Incredibooks: My Prison Penpals

Imagine being forced into a sheltered life which is a nightmare that you are unaware of, but when you wake up it’s like a beautiful dream down an ugly path is discovered. That’s the best way I can describe “My Prison Penpals” which is the first book in the “Undertakers” series by best selling author Shona Knight.

So we’re introduced to a young girl named Wren who lives with her wealthy older brother Robert. As it would seem, Robert takes very good care of Wren, but he has her living an isolated existence. She is not allowed to have any friends, she is cut off from the normality of the outside, common world and she has been brainwashed into believing that this is the way her life is supposed to be.

Wren’s only friend at one point was a young man named Elias who she had a great relationship with, but then he seemingly abandoned her without a trace and ever since she’s been alone. Wren suddenly finds her own way of contact when she ends up in what was supposed to be a mentoring program, but actually ends up with her writing to a quartet of criminals in prison named Pete, Sylvester, Dexter and Jagger, who can’t talk and only communicates using sign language.

In writing to these four hardened criminals, Wren has found a distant friendship with these four misfits, one that all four of them greatly appreciate, but in its midst Wren’s sheltered life takes a dark turn. One day Wren’s brother introduces her to an elderly man named Ivan and informs her that this is the man she will be marrying, much to her unnerving. Ivan is a big time, cold hearted gangster and Robert has been grooming Wren for him her whole life, or at least someone like him.

When Wren discovers her brother’s treachery she makes a run for it and escapes his clutches. On her unexpected journey to freedom she quickly encounters her four prison Penpals who she bonded with through her letters. As it turns out the quartet escaped from prison and had been trying to find her as their only goal so they could be with this random stranger of a girl who seemed to care so much about them even though they’ve never actually met before. When the Inmates come to her rescue their bond is quickly strengthened.

They start to spoil Wren with the pleasantries of life she’s never experienced and they expose her to the world of normality that her wicked older brother kept her hidden from. With theses discoveries and experiences, Wren comes to understand that the life she has been living was an entire lie and her resentment towards her brother is also strengthened knowing that her never really cared for her and that she was just a tool for his self empowerment. As painful as the discovery was, Wren truly appreciates that it landed her in the hands of her new best friends.

As for Wren’s quartet of penpals, Sly, Dex, Pete and Jagger, they are all an interesting bunch. Though they are hardened criminals who have maimed and killed, they’re actually not all that bad. They’re killing really only applied to people who were either deserving of their ugly fates or people who are part of the same nasty underworld that they were. Furthermore we come to learn that our four anti-heroes were not only wrongfully imprisoned, but their wrongful imprisonments have connections to Wren’s evil older brother Robert.

Not surprisingly, they have all fallen in love with Wren, just as she has with them and they form a relationship that is facing new challenges that have yet to be explored as we journey into part two in the “Undertakers” series.