Book Review: The Pact – Sharon Bolton

Book Review: The Pact – Sharon Bolton


Release date:
May 1st 2021
Publisher: Trapeze
Pages: 384
Find it: Goodreads Waterstones
Source: I bought a copy of this book from my local supermarket
Rating: 4.25/5 stars

Synopsis

A golden summer, and six talented teenagers are looking forward to the brightest of futures – until a daredevil game goes horribly wrong, leaving three strangers dead.

18-year-old Megan takes the blame for the crime, leaving her friends to get on with their lives. In return, they each agree to a ‘favour’, payable on her release from prison.

Twenty years later Megan is free.
It is payback time.
And her friends start disappearing, one by one . . .

Review

The Pact is a taut, gripping thriller that follows six teenagers who make a horrible mistake one night and leave three strangers dead. One of the group (Megan) decides to take the blame for what they did, allowing her friends to go on to their bright futures, but it will cost them one favour each when she is released from prison. Twenty years have gone by, and now Megan has been released. One by one, the group begins to disappear, but can they appease Megan before it’s too late?

The Pact is one of those books that you sit down to read a chapter of and before you know it, you’ve been completely sucked in and you’re still reading hours later. This book completely captivated me from start to finish. It was intensely compelling, and I just had to know what was going to happen next. I thought this was such an intriguing concept – if your friend had sacrificed everything for you, what would you do when they came back into your life to collect on a promise you made twenty years ago? Bolton executed the plot really well and there were lots of twists and surprises I didn’t expect.

Bolton has created a fascinating cast of characters, and I loved that they were all so well developed. Each of the group are living pretty differently lives, and I enjoyed seeing how the pressure of Megan returning affected them. Towards the end of the book Bolton really ramps up the suspense and I read the last few chapters on the edge of my seat. This was a really tense, twisty, thriller that I thoroughly enjoyed. If you’re looking for a story that will keep you hooked till the very end, you don’t want to miss The Pact and I am thoroughly looking forward to reading more from Sharon Bolton.

Blog Tour: The Dark – Sharon Bolton

Blog Tour: The Dark – Sharon Bolton


Series:
Lacey Flint #5
Release Date: May 26th 2022
Publisher: Orion Books
Pages: 464
Find it on: Goodreads. BookDepository. Waterstones.
Source: The publisher kindly sent me a copy of the book to review
Rating: 4.25/5 stars

Synopsis

ONCE, SHE SAVED HIS LIFE…
NOW, HE’LL TAKE HERS.

When a baby is snatched from its pram and cast into the river Thames, off-duty police officer Lacey Flint is there to prevent disaster. But who would want to hurt a child?

DCI Mark Joesbury has been expecting this. Monitoring a complex network of dark web sites, Joesbury and his team have spotted a new terrorist threat from the extremist, women-hating, group known as ‘incels’ or ‘involuntary celibates.’ Joesbury’s team are trying to infiltrate the ring of power at its core, but the dark web is built for anonymity, and the incel army is vast.

Pressure builds when the team learn the snatched child was just the first in a series of violent attacks designed to terrorise women. Worse, the leaders of the movement seem to have singled out Lacey as the embodiment of everything they hate, placing her in terrible danger…

Review

Sharon Bolton is fast becoming one of my all time favourite thriller writers. Having read and loved The Split I immediately picked up as many of her books as I could and each has been, dark, twisty and difficult to put down. The Dark is absolutely no exception. The Dark is the fifth installment in Bolton’s Lacey Flint series and follows Flint as she stops someone attempting to throw a baby into the Thames. Flint soon learns this is just the start of a series of attacks against women and an extremist group might be the cause. The pressure soon builds as Flint and the team must work to stop the group before things get even worse.

Much like Bolton’s other books, I was hooked on this story right from the very first chapter. Bolton has a really compelling writing style and I was completely drawn into this fast-paced plot. As I have come to expect from Bolton there were twists I never saw coming and there were more than a few moments that had me on the edge of my seat. Bolton is brilliant at keeping you guessing, all the while building up the tension.

While The Dark has an utterly addictive plot, it also features some really well crafted characters. Flint is a brilliant protagonist, she is a strong female character with lots of mystery surrounding her past. I similarly liked DCI Mark Joesbury and I enjoyed seeing the relationship develop between the two. Altogether The Dark makes for some really compelling reading. If you’re a fan of Bolton’s work or in the mood for something twisty and hard to put down, The Dark definitely has you covered.