“I’ll kill yours, if you kill mine”
- Book: The Pact
- Location: Teddington
- Author: Dawn Goodwin
Oh Yes! This was definitely my kind of book. A great story, written in a no nonsense way, yet at the same time full of surprises and a few red herrings, with twists and turns right until the very end!
This disturbing storyline was ideally constructed and developed, from my preferred reading point of view. The opening chapter more or less set the scene and the backstory for lead protagonist, Maddie. The storyline was slow burning, full of detail yet giving nothing away, descriptive and well narrated in the moment by Maddie predominantly, together with some small interruptions from Jade and a few short paragraphs of introspection and retrospection by Maddie, when missing pieces of the backstory jigsaw are fitted into place. The ending was quite satisfying and what I might have hoped for, although the means by which it happened was totally unexpected.
‘Revenge is a dish best served cold’ – just ask Maddie!
On its own, this wasn’t a particularly complex story, however the many added layers, which were peeled back intermittently, really ramped up the suspense level giving it great depth and staying power. The intense and unrelenting psychological twists really played with my mind, let alone with those of the characters, to the stage where I didn’t know what was going to happen next.
The two main protagonists were both female and whilst neither they, nor any of the supporting cast, were particularly likeable characters, or easy to become invested in or connect with, it was great fun trying to unravel the complex, multi-layered personalities, in which the author had wrapped them up so neatly.
The atmosphere was constantly crackling with tension and no matter where Maddie went, she always seemed to be stressed beyond belief about one thing or another, as her thinking and emotions were being pulled this way and that, by other people’s unrelenting pressure. Through the well written, gripping and descriptive narrative and dialogue, I could almost feel how highly strung Maddie was and that she was constantly on edge. Even when on a couple of occasions she had a bit too much to drink, her actions seemed way over the top and a bit too exuberant to be spontaneous! The incessant intensity with which Maddie filled her life, along with her slightly annoying naivety, was managed with total authority and confidence by an author who knew just which buttons to push to get the reaction she needed, without having to labour a point.
The notion of extended and unconventional family units was explored in a realistic and authentic way, although not one which made me feel overly comfortable, as Maddie’s obsession with children whilst disturbing and troubling, was also profoundly touching and emotionally draining, as it was the only thing she thought about, day in, day out. For any one person to have endured both the physical and mental anguish which Maddie had, would surely have wrecked even the strongest and most stable of relationships, but her estranged husband Greg, wet blanket that he was, really did ‘want his cake and eat it’. Three people and a baby in one marriage was never going to work, surely!
Jade just had a scheming disturbing and very distorted mind and view on life. Always out to use someone until they had served their useful purpose and then on to the next unsuspecting victim, even if murder and blackmail was the only route to her achieving her goal. Having said all that, it did take me quite a while to cotton on to her selfish motives and I actually became quite invested in her sob story, until the penny dropped. The only consolation was that Maddie took even longer than I did to work it out, but boy! how the tide turned once she realised she had been used, and as a consequence, her entire future might have been changed as she might have been complicit in ruining so many other precious lives.
The relatively small cast of supporting characters really were an eclectic, multi-faceted bunch, although when I stopped to unpick the story before writing this review, I realised that they all had their own roles to play in Maddie discovering her true worth, the values that really mattered to her, and the knowledge that she was more than able to stand on her own two feet and make her own decisions as an independent individual. The characters all seemed to operate in their own little bubbles, with little interaction and dialogue between them, leaving Maddie and Jade to take centre stage, yet they were all pivotal to the storyline in various stages, as it developed and unfolded.
Conventional as I probably am, this disconnected and slightly quirky set-up, was one giant time bomb just waiting to go off and when it did explode, as for my thinking it was always doomed to, the fallout was far-reaching and for some, permanent! Murder, accidental death, suicide – The bodies were piling up, but who would the winners and losers be?
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