Three Guesses
Recipient of the 2023 Fugere Book Prize Recognizing Finely Crafted Novellas
Buy Now at Regal House Publishing, Burke’s Book Store-Memphis and anywhere books are sold!
Please support your local book stores and community libraries.
South Main Trolley Night in Downtown Memphis TN, September 26, 6-9pm at The Salon above Stock and Belle - 387 S. Main Street
Kentucky Book Festival at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lexington KY, November 1, 9:30am-5pm
Books are available for purchase and signing at all onsite events.
More events coming soon….
About Three Guesses
Three strangers from Memphis, Phoenix, and New York City, connected only by a mesmerizing painting named Three Guesses, embark on an extraordinary journey of friendship in this charming epistolary novella. Over the years, their letters reveal intimate details about their lives and loves, dreams, trials and triumphs, and a shared desire to find their places in the world—deepening their bond without ever having met in person. Then, as each contends with critical turning points, the unlikely trio considers breaking their mail-only pact to meet at the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Humorous and heartbreaking, soulful and breathtaking, Three Guesses celebrates love, friendship, hope, and the life-changing power of human connection.
Paducah Life Magazine of Paducah KY, September/October issue - Interview with Susie Rozzell Fenwick
State and Beale online magazine for Tennessee, Fall issue - Interview with Toby Sells
Check out Three Guesses Playlist-Chris McClain Johnson on Spotify.
Sharp, eccentric, engaging and refreshing, every letter in Three Guesses is a story all its own.
“Original, eloquent, engaging, and an entertainingly memorable read from cover to cover.”
—Midwest Book Review
“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.”
—Nell Joslin, author of Measure of Devotion”
“In a time when letter writing has become virtually a lost art, something magical occurs within their long, letter-writing relationship, just as something magical occurs for us in the reading.”
—Gerry Wilson, author of That Pinson Girl
About the Author
Award-winning Southern writer Chris McClain Johnson grew up in Mayfield, Kentucky, graduated from Murray State University in Kentucky, and has lived in Memphis, Tennessee, for almost 40 years.
At age 60, Chris fulfills the lifelong dream of having her first book published. Three Guesses, recipient of Regal House Publishing’s 2023 Fugere Book Prize Recognizing Finely Crafted Novellas, released June 17, 2025. Her debut epistolary novella has received wide praise for being “intensely clever” and “wildly entertaining and smart” with “intimate, riveting prose” and “a fascinating look at modern friendship.”
See A Self Interview to learn more about Chris and the quirky characters in Three Guesses.