Book Review-Newer Books 20

Review—The Infidelity Pact by Carrie Karasyov

Carrie Karasyov wrote the novel The Infidelity Pact. Broadway Books published the book in June 2007; the novel has 272 pages.

          Southern California, where the temperatures stay cozy and the sun is rarely covered by clouds. This sunny place should just be the place of sunny, happy marriages. Four women who are in what seem to be successful and happy relationships meet regularly and are the best of friends. Their husbands have better than decent professions, their kids attend the better schools, they fill their days with parenting and physical activities to keep them part of the social sets in the higher orders. Hollywood is nearby, and starlets and aspiring stars are everywhere, so the standards to always look and be at you best are high. They are what many would view as healthy, wealthy, and wise. On the other hand, are they?

          After one lunch together, the four women agree to a plan that will have all the earmarks of disaster, though it has been broached as a way to add spice to their lives. Not, the possible life-changing event such an agreement could cause. The plan is for each woman to expand their sexual horizons or find fulfillment in themselves or their daily existence. Each woman is searching for something different in agreeing to this venture; one is looking for a better sense of identity, one for a better way of life than the one she is in, one is looking for the special romance that so many feel they have lost after marriage settles into routine, and the last woman turns out to be searching for something that she could have attained if she had trusted her friends. After some of the women have begun their journey, a gossip columnist who has always tried to insinuate himself into their friendship not only makes demands of them, but also, turns up dead. The pact involves extra-marital affairs to be consummated and completed within a year’s time. Does each woman complete the pact or not? Is the dead gossip a real threat or imagined?

          Carrie Karasyov has written a novel that though the characters are interesting, the pace is slow. The character development could have been more thorough and made the interest in their lives more of an investment as the plot thickened. The hate the columnist professes is also poorly presented. The novel was short and had potential, but fell short of riveting.