Two students—worlds apart—unite to solve the mystery of a legendary decades-old love story gone tragically wrong in a captivating romance by the award-winning author of The Karma Map and Dating Dr. Dil.

It doesn’t take long for ambitious freshman and aspiring engineer Jessie Ahuja to learn about two university legends. One is the haunted history of Davidson Tower, where more than fifty years ago, two ill-fated lovers disappeared in a devastating fire. The other is Ravi Kumar, a privileged billionaire nepo baby who’s aggravatingly charming and occupying more brain space than Jessie has room for. Things change when a campus prank locks them both in the old tower’s ghostly library.

There, Jessie finds letters from the fabled lost lovers, forgotten in a hollowed-out copy of Persuasion. One by one, the letters suck Jessie and Ravi into a beguiling mystery and an achingly beautiful long-ago romance destined to go up in flames. It’s also drawing Jessie and Ravi—every bit as star-crossed—closer together. Can they overcome whatever fate has in store for them? Or are they just as doomed as the young lovers whose tragic end has become legend?

The Letters We Keep, Nisha Sharma
Pub Date: 1 May 2024

Although I have seen titles from Nisha Sharma on the bookshelves before, this was the first book I have read by her. I was fortunate to get this as an ARC but not fortunate enough to read it before release date. I really wish I had, but the reading slump I was in was pretty bad. I am glad I read it when I was mentally up for reading again.

This book enthralled me and refused to let me go. All I wanted to do was read, all I could think about was reading this book, and I even stumbled around my house holding the book only to point at it and whisper “I love this book” to my husband.

I absolutely loved the peek into the culture and relationships of Desi families and friends. Everytime I read something with a basis in a culture that is not my own, it reminds me that even though things may be different, they can also be very similar.

The story within the story was just as interesting as the one The Letters We Keep is written about. The chapters are short, quick reads that are packed with a lot of action and details. They are also broken up by the letters that are discovered.

It never felt like it stalled or repeated too much and if there are two things that I absolutely love when it comes to books it has to be the enemies to lovers trope and multiple points of view (which this book had both).

One thing that I am not sure where I stand on is the “new adult” genre. It was weird reading a book that felt adult and young adult at the same time.

The characters have just become legal adults and are still acting childish (and trust me I realize that when I was 18 – 25 I was not as much of an adult as I thought I was), but there were spicy scenes which were few and far between as well as not super descriptive.

I am not against new adult books at all, I just don’t know if they’re for me. I wouldn’t mind reading more, but it may just be one of the genres I dabble in from time to time when I just need something as a palette cleanser.

With that being said, the characters themselves acted very immature at times and some of their reasons for their actions were just not thought through. The supporting characters weren’t in the book very much and didn’t really have too much personality when they were. We didn’t really get to know Jessie or Ravi’s family in depth, which is a shame because I wanted a couple more scenes with all of them.

If I had read this book while I was in highschool, I think I would have become obsessed with it and told everyone I knew to read it because it would change their lives. As an adult I enjoyed this book immensely, but it’s something I would only recommend to someone who asked for a light, sweet romance book to get lost in.