I’m a long-time fan of Sharon Bolton’s twisty thrillers (and the author herself seems pretty cool too), so I was very excited to see the blurb for this new novel pop up in my emails. The fact that it’s set in and around Oxford, a city I’ve been missing a lot in these times of not travelling much, was a further incentive, as was the premise of the story itself. Six teenagers from an exclusive and highly academic private school are enjoying their last summer together in the months between finishing their ‘A’ Levels and going off to separate universities, spending most of the time at the home of one of them, while her parents are mostly absent. After one of them leads them in a dangerous, drunken dare and gets away with it, the others take it in terms to emulate the stunt until only one remains to try it. This last stunt, however, results in tragedy, and three strangers – a woman and her two young children – die. The group agree that although any one of them could have caused the same sequence of events, there’s no point in all of them taking the blame. At this point, Megan – the scholarship kid – volunteers to absolve the others of all responsibility, provided that each of the other five agrees to do something for her at a later date. The rest of the group agree to Megan’s suggestion and sign a pact with her, but none of them realise just what they’re letting themselves in for.

None of the six expects Megan to serve more than a few years in prison, but she ends up there for the whole of a twenty-year term. On her release, she seeks out her five former friends, who have kept in touch with each other, but made no attempt to contact her in all that time, and reminds them of their promise to her. The others haven’t completely forgotten about her. All are successful in their own way and all have been paying into a trust fund that was intended to help Megan when she began a new life outside prison. However, they find themselves resenting her intrusion and decide not to tell her about the money straight away or to agree to her demands.

But only Megan knows where the document they all signed is hidden, and they all remember that she also photographed it and took the camera’s film with her. And so a search begins – or restarts, since two of the group had tried to find the document and film twenty years earlier – alongside attempts to discover how Megan can be appeased least painlessly and why she was so willing to take the blame in the first place.

This really was a twisty book. None of the characters were particularly likeable, but I was irresistibly drawn to them and to the various mysteries around what really happened on that fateful night following the accident and which of the six is willing to kill in order to prevent the truth about the accident and its aftermath ever being revealed to the wider world. Definitely one of my favourite books from this author.

Six friends on the cusp of their adult lives meet the night before their A level results. All talented academics, they agree to to play a dangerous and risky game for the very last time. This decision leads to three deaths, a mother and her two young children and sends one of them to prison. All played a part but only one pays the price with the best years of their life. The others, with varying degrees of trauma, establish glittering careers, families and wealth. This is their pact to minimise the damage, bonded forever by the hidden evidence of the truth. The other five largely forget their friend but their friend does not forget them and now they want their payment, but not in money. In favours. Things they don't want to lose. This is fast paced novel with an overwhelming feeling of doom as each friend unravels and risks losing what is dear to each of them. Of course, it's not what we expect... Not at all.

A prestigious independent school in Oxford is known for educating pupils to Oxbridge standard. Six talented and bright pupils (Xavier, Amber, Megan, Daniel, Felix and Talitha), are preparing to receive their A-Level results and leave for University. Through privilege and wealth, they enjoy the summer of a lifetime, before one daredevil decision changes their lives forever. A 20-year-old secret which houses a hidden pact, comes back to taunt them when an obsessed criminal with an axe to grind, returns to Oxford with plenty of revenge in mind!


#ThePact is a psychological suspense thriller that builds into an edge of your seat read in the last few chapters. Bolton’s clever writing style drops hints to the big twists along the way, but her subtlety means you might miss them if you blink too fast.


Personally, I did guess who was behind it all quite early on, but that didn’t spoil the ending or deter me from reading on. Instead, I found myself invested in the plot and excited to see how Bolton would deliver the final blow!


Quick moving chapters, buildable and relatable characters and a well thought out storyline. This is one thriller all fans will be binge reading this summer!


Thank you to #NetGalley, #Trapeze, #OrionPublishingGroup, and #SharonBolton for an ARC of #ThePact in exchange for an honest review.


UK Publication Date: 27th May 2021

Felix, Megan, Tabitha, Amber, Dan and Xav are all expecting great A-level results, and all have places at prestigious universities.  The night before their results are due, a dangerous game goes tragically wrong, and a woman and 2 children are left dead.  Megan takes the blame, leaving the others to carry on with their loves.  The catch is that when she gets out she can demand a single favour from each of the others.

Sharon Bolton is an auto-read author for me, and I was lucky enough to receive an arc of this one from NetGalley.  It was everything I've come to expect from one of my favourite writers.

One of the main things that stood out to me whilst reading this was how vile all of the characters were!  It's rare that I find a book that creates such strong and visceral hatred, but this one did.  They are the epitome of self centred, entitled teenagers, who are incapable of accepting the consequences of their actions.  They aren't much better as adults either.  Despite that, somehow by the end of the book I was still hoping things worked out for them, which is testament to Bolton's skills.

I loved the plot in this.  You find out quite early on what the group did and what their pact was, it isn't a secret.  The focus of the story is more on the repercussions of their actions, and what happens when Megan is finally released from prison.  I'd love to say that there is a lesson in here for the characters, but there isn't.  There is for the readers though.  I'd be surprised if anyone could read this and not be horrified by the actions of the 6.

The tension in this one ramps up steadily as the book progresses, leaving you on the edge of your seat.  If you're a Sharon Bolton fan you will love this one, and if you're new to her works I strongly recommend you give this a try (followed by her back catalogue). 

Thanks to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

This novel starts 20 years ago with six friends, all of whom appear to live a charmed life (money, good looks, academic prowess) and who risk their glittering futures on a mindless act which changes everything.

What follows is a reunion, of sorts, as Megan, the one to take the fall for the other five, is released from prison, and wants to rebuild her life – and get what she’s owed by the others.

I can see I’m strongly in the minority here, and will be a somewhat dissenting voice; however, this book just didn’t work for me. It started with a lot of promise. Despite the slight initial confusion that is inevitable when you introduce six characters in one go, I was utterly gripped, and felt myself caught up in the whirlwind of that final night before the A Level results were posted.

Then, sadly, things started to unravel for me. The pace slowed down and I realised, with each turn of the page, that there wasn’t a single character in the book I remotely liked, let alone cared about. The idea that we change as we get older, and start to value certain things over others (for example, honesty and peace over the promise of a glittering career) is intriguing; however, I just felt there wasn’t enough surrounding it to make this a good basis for a book.

In many parts I found the dialogue to be very immature (in adults), stunted and ultimately not very engaging. What happens is also a bit far-fetched, and felt like multiple writing tricks thrown in to the hat to keep the reader guessing, but didn’t actually work. For me, this was disjointed and a real struggle to finish. In the end, I was bored.

This wasn’t terrible, by any stretch of the imagination, but I know I will easily forget it, so it has to be a three from me. Very middle-of-the-road.

An absolutely brilliant read from Sharon Bolton! I think this is my favourite one from her so hard!

It's got all the elements you want in a great psychological thriller. Friendship, murder, deceit, love and a humdinger of an ending!
It is a story about friendship and how far you would go to protect your friends. What would you sacrifice to protect the people close to you and how do you live with the guilt?
It started with 6 friends. One careless act would change all their lives forever.  One person decides to take the blame in exchange for the others signing a pact that they owe her and she can ask anything from them when she comes out of jail. Well, you just know that's not going to end well! Cue twenty years later.........

In the words of one of the characters:
"Isn't it better to have five friends who are doing well, who can look after you, make sure you get what you need when it's over, than five friends who are serving time in the next cell"

I loved every minute of this book and can't wait to see what Sharon will surprise us with next!

Thank you to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion

Gosh what a truly unlikeable set of ‘friends’ this bunch were. None of them seemed to have any redeeming qualities that made you want them to get a good ending. I am sure that was exactly the authors intention. I failed to connect to any of the characters in the novel and found them all to be quite 2D parodies., which I am sure was intentional. The novel was really well written and fast paced and full of twists but I felt personally that without feeling empathy for at least one of the characters some of the suspense was lost for me. I really enjoyed the twist at the end though.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read a preview copy of this book.

This review will go live at the link below on 13 June:

Hi and welcome to my little corner of the bookish world where today it is my absolute pleasure to close the tour for The Pact! Huge thanks to Tracy Fenton for the invite and to Trapeze for the fabulous review copy!
Sharon Bolton is one of my favourite authors and so The Pact was one of my most anticipated 2021 reads. Was it everything I expected? Yes, yes it was! I was sucked in from the start and the more I read, the more I forgot all about the world around me, even ignoring a rumbling stomach because I just couldn’t stop reading. (For those of you who don’t know me very well: this is A VERY BIG DEAL INDEED, food almost always takes priority!)
The Pact kicks off with the senior prefect team on the eve of their A level results day. They are six friends who have it all and, without realising it, could lose it all in the blink of an eye. Five kids from wealthy families, one odd one out, Megan, the one with a scholarship. Five somewhat drunken nights that summer, with each friend driving up the motorway in the wrong direction, a fast ride, only a couple of minutes on a usually deserted road, no harm, no foul, they're golden, nothing can hurt them. It's the sixth ride, the sixth drunken night on that special eve, when everything goes to hell in a handbasket: they cause a crash in which a woman and her two children die.
No need for all of them to lose their bright futures, one will take the blame, this they all agree on. Eventually it’s Megan who says she will be the scapegoat, she will confess. And she does, but it soon appears that they have all deeply underestimated the repercussions of such a confession. Megan is put on trial for a lot more than reckless driving, her case a signal to other teens with daredevil inclinations.
Still the pact stands: in return for taking the blame, each of Megan's friends will owe her a favour, whatever she asks for in the future she will get, no questions asked, no discussion, and no way of getting out of it, as Megan has the pact in writing and on film.
Fast forward to twenty years later and Megan is released from HMP Durham. She claims to have some sort of amnesia, half her memories of that summer are gone. Does she speak the truth or is she playing a game with her former friends? As the story progressed I couldn’t help but wonder: has she lost her marbles in prison, or is this her revenge? For a long while I wasn't sure but there was one thing I knew for certain: I sure as hell hoped the gang was getting their comeuppance, I wanted nothing more than to see them squirm. Vengeful? Me? Well, perhaps a tad.
To be clear: if you need to like your characters to get on with a book, you'd better give this one a pass. If you love to hate a bunch of characters, though, step right up, there's five right here whose lights I would have happily punched out. Bloody hell but how self-important and egocentric can you get?! It had me fuming!! Is the situation hyper realistic? Perhaps not. However, the way these people are portrayed makes it all utterly believable.

I admit I figured out part of the plot well before the reveal, but that didn’t stop the adrenaline flowing while I kept turning the pages as fast as I could, it was so very intense.
I had the best time with The Pact. A superb premise, excellent characterisation and a riveting plot, The Pact has everything I seek in a thriller and I would happily recommend it to any and all thriller fans out there.

What a stunning read this is! Set in Oxford and full of delightful detail of the City of Dreaming Spires, it tells the tale of privileged gilded youth and what can happen to their lives of luxury when they take hedonism to its limits. The six central characters are beautifully drawn and their interplay is fascinating. The plot is intriguing, with many jaw-dropping moments and this novel grips from start to finish.

A new Sharon Bolton book is always a joy. I love the way her twisty brain works and in The Pact she has given us a terrific chilling and twisty novel that keeps you guessing.

Six students are living the dream. They are the chosen ones, studying at All Saints School, Oxford where they fully expect to graduate with top class A levels and thereafter will float into their chosen Universities to study for their Honours degrees.

In the main they are rich, entitled and enjoying a life of privilege washed down with drink and drugs. The exception is Megan, the school’s Head Girl, who is neither rich nor privileged. She is a scholarship girl from a single parent family who has earned her place through her abilities, though the fact that she is beautiful clearly hasn’t hurt her place in this world where money and looks really count.

Daniel, Amber, Talitha, Felix and Xav are the others. These 18 year olds think the world belongs to them and that they are golden – they can do no wrong. But such pride always comes before a fall and for this group, a decision they make is of catastrophic proportions.

It is the early hours of the morning when the six embark on a dare that goes tragically wrong. To their eternal shame, not one of these six does more than suggest seeking help for those whose lives they have harmed. No, these glittering youths with their whole lives in front of them are concerned to ensure that the glitter does not tarnish and so they slink off into the night.

They are not stupid enough to believe that that they can get off with what they have done. They know that trace evidence will lead inexorably back to them. So though they are surprised when Megan offers to shoulder all the blame, subject to certain conditions, they are also mightily relieved and grab her offer with alacrity.

What Megan asks for is a guaranteed favour from each of them when she gets out, alongside their visits and letters supporting her while she is in prison, and ensuring through Talitha’s parents, that Megan gets a good lawyer.

It’s fair to say that none of them anticipated the very severe sentence that Megan would be handed. There is no excuse though for what they do. These are not good people. Self –obsessed, they take their friend’s offer with barely a second thought. And then they royally screw her over.

There is something about being wrapped up in the behaviour of abhorrent people that is completely mesmerising. When Megan is released, 20 years later, the futures that these 18 year olds had seen as their birth right have come to pass. They are all very successful in their chosen fields. And I really, really, wanted to see them suffer. (Yes, this makes me no better than them, I freely admit)

But Megan presents as a cold and calculating threat to her former friends. She makes it very clear that she has come to claim her pound of flesh. And so the friends regroup and the darkness resumes….

Sharon Bolton paints a compelling portrait of each of these characters and though they have succeeded, you can see that none of them has been left untainted by what happened that night. It’s hard though to feel sorry for them because the way that they treated Megan, then and now. Not once did they ask themselves why she made the offer. Partly because they were just so relieved, but also in part because she was the outsider. If this was Friends, this episode would be called ‘The One with the Poor Student.’

Bolton has created a brilliant set of characters each one entangled in a deadly game of cat and mouse. She writes superbly, with three dimensional characters and lots of clever plotting which is so delightfully layered and infused with unpleasantness, that as she reveals each character’s life and the reality of their situation the tension only increases.

Verdict: The Pact is a gripping psychological thriller with characters that will make your teeth hurt. Bolton’s grasp of human weakness is intelligently explored leading to a strong, disturbing and riveting storyline that is both propulsive and addictive. She captures the atmosphere well and at times the tension is so palpable it stifles. This is fantastic, vivid storytelling and a must read.

I'm a big fan of Sharon Bolton's books so I was very excited to get my hands on The Pact. I read it over the course of a couple of nights and very pacey it was too!

There's quite a long lead up to the scenes where it all goes wrong for a group of six golden friends with their lives ahead of them, and the tension mounts. When we get to 20 years later and Megan is released from prison, with all the threat to their precarious lives at its most intense, I was thoroughly gripped.

The Pact features characters that I thoroughly disliked for large parts of the time, but they were believable which kept me engaged.

Very engrossing and interesting plot.

Exams are over and our six main characters are looking forward to getting their A-Level results and cementing their ongoing further education places. A golden summer for them for sure. Until that is on a bit of a drunken night, the only remaining person of the six to "do the dare" takes their turn. And tragedy ensues. Big time. It spells disaster for one, for all, and they worry and argue about what to do.
Until Megan steps up and declares that she will take one for the team. She will take the blame, solo blame. But her magnanimous gesture is not without payback. Each of the remaining 5 friends have to agree to one thing she asks of them upon release should she serve jail time. Which she does...
Fast forward 20 years and Megan is finally free...
And I'm leaving it there, hanging, cos you really want to go in as blind as you can as this really gets a bit juicy straight away and you need to learn things at the right times, as the author intends. Suffice to say that the remaining 5 have all lived pretty good lives, albeit under a bit of a shadow... So you are really in for a wild ride when the aftermath kicks off...
This is a bit sick and twisted and contains all the usual elements you'd expect from a book of the genre. Secrets, lies, duplicitous behaviour all the way through. And an underlying sense of dread and fear pretty much all the way through which gives the overall story the perfect level of atmosphere.
The characters are all perfectly crafted and all act their parts very well. The main characters and bit players alike. Although my feelings changed quite a bit along the way as I flitted between feeling sorry for them on occasion but then that shifted into a sort of "reap what you sow" attitude as more information was divulged. Especially as more of Megan's motivation was laid bare.
All in all, a cracking addition to an already impressive back catalogue of books, some I have already read and some I have added to my ever growing tbr. If you are a fan of the genre, this is definitely an author to check out. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

The Pact is the perfect thriller: a small cast of characters who you get to know quickly, a simple but effective set up, a central character returning to demand revenge, a fantastic and fast paced story which ends with a proper edge of your seat ending. I absolutely loved it and can’t stop recommending it to friends and family. It deserves to be a bestseller and I’m sure someone has snapped up the TV rights. Sharon Bolton writes brilliantly, her characterisation is clever and you really get a proper sense of every character and what drives them. Her plotting is fluid and edgy, I almost missed my tube stop because I was so engrossed! I haven’t read her first novel but I’m going straight out to buy it. Thank you to #netgalley and # Orion books for allowing me to review this ARC

Set in Oxford. Xav, Talitha, Felix, Amber and Daniel are privileged pupils at an exclusive school. The odd one out Megan is a scholarship winner from a humble one parent household. However she is the cleverest of the six. They are all destined for University. They enjoy partying, but have got involved with a dare - driving Felix's mother's car the wrong way on the motorway for a short distance in the early morning.
Five of them have accomplished this dangerous drive. There is only Daniel left, he doesn't drive and is very anxious. It is this journey when a horrific accident happens. They are desperate not to be sent to prison, their glittering careers over before they start!
Megan agrees to take the blame as long as each agree to honour a pact to her when she is released. It doesn't go well for Megan and because of a variety of reasons, including Talitha's solicitor father, it is twenty years until Megan is released.
Now she is determined to get them to honour their pact. She is also angry because none of them visited or wrote to her whilst she was imprisoned. They seem to give the impression that it was just Megan who caused the accident. They all have much to lose, they have successful careers - one an M.P. one a Solicitor and another a Businessman. They discuss ignoring Megan but she took the precaution all those years ago to get them to sign the pact and try as they might they can't locate this document.
Although I knew of the author's works, this is the first one I have read. Near the end of the book a few of them seem to change personality, which is strange after what has gone before. However this doesn't detract from a good story well told. I have no reservation in recommending this book.

I’ve been thinking about this book for weeks. When I first finished it I wasn’t sure whether it was the book for me but the more time that’s past the more I’ve come to appreciate the story. The characters while not what you’d call likeable were well written, distinct characters. The twists were great and the writing, as always, superb.

Thank you Netgalley for this fantastic ARC copy.

I love Sharon Bolton books and this was brilliant. Gripping, tense, twists and turns and secrets and lies galore. A one sitting read. I guarantee you won't be able to put it down.

One summer a group of six friends take part in a dare that goes wrong and ends in tragedy. Megan offers to shoulder the blame for her friends on the condition that they will all owe her on her release from prison. Twenty years later Megan is released and ready to cash in her favours.

I really don't want to add much more as any information would be a spoiler with all that's going on.

Massive 5 star read.

What a superb book. I literally could not put this down and read it in a couple of days. It was full of suspense and twists centreing on the relationship between 6 friends and an incident affecting their lives. Highly recommend this book. Get yourself a copy, you won't regret it.

This fast-paces thriller noir takes us back 20 years to when a group of six friends, all about to leave school and embark on the next stage of their careers dare each other to take a series of joyriding escapades that inevitably end in tragedy. But who'll take the blame for their crimes? With all agreed that there is no point in all their lives being ruined, Megan steps up the plate - but she demands a high price for her selflessness. And now, 20 years later, she is back to reclaim it. Will the others - now all high-flying careerists with partners and family accede to her demands, or risk precipitating further tragedy?
This was a tightly woven story, and very excitingly told. I particularly liked the way that right from the start, we knew the awful secret that bound the friends together - so often in a story like this, you have to guess at what's gone on. Yet, there's still plenty mystery to intrigue the reader, not least the question of why Megan is so willing to take the blame The final reveal on this only adds to the drama as the friendship falls apart and the previously tight-knit group begin to turn on each other.
Atmospheric and suspenseful, the setting of the rarefied atmosphere of Oxford contrasts with the tense, dramatic, plot of this story, keeping the reader alert and keen to turn the pages.
There was just one thing missing for me from this story and that was the lack of one truly empathetic character. Spoilt and privileged with a sense of entitlement at the age of 18, the main players remain selfish to their own needs. Even Megan, despite the heavy price she pays to keep her friendship group's secret, never evoked my sympathy. That was reserved for the original victims and their family - they deserved justice far more than any of this six deserved to escape from their past actions.

A compulsive and fast-paced psychological thriller, The Pact is an absolute page-turner and one that I was constantly excited to pick back up again (not that I gave it much opportunity to be put down!).

I was invested in the characters from the very start. They all feel very genuine and not once did I think they act unbelievably in this unimaginable situation. I warmed to them all in the first part of the book but then wanted to throw them all under the bus by part two. Once a young and tight-knit group of friends, twenty years later their lives are turned upside down when they realise that their privilege can't get them anywhere anymore.

I didn't see the end coming at all and was absolutely gripped throughout. The tension will have you devouring this as quickly as possible as the explosive surprises and intelligent plotting will have you desperate for the torment to end.

I have only read one other book by Sharon Bolton previously which I didn't particularly enjoy, but this is definitely a book that I recommend.

I received a copy of this arc in exchange for an honest review thanks to Orion Books. I also received an e-arc thanks to NetGalley.

🤯🤯 - that’s the summary of my thoughts!

What a bloody fantastic book! I mean, i’m lost for words!

The book is split into 2 parts - part 1 is the summer the incident happened and part 2 is the aftermath which is set 20 years later.

It’s written to make to assume you know what is happening but when something unexpected happens, it makes you doubt everything you were thinking. It didn’t even seem like there was anything else to focus on, only the main plot of the story.

I’ve got to be honest, I did not see that ending coming! Talk about about a plot twist! It did a mini plot twist which makes sense, so you don’t really question it. But then, within a chapter, another plot twist hits you so then it’s like a ‘wait, what?’ moment.

I LOVED IT! I want to read it all over again - it’s not often that I get that feeling!