn the last page. I absolutely adored this book!

[Nell Joslin · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me few pages to get into the epistolary form of Three Guesses, but once I did, I was hooked on the interplay between the three letter writers, so different in their circumstances yet each of them wounded, guarded and lonely. As Sam, Richard and Pete discover that the remove of letter-writing gives them the safety to be real with each other, their true selves come pouring through these letters like sunlight. This book is a testimony to the power of writing to open the heart, and the power of love to heal the human spirit. Deeply affecting.

[Reader Views · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three Guesses by Chris McClain Johnson is a unique and charming novella, a contemporary take on the time-honored epistolary format. Three very different strangers, loosely connected by a painting, exchange letters over a period of seven years, from July 1998 through July 2005. Their unlikely connection starts out on tentative footing, but gradually, over time, they develop an unexpected closeness.

Sam Brooks sends the first letter. Sam is a young woman living at the time in Memphis, Tennessee, temping at the artists’ collective that auctioned the painting, Three Guesses, as part of a fundraiser. Sam’s reaching out to the others at their home addresses is, by her own admission, inappropriate, but her curiosity (and boredom with her job) has won out.

The second letter is from Richard Mabry, who now owns the painting and lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

The third letter is from the painting’s artist, Pete Wren, who lives in New York City. Pete donated the painting to the organization several years earlier.

Though by 1998, email had become a popular means of social communication, with the advent of America Online (AOL) and Yahoo, the trio chose to exchange letters via “snail mail” only. Their adherence to tradition seems to heighten the thoughtfulness and humor of their interactions.

Each letter writer lives a very separate and different lifestyle from the others, but their exchanges provide them each with an outlet that allows a separation from their everyday concerns and interactions. It allows them to explore friendship without the impediments that the mundane distractions and irritations of ordinary life can sometimes bring.

In their letters, they find that they can reveal themselves as little or as much as they wish, but as time passes, their lives become more entwined. They share anecdotes from their professional and personal lives, their challenges and struggles. They come to count upon and trust one another as sounding boards, and for insights on how to cope with their intimate and family relationships. In many ways, their letters are far more revealing than even a face-to-face conversation might be. Along the way, they add exchanges of short stories and poems, even gifts, and eventually, finally, plan to all meet in person.

The author makes her characters come alive through these letters. They feel vivid and real. She examines the frustrations of the artist, Pete, in his creative work. She articulates the hesitation that Richard feels in revealing to strangers that he is gay, fearing their judgment or rejection. She allows Sam to bare all when she explains how she became a single mother.

The author is also skilled in description. When Sam moves to the Outer Banks, the area’s islands and shoreline features will make readers want to plan a vacation, despite the dangers of the hurricanes that often batter the area. When Pete mentions the state of New York City following 9/11, we are reminded of the horrors that day and what followed, though it is now more than 20 years ago; I was immediately taken back to my own experience there.

All in all, this is a highly imaginative and appealing work, cleverly written. I will be looking forward to seeing what the author does next. In addition, the cover design is very attractive and appropriate, and would catch my attention in a bookstore from among the sea of new books.

This book is for adults who value the enduring friendships in their lives, but are also open to making new ones, recognizing that we find our relationships vary with the people we meet at different points in life. Sometimes friendships develop from proximity, from shared values, or interests, but the way we meet our friends is often serendipitous.

It is also for anyone who has fond memories of a pen pal. During junior high, I participated in a pen pal exchange with German kids in my age group. My pen friend Christine and I wrote to each other for several years, though our letters eventually petered out in our later teens. Nearly sixty years later, however, I remember that it was Christine who introduced me to the songs of the late Leonard Cohen, especially “Suzanne,” which was popularized by Judy Collins around that time. I remain a fan of both artists and silently thank Christine whenever I hear their music. Three Guesses reminded me of that.

[SmallPressPicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admire that although the correspondence between the three characters in this novella spans the years of 1998 to 2005–from the early days of email to the start of the surge in texting–these then-newish forms of communication never replace the letter as the characters’ chosen means of written communication–to the novella’s credit. The exchanges of letters in the book are revelatory in ways that emails and text messages–and, in certain ways, even face-to-face conversations–can’t match. For example, though some of the letters are brief and to the point, most of them offer deep dives into characters’ personal setbacks and dreams, and into their perceptions of their lives and what might be lacking in them. In this way, the letters combine the intimacy of journal entries with the characters’ desire to share aspects of their inner lives to see how their correspondents might react to them–and react they do, in enlightening and (mostly) supportive ways.

Yet the letters in Three Guesses do more than provide an honest, unflinching perspective on the characters’ inner lives; they present a detailed picture of how the correspondents’ friendship evolves and deepens over time.

In summary, Three Guesses is a warm, witty, and incisive book, one that makes smart use of the epistolary form. It was a pleasure to read. (You can read my full review of the novel here: https://smallpresspicks.com/three-gue....)

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will be an outlier on this one; it gets barely 3 stars from me, and most of that is just for coming up with the concept of the book. The execution sucked.

I love the idea of three strangers brought together in an odd an unusual way, and forging forward with a relationship borne solely through the written letter. It was a unique and intriguing way to build the characters throughout the entirety of the novel. And all three were wonderful characters. Where it fell completely flat for me was the brutal amount of written space that was wasted; this was a short book anyway, and a third of it was used for irrelevant weird poetry and short stories that did nothing to move the plotline along. I wanted more of the characters and their stories; too much time went by between many of the letters, and that was a huge disappointment. My other issue was the ending of the book. The letters just stopped. Done. No closure, no wrap-up, nothing. The book just ended, and I ultimately felt cheated out of some sort of closure for each of the characters.

I can't entirely recommend this book, but I can't say don't read it either. I guess this is a "read it, but be warned that you'll likely be disappointed."

Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Ginger Pinholster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intensely clever and often laugh-out-loud funny, Three Guesses features a trio of lost souls who braid themselves together, bit by bit, during a rollicking seven-year `grownup pen pal adventure.’ Unfurled through a series of letters, Chris McClain Johnson’s novella explores the relentless human quest for love and belonging in heartbreaking, hilarious detail, enriched by razor-sharp, often achingly beautiful prose. A quirky, restless temporary worker, `SB,’ triggers a prolonged letter-writing volley by contacting two strangers—art buyer Richard and artist Pete—regarding a painting that gives this book its title. After a frosty start, the three disclose profound truths about their lives and the people they have loved and lost. As each new truth is revealed, an urgent question arises. Readers will keep flipping pages, ever faster, eager to learn the fate of Johnson’s irresistible trio. Highly recommend!

[Gerry Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chris McClain Johnson’s beautiful novella, Three Guesses, immerses us in the lives of strangers linked by a painting (the Three Guesses of the title)—a young temp worker, the painting’s owner, and the artist. In the letters that comprise the book, the three characters are at first distant and awkward, but eventually they transcend the issues surrounding the painting and reveal with depth and honesty the joys and sorrows, the loves and heartbreaks in their lives. In a time when letter writing has become virtually a lost art, something magical occurs within their letter-writing relationship, just as something magical occurs for us in the reading: Three Guesses is a tribute to the lasting value of the written word and to friendship.

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chris Johnson’s epistolary novella, Three Guesses, begins with tentative communication among three strangers, centered on a work of art by one of the three. There is a testiness, and a desire for privacy, at the start. Soon the communicants form a bond, made of love, in the modern, virtual sense of the word. From its terse beginnings it becomes something else: a strange, moving, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes exuberant narrative. That Johnson can get so much story out of three voices is the book’s small literary miracle. The prose is sparkling and moves as fast as the sweet lines of a pop song. This is a sly and witty commentary on contemporary friendship. It’s also a confident, joy-filled, compelling work of bookish entertainment.

[Diane Wald · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m in love. I’m in love with the characters in this book, with the structure of this book, with the gorgeous, surprising, poetic, intimate, riveting prose that Chris McClain Johnson seems to effortlessly unravel as if it were the telling of a beautiful dream. For me, the absolute proof of a novella‘s success is that you are left stunned and begging for more. I do want more, but at the very same time, I’m grateful for what I have and happy to relive it over and over again in my mind. What an unforgettable and astonishing book!

[Heather Frese · Rating 5 out of 5]

Upon moving to Hatteras Island, one of Chris McClain Johnson’s narrators asks, “Have you ever stood on a raw stretch of beach with the wind blowing sand so hard it stings your legs? I can see now how islands move, how dunes are created, how they shift, how people come to places like this and never leave.” I’d planned to dip into Three Guesses and read just for a little a bit, but the magic of the epistolary genre, that intrigue of nib-nosing into someone else’s letters, was already tugging me along. The narrators, three people bound together by a chance encounter with a painting, communicate at first tersely and then with graduating levels of intimacy and openness. By the time one of them moves to Hatteras, I knew I didn’t stand a chance of closing the book. Sam, Richard, and Pete’s lives mirror the shifting sands of the island, swirling and dissolving, yet coming back together as a chosen family, coming back together to live on shifting sands, finally anchored.

[Judith Lindbergh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three Guesses is a fascinating look at modern friendship formed through old-fashioned snail mail correspondence. Taking place over almost a decade, the characters move from strangers to intimates, bonding over truths and falsehoods, sharing questions about creativity, relationship, loss, and finding oneself. Through short stories, poetry, obsessive lists of four-syllable words, and candid confessions, Johnson takes her characters on an insightful journey that defines relationship in our times.

[Miriam Gershow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chris McClain Johnson’s Three Guesses is a big-hearted novella about three strangers who become pen pals over the chance sale of a piece of art. What begins as a lark - sending letters in the mail at the end of the twentieth century! - evolves into years of sharing loves and losses, transitions and triumphs, new homes and old ghosts. This is the story of the enduring nature of friendship, the gift of the written word, and most of all, the power of found family. Three Guesses is a delight!

[David Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Three Guesses” is an epistolary novella that turns strangers into friends and then into family. It works similar wonders on the concept of home. All the while, it’s funny and wise, but things can get messy, too, like with life. The journey isn’t easy. What journey worth taking is? What I took from it, also, is how letter-writing is the most distant form of communication, yet because of that, perhaps, encourages and enables the most intimate conversations. You know, real soul-baring stuff.

[Erika Lucius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such an unexpected but lovely way to read a book through letters. The characters were real and charming and learning their life stories through letters to each other and watching a friendship blossom was heartwarming and engaging! Loved it.

[Jennie Morton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book I didn't know I need. More authors should tap into the power of the epistolary. This novella is equal parts charming and poignant. It follows three characters who become in embedded in each other's lives as much as your heart.

[Mark Wisniewski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Epistolary, accessible, unpredictable, and, maybe most important, charmingly readable--one way or another, Chris McCLain Johnson's THREE GUESSES will make its way into your heart.

[Gail · Rating 3 out of 5]

The concept of letters was refreshing. The story was good.

[Katherine Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely heartfelt, brilliant, witty, wry, and unique take on modern friendship. I was captivated from start to finish. I don't think I've read another novel like it. Highly recommended!

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Find my complete review at Reader Views.

[Emma Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible read! Unique story format with endearing misfit characters you fall in love with. What a beautiful book

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A heart-warming epistolary novel. See my review at Reading World