The Marriage Pact is a psychological suspense thriller with an interesting plot. Eventually, in the west, the rate with which the marriages are failing, is pretty high. In such a world, would you be prepared to do anything to make your marriage successful?

This is the story of Jake and Alice who are newlywed. Jake loved Alice but he married Alice because he was afraid that she would go away. At their wedding, they were compelled to invite an additional guest Liam Finnegan and his wife, after she won a big case at her law firm. Finnegan gives them a gift when Jake and Alice return from their honeymoon. That gift was an invitation to join a secret society “The Pact”. The Pact was a group of married couples who call each other “Friend” and its goal was to help ensure everyone’s marriage is successful. Seeing this as an opportunity, both Jake and Alice sign the contract because they wanted their marriage to last forever, though neither of them was sure of this at first.

Michelle Richmond has introduced a unique concept in terms of The Pact. Jake and Alice meet Vivian who introduces them to the laws of The Pact and hands them the Manual. Yes, there is a whole manual about the rules and regulations of the Pact. The members had to follow those rules otherwise there were different levels of punishment and consequences. Some of the things mentioned in the Pact included giving gifts to each other every month, going on trips, meet other Pact members during the parties, etc. At first, they thought that this is going to be easy. But slowly the trouble started when Alice was more devoted towards her work. There were consequences too. Soon they realized that they have to get out of this but they found that it was almost impossible to leave the Pact.

I really like the idea of this Pact, obviously minus the punishments thing. The overall idea was to create certain rules in a marriage that will keep the spark in the marriage going on. There are often small things that matter the most like giving gifts to each other occasionally or planning vacations. Jake was a therapist while Alice was a lawyer. There was a huge difference in their work style. The idea of the author behind creating the Pact and this story is excellent. These days marriages are not that much secured and the divorce rate is too high, probably because people take each other for granted? But then you realize that the Pact is just more than that. Which seemed like minor punishments, suddenly gets more serious and you realize that the Pact is more like a cult? Michelle Richmond creates a heavy environment with all the twists and turns you find yourself confused whether the Pact is good or bad. You want to know what would happen next and then you don’t want to put it down.

All of these things about the Pact and the story setting was enough to create a suspenseful drama. You are forced to turn the next page to know what will happen to Alice or Jake and who are these people. I would give full points to the suspense till 80% of the book. The rest of the 20% was a bit dragged and it’s here that the book loses its 1 star for me. The end was not what I was expecting but yet I was hoping for something much better and dramatic. I think the book could have been shorter if the end was not dragged this much.

Another trouble I had was that it had too many details in between about the various facts. I mean, I get that Jake was a therapist but it was not required to give stats of different things at so many levels, like the stats on marriage etc. I think these stats made the story a little bit longer and it would have done just fine without those numbers.


Final Thoughts
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This story was like a fresh breeze of air with unique storyline and a good amount of suspense. It makes you scared in between, it make you to feel sorry for Jake and Alice, it makes you scold them for their foolishness. In all, it gives you all the emotions. Though it could have been a bit shorter, it gives you a good ending to finish the brilliant story. However, you need a fair amount of disbelief to go with the story and once you do it, it would be a fast-paced and quite entertaining one. It felt like an original and thought-provoking story with multi-layered characters. I would definitely recommend this if you are looking for a good suspense-thriller read.

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