Thank you for the opportunity to read this book, I have to be brutally honest it just wasn't for me. I think it was a bit far fetched and it would nearly put me off getting married at all. I didn't think too much of the storyline.

This book had me in two minds hence the 3 stars I neither loved it or hated it. Parts of it I enjoyed the others annoyed me. I also found the theories on marriage thrown in a bit boring so skipped them. I was glad of the ending as I found the premise a bit unbelievable at times although I do know cults exist.

Sometimes you read a book which, despite obvious good qualities, doesn't quite work. For me, this is one of those books. But maybe it's just me. Luckily, despite taking the shine off of the whole experience, there's still something there.

The best thing there is the basic concept. It's simple, fresh, clever, and it's hard not to get pulled along wondering just how it will all play out. The set-up is pretty Hollywood - successful couple gets married and invited into a socially elite group that have a manual on how to nurture a successful marriage. Also in best Hollywood style, the more they learn about this secretive group the darker things become.

Yet there's more to the whole thing than that.

The Manual prompts simple things that many married couples would no doubt appreciate. Regular gifts and trips away for example. You could almost lift parts of this as a Guide To Marriage in a glossy magazine they sound so wonderful. Jake and Alice serve as a reminder that ideals clash with reality at times though. Those magazine articles get read in bed wistfully before sleepily turning off the lights and making mental notes of what chores need doing before you can even consider gift shopping and trip planning. Which is where the edge comes in. The Pact is about rules, and rules are easily broken. And when rules get broken there are usually repercussions. The Marriage Pact delivers on the rituals of devotion, of giving yourself to your partner.

As I said earlier, this angle gives the author room to explore so many avenues that even as the story starts to blossom around a third of the way in it's hard to plot what's yet to come, and does so right to the end. It's one of those stories that you'll have a dozen theories on how it will unfold, and you were right at one point, but who knows how long before you changed your mind.

So if the story is good, where do things go wrong? It's not Jake or Alice. They're good protagonists. It would've been easy to make them just a little too perfect, but from the start they're enjoyably normal. That slight lack of sheen gives them an easy distance from the perfect crowd in The Pact. It all fits in nicely with the overall plot.

What ultimately took the edge off for me though were some (fairly infrequent and random) phases of clumsiness. Out of character behaviours and mistakes, especially when concentrated in a small section, jarred. At times it feels as if the author is conflicted. Character traits that are presumably intended to be affectionate ticks slowly become less logical as they're forced to fit in with the rest of the story. Characters lift the plot onto a new course with a small change in mood or tone that seems unnecessary; the plot has enough flow to glide there itself and doesn't need forced help like that.

In truth these niggles are small. There remains a good story with good characters. I just couldn't help feeling that a little more surety from the author would've elevated it all into something special, and therefore good just doesn't feel enough anymore. It is good, but it could've been great.

Upon finishing this book, my first plan of action was to sleep and hopefully wake up forgetting the hours I wasted reading this book. If you do read this book, I recommend taking a shot every time one of our main characters does/says something stupid as I think this will enhance your reading experience as you will be too drunk to know what's happening. I was sober throughout my experience and still don't know what happened. I don't want to be rude but in my opinion, psychological thrillers must have some level of believability to them - you could almost imagine this happening to you. However, The Marriage Pact is so far-fetched and unrealistic that I just spent the entire time feeling as though I had a huge question mark stamped on my head.

Okay, hear me out. Our main character, Jake and his wife, Alice are getting married. Alice, who is an ex-musician and now a lawyer, 'jokingly' invites a man called Finnegan from work to her wedding, however he accepts and he and his wife turn up. They give Jake and Alice a gift which is a locked box. After the wedding, Alice receives texts from Finnegan asking personal questions, such as if she wants her marriage to last etc. Instead of blocking the weirdo, she answers all of his questions and then agrees when he arranges for someone to turn up to their house tomorrow to explain more. Believe it or not, alarm bells aren't ringing for the couple yet. The next day, a woman called Vivian turns up at the house with contracts. It turns out she is a member of The Pact, an organisation/club/weird ass cult that believes in the sanctity of marriage. She hands them The Manual which tells them the rules - Alice and Jake must buy presents for each other once a month, go on a trip every four months, always answer the phone to each other etc. Despite just meeting this woman and knowing practically nothing, Alice (who is a lawyer!!!) signs the contract and Jake (a therapist who specifically says 'I study everything) signs too. At this point, the book nearly went through my window.

What follows is Alice and Jake getting monitored, stalked, fitted with tracking bracelets and neck collars and despite being a BIT freaked out, just get on with their lives. As for the characters, Jake was fine as long as Alice seemed herself and was having sex with him and Alice herself felt like a cardboard cutout only able to speak like a programmed robot. Jake tells us that Alice used to be a musician and had a very different life before she met him. He tells us this about twenty times. Some chapters were dedicated solely to marriage facts from Google (probably) so I skipped those after the first one hundred. This book just wasn't for me and it's a shame because the synopsis sounded SO good and I love reading about cult behaviour etc but it was just too silly. As for the ending, I can't tell you what happened, not because it's a spoiler but because I have no bloody clue.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book. Psychological thrillers are supposed to play with your head but the only thing it made me do to my head was bang it against the wall.

The blurb to this book was very intriguing. I couldn’t wait to see where the author would take this. Jake and Alice are just married when they are invited to join a secret group called ‘The Pact’ that promises to ensure that their marriage will never fail. Like every good thriller should, it jumps in right at the beginning of the action and you are hooked from beginning to end. The writing is so vivid that you feel that you are taking this journey with the newly wed couple.

I felt the choice of narrating from Jake’s point of view was wise as it makes Alice’s character more mysterious and complex. I think it would have been hard to have read this from Alice’s perspective as she is such a mercurial character. At times I didn’t like Jake’s character as he seemed quite conflicted in himself so it was hard to get a grasp on what he was ‘about’ so to speak. But then no one is straight forward in real life I suppose!

The construction of The Pact and its laws were fascinating. If you are married or have an interest in the philosophy of marriage then the internal debate in the book is interesting and thought-provoking. It questions what it takes to make a marriage work and how marriage as a concept has changed through time. I liked the discussion about this throughout the book and some of the thoughts that Jake has really resonated with me.

The intensity in this book steadily rises as the couple begins to see the darker side of The Pact as they are unable to keep to it’s multifaceted and extensive rules. These chapters flew by for me as I raced through the awful scenes that the couple had to endure. I have to admit that I did feel that there was a big build up in this book and that the final scenes lacked the emotion and excitement that the book seemed to be leading us towards.

Overall, this was a unique and slightly crazy read that I really enjoyed. I would definitely recommend this to people that enjoy a unique thriller.

The Pact will be published on 27th July 2017. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Jake is a therapist and Alice is a lawyer and she has 2 extra guests for their wedding who are the biggest clients her company have. They send a wedding gift but it isn't until after the wedding and a great wedding it is, they discover more about what the gift is. What follows is a breath taking book you will not want to put down. As newly wedded it is thought that on top of looking after troubled teenagers Jake should give marriage counselling which makes this book so very different from any thriller I have known and I loved it.
I have been given a free copy of this book from NetGalley in return for a honest review,

A story of a modern-day 'cult of marriage': so weird, so freakish, so unbelievable - and yet this book held me gripped right through to the end. I'd recommend avoiding reviews that retell the plot till after you've read the book - the publisher's blurb tells you all you need to know to get going. Also be aware that the start is a little slow with some awkward writing, but it all settles down rapidly.

One of the things I liked about this is the way it muddles genres: it contains bits of chick-lit, bits of domestic noir, some thriller-ish elements (not least some scenes of acute violence and distress) but also sits alongside a range of books such as The Stepford Wives (though here the rules are extended to men), Doctor Faustus (though the contract is not with a devil), 1984 for Doublespeak, and even Paradise Lost which contains a model for the ending.

It's not often that I find myself wrong-footed by a novel's ending but this one managed it with aplomb! So one of those rare novels that is both a commercial page-turner 'beach read' and also something altogether cleverer, more thoughtful and more intelligent.

I remain quite undecided about this book. At its centre it is an interesting study on marriage, but I still remain unsure of the reasons why the Pact felt it was so important to prevent divorce and discourage procreation.
I also felt parts of the novel read like a textbook with "factoids" regarding marriage, case studies from Jake's practice and discussion of research on psychological experiments.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for my ARC of this novel.

I was seriously intrigued by the premise of this novel. Alice and Jake are in a pretty strong relationship so when a wedding guest gifts them the option to join The Pact a special and exclusive group for married couples who want to work to ensure that their marriage lasts forever.

Some of the rules are really great and make complete sense. Answer your spouse when they call, buy them a little gift each a month, take a trip somewhere every quarter. Great right?

Alice and Jake are initially seduced by the glamourous parties and the idea of working together to ensure their marriage goes through both the good and bad times. But then they find out that not only do they have to keep The Pact a secret, they have to abide by the rules or suffer the consequences. Consequences which are frankly shocking.

Jake is the narrator of the story and he's a really stand up guy. He's strong and confident and at least tried to resist the control that The Pact held over them. Alice not so much, to be honest she's a bit aggravating and throughout a lot of the novel I felt like she didn't deserve Jake!

The novel is so well written, and the plot is so good that it makes it unputdownable. The things that happen to the characters have you literally hanging on to your seat for dear life as you wonder what's going to happen next!!

I'm glad the Plot lived up to my expectations and formed not only a great book but a truly original idea and you don't get many of those anymore!

I would like to thank Michael Joseph and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘The Marriage Pact’ by Michelle Richmond, in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.
Alice and Jake are about to get married and Alice gives a wedding invitation to business acquaintance Liam Finnegan and his wife Fiona who send the newlyweds a package, a box containing two extremely expensive-looking pens. It isn’t until they open the box that they are introduced to ‘The Pact’, a cult that encourages marriages to last forever and once a member won’t let anyone leave – alive that is!!! For Alice and Jake, their married life together turns into the worst nightmare they could imagine.
‘The Marriage Pact’ is a seriously scary thriller, the plot is taut, pacy and absorbing. I was up half the night unable to put the book down as I needed to know what was going to happen next. This is a novel I can thoroughly recommend!