The Pact tells the story of Freya Matthews, a computer coder who gets her dream job at a trendy new start-up tech company called Atypical in San Francisco. Things seem to be going well as Freya solves various tricky computer problems, impressing her enigmatic boss, Julian Cox, the founder and CEO of Atypical, and catching the eye of colleague, Jay Singh.
One of the other coders, Nicole Whittington, takes an almost instant dislike to Freya, mainly because she feels that Freya has stolen her man, and things start to turn nasty as Nicole makes nasty remarks and mocks her clothes, hair, etc.
After months of bullying, Freya begins to dread going into work and, if it wasn’t for Jay’s support and their relationship, she would probably have quit. To teach Nicole a lesson, the pair decide to play a prank on her. Unfortunately, the same night, Nicole is bludgeoned to death in her apartment with a small bronze statue.
Isla Davis, a news reporter on the local newspaper, the San Francisco Times, investigates the murder, with some unofficial help from the lead inspector on the case, Detective Simon Cohen, and she tries to unravel the events that led up to the awful crime.
The book hops about in time, which made interesting reading as I tried to put all the clues together and work out exactly what was going on. It was interesting to see the different viewpoints and try and work out who was telling the truth. We also learnt more about Freya’s difficult past and how she’d had to really work to achieve her dream career, and about Isla’s past life and the moment that spurred her on to become a reporter.
With dark undercurrents of workplace bullying and sexual harassment, The Pact was a relevant, current read on issues facing women in life and at work. The chapters involving Nicole’s bullying of Freya were cleverly written and I found myself getting more and more annoyed at Nicole and hating her for being so nasty to Freya for no apparent reason. It all seemed rather petty as she’d only just met Freya and hadn’t got to know her properly.
It’s frightening how much information is available about a person online and this is another key theme of the book: Julian does research to discover what things Freya is fond of, presenting her with appropriate gifts when she starts the company.
Overall, I really enjoyed The Pact; it was well written and uncomfortable reading at times and rather dark and edgy. I often shared in Freya’s fears and discomfort when she was experiencing stressful moments – the bullying and harassment from Nicole and the stalking via text messages that she endured later on in the book. Many of the characters in the book were rather unlikable and they all seemed to have an underlying nastiness to them to some degree! The book had some clever twists and misdirections, and I liked the ending, although I had guessed what would happen.
I’ll keep an eye out for Amy’s next book and will have to read her debut, Shame on You, which I already have on my Kindle!
One of the other coders, Nicole Whittington, takes an almost instant dislike to Freya, mainly because she feels that Freya has stolen her man, and things start to turn nasty as Nicole makes nasty remarks and mocks her clothes, hair, etc.
After months of bullying, Freya begins to dread going into work and, if it wasn’t for Jay’s support and their relationship, she would probably have quit. To teach Nicole a lesson, the pair decide to play a prank on her. Unfortunately, the same night, Nicole is bludgeoned to death in her apartment with a small bronze statue.
Isla Davis, a news reporter on the local newspaper, the San Francisco Times, investigates the murder, with some unofficial help from the lead inspector on the case, Detective Simon Cohen, and she tries to unravel the events that led up to the awful crime.
The book hops about in time, which made interesting reading as I tried to put all the clues together and work out exactly what was going on. It was interesting to see the different viewpoints and try and work out who was telling the truth. We also learnt more about Freya’s difficult past and how she’d had to really work to achieve her dream career, and about Isla’s past life and the moment that spurred her on to become a reporter.
With dark undercurrents of workplace bullying and sexual harassment, The Pact was a relevant, current read on issues facing women in life and at work. The chapters involving Nicole’s bullying of Freya were cleverly written and I found myself getting more and more annoyed at Nicole and hating her for being so nasty to Freya for no apparent reason. It all seemed rather petty as she’d only just met Freya and hadn’t got to know her properly.
It’s frightening how much information is available about a person online and this is another key theme of the book: Julian does research to discover what things Freya is fond of, presenting her with appropriate gifts when she starts the company.
Overall, I really enjoyed The Pact; it was well written and uncomfortable reading at times and rather dark and edgy. I often shared in Freya’s fears and discomfort when she was experiencing stressful moments – the bullying and harassment from Nicole and the stalking via text messages that she endured later on in the book. Many of the characters in the book were rather unlikable and they all seemed to have an underlying nastiness to them to some degree! The book had some clever twists and misdirections, and I liked the ending, although I had guessed what would happen.
I’ll keep an eye out for Amy’s next book and will have to read her debut, Shame on You, which I already have on my Kindle!