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The Pact

An Arranged Marriage Romance

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The Pact

By: Suzanne Wright
Narrated by: Ivy Peterson
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About this listen

She should say no. Addison Davenport figures that most people likely would. But after having her life plans repeatedly derailed, she's come to wonder if her chance at marriage and kids ended with the death of her college boyfriend. So when business powerhouse Daxton "Dax" Mercier—a man who's suffered a similar loss, a man who's her first in every way—asks her to honor the fallback marriage pact they made years ago, she doesn't reject it out of hand.

Their partnership would be no more than a business transaction, but what's the point in holding out for love when it had granted her no guarantees in the past?

Maybe they could make a marriage work. Maybe. One thing is for certain: with the wounds of loss heavy on their souls and the fact that he's given up on finding the big L again, friendship would be all they'd have.

Love would never enter their picture. Ever. Not even for a moment.

Right?

Contains mature themes.

©2023 Suzanne Wright (P)2024 Tantor Contemporary Marriage
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Suzanne is a brilliant writer however this book is hard to enjoy as the narrator is not her usual narrator and I’m finding the narration very grating and it is really impacting my ability to enjoy the book. In the world of audible a narrator can completely derail an author. Sorry for this review I don’t like being negative but it is truly impacting my experience.

Think carefully about the impact of a narrator as this is a long listen!!

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I have to say I didn't want to listen to it at first. I'm glad I did. It's true it has many similar things to " The favor" but I loved that book too, so... Besides, it is very nice to see what happened to the people in "The favor" and "Shivers" after all this time.

I've gotta say, though, I don't like the mention of characters from other books. It sounds a little forced to me.

I hope there will be a book for other characters in this book. there are many interesting set-up storylines waiting to be developed.

I loved it!

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The plot premise - of a pact, an arranged marriage, through which emotional attachment grew - had promise, but turned out to be quite shallow. The opening hour or two was slow but I had hope it would improve. Sadly, this hope did not bear fruit.
There were lots of bitchy female characters whose only dimension was to “man-steal” or be a b*tch toward the FMC. Outside of family members and a single platonic male friend, all male characters were either hitting on the FMC, vilifying her or vilifying the MMC.
The writing was clunky. Synonyms were frequently used beside each other (eg. ‘It was dull and boring’), creating an irritating narrative voice and impossible to un-notice. Action happened *to* the characters’ body parts (‘his lips curved upward’ every single time, he never ‘smiled’ or ‘grinned’ or ‘smirked’), instead of being described as accompaniments to characters’ communication with each other.
The characters spoke to each other in unrealistic ways - the “villainous” ones were over-the-top nasty (and without proper motivation) and tacky, while the friendships were overly formal and lacked the warmth and kindness readers seek in fictional BFFs. There were too many side characters and it was hard to keep up with who’s who in large scenes, especially the family scenes, in which I am still confused about which characters are the parents of the FMC and MMC because they’re sometimes referred to by first name instead of by their “mum”/“dad” title.
Much of the plot was performative and “and then” based. Every detail from ‘reaching for a cell from the handbag left on the floor by her feet’ to ‘locking the car on walks back to the front door’ was relayed. None of it progressed the plot or developed characters. It was so, so uninteresting to read. I usually carry the speaker playing my audiobook with me when leaving the room for a minute or two, but I didn’t bother with this book and didn’t miss anything noteworthy. An absolute lack of flavoursome descriptive language meant it was hard to picture characters and settings, especially when settings changed, and difficult to be immersed as a reader.
The narrator’s inflections were very frustrating. The cadence to every sentence was much the same, and therefore most s*x scenes sounded the same. The narrator also pronounced her “d”s as though they were separate words. One plus of their reading was that the FMC’s spoken dialogue was recognisable by her adoption of a gravelly voice.
Not a book I would read again or recommend to others. Save your audible credits for something else.

Not recommended

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