The Marriage Pact by Michelle Richmond

Until death do us part…

The Blurb

Would you stake your life on your marriage? 

Newlyweds Jake and Alice are offered a mysterious wedding gift – membership of a club which promises its couples will never divorce. 

Signing The Pact seems the start to a perfect marriage. 

Until one of them breaks the rules. 

The marriage of their dreams is about to become their worst nightmare.

Because The Pact is for life. 

And its members will do anything to make sure no one leaves…

 

My thoughts

Maybe its because I’ve only been married a little over 6 months but the title and the blurb really caught my eye. What was this Pact and could I get any tips? Clearly not a self help marriage guide but you never know… ‘The Marriage Pact’ is a very intriguing story based around the ideals and principles of marriage.

Although you realise at the very start of the book that all is not what it seems, the book still managed to lull me into a false sense of security, starting out pretty harmless, providing little glimpses and snapshots of what was to come!  I enjoyed the gentle build of the book as it gave me an opportunity to really get to grips with the Pact and it’s members.

I felt the characters were well developed and I got enough information of their background to have a feel of what makes them who they are. I found Jake to be a more likeable character, probably due to the fact that he was narrator and so we got to share in his thoughts and feelings therefore could connect to him more. Alice was a little bit less so, she’s more shut off as a character and quite repetitive.

An interesting read, though at times far fetched. The concept of the story works but for me it went a little off the deep end towards the end of the book. When it started off I could almost imagine this being a real secret club that newlyweds got invited to but by the end I knew I was well and truly in the land of fiction! Which for some isn’t a bad thing but in this particular story I liked the idea that it could be real.

‘The Marriage Pact’ did make me think about the key to a happy marriage and almost made me want to implement a few ‘Pact’ rules into my own marriage… Almost!

‘The Marriage Pact’ was an intriguing read and just when I thought I had it all sussed out and had worked out where Richmond was leading me she threw in a curveball, well a few actually. An interesting read that definitely kept me on my toes!!

Some bloggers took part in a Marriage Pact recently following some of The Pact’s rules.

1. Always answer when you partner calls

2. Exchange at least two thoughtful gifts each month

3. Cook your partner dinner twice a week

4. Unfollow your ex on social media 

5. Never spend more than two nights apart

6. Tell your partner all of your passwords

7. Only wear clothes your partner deems attractive

8. Enable the ‘find my phone’ feature on your phone so your partner always knows where you are

9. Have no secrets from each other

10. Don’t even think about trying to escape

Do you think you could follow the Marriage Pact ‘rules’?

Hydra by Matt Wesolowski

Hydra

An Episode of Six Stories

A family Massacre

A deluded murderess

Five Witnesses

Six Stories

Which one is true?

I was hooked then and there, partly because of the intrigue it promised but also because I had already read Six Stories and knew how the story was going to be set out and how much I loved Matt’s writing but incase you aren’t convinced yet here’s……

The Blurb 

One cold November night in 2014, in a small town in the northwest of England, a 21 -year-old Arla Macleod bludgeoned her mother, stepfather and younger sister to death with a hammer, in an unprovoked attack known as the Macleod Massacre. Now incarcerated at a medium-security mental-health institution, Area will speak to no one but Scott King, an investigative journalist, whose Six Stories podcasts have become an internet sensation. 

King finds himself immersed in an increasingly complex case, interviewing five key witnesses and Arla herself, as he questions whether Arla’s responsibility for the massacre was as diminished as her legal team made out. 

As he unpicks the stories, he finds himself thrust into a world of deadly forbidden ‘games’, online trolls, and the mysterious black-eyed kids, whose presence seems to extend far beyond the delusions of a murderess…..

* * * * * * *

Well, well, well… if I thought I was seeing and hearing things after ‘Six Stories’ then Wesolowski stepped it up a gear with Hydra.

This is the second series of ‘Six Stories’ podcast fronted by the probing Scott King. (Just incase you haven’t read Six Stories – go read it!) The book is written as a series of 6 podcasts about an old crime interspersed with the inner thoughts and feelings of a main character, in this case Arla herself. Each podcast is an interview with a different person interconnected to the crime or the criminals story. However, King is not there to give a judgement or solve the case, he just provides information for you to interpret how you want. I love how Wesolowski keeps you guessing and throwing in twists left, right and centre. This story is about Arla Macleod a young woman who killed her entire family, seemingly out of the blue. This story isn’t a whodunit but why she done it and the more you delve into the story the more the mystery deepens.

Maybe I’ve led a sheltered life but Wesolowski introduced me to world of deadly myths and games and how they are adapting to this modern technological age on social media, online chatrooms and forums.  Most of which I have still been too scared to look into on Google, in particular the BEKs whose chilling description have ensured they have infiltrated my dreams on one than one occasion.

I had rushed out to buy and start reading Hydra the day after I finished Six Stories and was slightly worried it wouldn’t live up to how much I loved Six Stories. Thankfully I had nothing to be worried about. Hydra is an intriguing, disturbing and haunting read, I was locking doors and checking windows after every few pages. Each ‘story’ left me with more questions than answers, forcing to me read on to the next chapter, making more judgements and assumptions until the end! The only thing Im disappointed about is that I have to wait much longer for the next book! Please say there will be a third Matt??

 

 

Six Stories by Matt Wesolowski

5/5 STARS

WOW!

This book was beyond anything I ever imagined. It was recommended to me while I was in one of my favourite book shops EVER -Forum Books in Corbridge (More on them another day). Anyways Matt’s second book ‘Hydra’ had just been released and the bookseller pointed me in that direction. However I’m a bit of a stickler for chronology so had to start with ‘Six Stories’ and boy am I glad I did. It was incredible.

 

Six Stories is written as a podcast series which explores old crimes from six different perspectives hosted by the inquisitive Scott King. In his own words, he’s ‘not a policeman, forensic scientist or an FBI profiler’, he’s just discussing what happened at old crimes with six different people involved in the case in some way or another. How the story was told was unlike anything I have ever read before, so very clever. This alone was enough to hook me in and keep me glued to its pages.

 

‘Scott King’  prompts you with questions to get you thinking, he wants you to make your own judgements on the case. And believe me thats exactly what I was doing throughout the whole story, making judgements, then changing them over and over with each new chapter. I felt like a detective in the case and was being strung along with each revelation. I couldn’t put this book down it was truly superb.

 

During each of the six episodes King speaks to a different person, though each interweaving with the case and each other.  All of the characters were so compelling and diverse, with each one getting sufficient background to ensure you were really invested in them. Some which I loved and could identify with, some which I despised (in a good way) and some which were so mysterious that I couldn’t get enough information about them.  In each chapter, Wesolowski was able to build up the dark, creepy, atmospheric setting without detracting from the story. It was delivered in such a way that I felt like I was in the middle of the Fell during that fateful night.

 

Wesolowski has mastered the story writing process with this book. This haunting tale has stayed with me long since I finished reading it. It was so good I practically ran out the next day to buy Hydra.  (Spoiler – It didn’t disappoint!)

Why a blog?

Why a blog indeed? A question I kept asking myself in the months leading up to me actually breaking out of my comfort zone and putting pen to paper as such.

This is an idea I’ve been toying around with for quite a while now. I even started one a couple of years ago. Think I managed all of about 3 posts which weren’t particularly well thought out or well written. Not promising miracles for this blog but fingers crossed I’m slight more successful this time round.

I suppose the main reason I actually wanted to write a blog was to have a space to share my thoughts and feelings about books with the world (more like 1/2 people who might accidentally stumble upon it and take the time to read it).

I’ve somehow managed to marry a non-reader, this probably should have been a deal breaker but his fantastic cooking skills makes up for it. My friends/family aren’t particularly avid fans of reading so this is my little corner of internet where I can talk about how much I loved/hated a book, what I liked about it and hopefully engage with others in a bit of book chat.

I suppose a bit like a book club without having to get out of my pyjamas!

Why did you get into blogging?