Title: Every Vow You Break

By: Peter Swanson   

ISBN: 9780062980038

Website: peter-swanson(.)com

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Andra                   

Summary:

A bride’s dream honeymoon becomes a nightmare when a man with whom she’s had a regrettable one-night stand shows up in this psychological thriller from the author of Eight Perfect Murders.

Abigail Baskin never thought she’d fall in love with a millionaire. Then she met Bruce Lamb. But right before the wedding, Abigail has a drunken one-night stand on her bachelorette weekend. She puts the incident—and the sexy guy who wouldn’t give her his real name—out of her mind, and now believes she wants to be with Bruce for the rest of her life.

Then the mysterious stranger suddenly appears—and Abigail’s future life and happiness are turned upside down. He insists that their passionate night was the beginning of something special and he’s tracked her down to prove it.

Does she tell Bruce and ruin their idyllic honeymoon—and possibly their marriage? Or should she handle this psychopathic stalker on her own? To make the situation worse, strange things begin to happen. She sees a terrified woman in the night shadows, and no one at the resort seems to believe anything is amiss… including her perfect new husband. (Goodreads)

Review:

The last dance of the night was to Every Breath You Take, the Police song, done in a bossa nova style. Foreshadowing perhaps? Let me explain… Every Vow You Make is billed as a psychological thriller. At first – I concur but in the long haul I would also add mystery. It starts out rather mundane (at least in my mind…but one does have to set the story up after all). 

We meet Abigail Baskin as she is about to embark on her bachelorette party – a weekend away with the gals where in true bachelorette fashion, Abigail gets a wee bit drunk… Her pals abandon her at the end of the evening and this is when things go south for Abigail (though she does not know this at the time). She befriends a sexy guy (they decided to call themselves Scottie and Madeleine – a reference to Hitchcock’s movie Vertigo…more foreshadowing perhaps?) and has a one-night stand. Oops… but life carries on and Abigail marries the love of her life – Bruce Lamb, the quintessential perfect husband type – handsome billionaire (are you ready to swoon yet?).  As can be expected, Abigail is fraught with guilt. But things go bad when her one-night stand shows up on the very small island they are on for their honeymoon (yes – the wedding did happen, just with an extra helping of guilt). What is a gal to do?  Then some strange things begin to happen. At least from this point on the story became a bit more interesting and kept my interest.

At approximately 2/3 of the way through the book the reader got a tidbit to make one suspicious… now we are getting somewhere with this ominous dialogue: 

Mellie leaned in close and whispered, “Don’t trust your husband.”

Mellie is also on the island with her husband. One of the very few females that Abigail has seen. So what is happening? The twist (I am not going to divulge so as to not ruin it for future readers) was what did turn it around for me. From that point on, I was intrigued by all the men on the island, what was actually going on and subsequently – why was all this sh*t happening. It felt like Abigail was starting to lose it mentally. Truly engaging.

As a main character, Abigail was rather blasé, boring and non-descript – at least in the beginning. It wasn’t until she and Bruce were on their honeymoon and stuff started to happen that she (at least in my mind) got interesting and her personality began to emerge. However, in the end, some of what Abigail did seemed a bit implausible, especially given what she had just been through –  both physically as well as emotionally.

The men in the story – do NOT get me started (dirtbags, a**holes, and any other expletive you could think of). And folks – that is all I will say as I would like for you to read the book and find out for yourselves because it truly is the crux of the storyline.

I did enjoy reading Every Vow You Break. While I was a bit put off in the beginning, it picked up in the second half and kept me engaged.