Join Books.org — it's free

Women's Fiction, Love & Relationships - Fiction
The Infidelity Pact by Carrie Karasyov — book cover

The Infidelity Pact

by Carrie Karasyov
Write a review
Log in to track your reading progress.

Overview

An ill-conceived pact between four L.A. housewives to each indulge in a year-long extramarital affair leads to freedom, revenge, social climbing, sex, drugs, and murder in this hilarious and biting solo debut by a coauthor of The Right Address and Wolves in Chic Clothing.
To address their general malaise, four privileged L.A. housewives each make a pact to have a year-long extramarital affair. Their husbands are declared off-limits and the friends agree to confide only in each other (the theory being that dalliances cause trouble in large part because word gets out). And so our ladies embark—two eagerly, one cautiously, and one very reluctantly—on perilous romantic paths that lead to all manner of adventure and intrigue. As the year progresses, secrets are revealed, betrayals pile up, desires are brought to light, lies are told, and each woman is forced to face up to the truth of who she is and the choices that have brought her here. When the women discover that a local gossip has been spying on their conversations and is threatening to reveal their secrets to the whole town, how far will they go to stop him? And how well do these friends really know each other anyway?
With a wry eye and an insider’s view of L.A.’s wealthy and occasionally desperate housewives, The Infidelity Pact is at once poignant and hilarious, a book that is sure to be talked about on both coasts—and everywhere in between.

Synopsis

An ill-conceived pact between four L.A. housewives to each indulge in a year-long extramarital affair leads to freedom, revenge, social climbing, sex, drugs, and murder in this hilarious and biting solo debut by a coauthor of The Right Address and Wolves in Chic Clothing.
To address their general malaise, four privileged L.A. housewives each make a pact to have a year-long extramarital affair. Their husbands are declared off-limits and the friends agree to confide only in each other (the theory being that dalliances cause trouble in large part because word gets out). And so our ladies embark—two eagerly, one cautiously, and one very reluctantly—on perilous romantic paths that lead to all manner of adventure and intrigue. As the year progresses, secrets are revealed, betrayals pile up, desires are brought to light, lies are told, and each woman is forced to face up to the truth of who she is and the choices that have brought her here. When the women discover that a local gossip has been spying on their conversations and is threatening to reveal their secrets to the whole town, how far will they go to stop him? And how well do these friends really know each other anyway?
With a wry eye and an insider’s view of L.A.’s wealthy and occasionally desperate housewives, The Infidelity Pact is at once poignant and hilarious, a book that is sure to be talked about on both coasts—and everywhere in between.

Publishers Weekly

Four L.A. moms in their mid-30s are bored with marriage and child-rearing. Over meals in trendy eateries, devious Victoria has reasons of her own to persuade Helen, Leelee and Eliza to invent a dangerous, rut-defying game: they will all have affairs over the course of a year; they will confide only in each other; husbands of the four are off limits. Karasyov (coauthor of Wolves in Chic Clothing) gives a good sense of the stakes for each woman and works to give each a unique personality and background (Eliza has a magazine job; Helen's Korean-American; Victoria's mean and has a high-powered agent husband). But the four blur together, and flashes of inventive plotting flame out in an overheated ending. (June)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

About the Author, Carrie Karasyov

CARRIE KARASYOV is the coauthor (with Jill Kargman) of The Right Address and Wolves in Chic Clothing. After spending several years in Santa Monica, California, she’s back in her native New York along with her husband and two sons.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

Publishers Weekly

Four L.A. moms in their mid-30s are bored with marriage and child-rearing. Over meals in trendy eateries, devious Victoria has reasons of her own to persuade Helen, Leelee and Eliza to invent a dangerous, rut-defying game: they will all have affairs over the course of a year; they will confide only in each other; husbands of the four are off limits. Karasyov (coauthor of Wolves in Chic Clothing) gives a good sense of the stakes for each woman and works to give each a unique personality and background (Eliza has a magazine job; Helen's Korean-American; Victoria's mean and has a high-powered agent husband). But the four blur together, and flashes of inventive plotting flame out in an overheated ending. (June)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Library Journal

When four well-to-do L.A. housewives decide that they will all commit adultery and then compare notes, they encounter a lot more than naughty sex. With a four-city tour. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

From Karasyov (Wolves in Chic Clothing, with Jill Kargman, 2005, etc.), a chatty novel about women who cheat. As the sun rises over Pacific Palisades, a certain sameness pervades over the privileged residents-oh, the bore of school runs and salon days, the difficulty of squeezing in Pilates with the obligatory L.A. cocktail party. Four friends in their mid-30s are in a rut and agree to Victoria's grand scheme for improving their lives: Each is giving herself a year to have an extramarital affair. Ironically, only Victoria's husband is jerk enough to deserve the title of cuckold-all the others are nice enough guys. New-Agey Helen is married to Wesley, a mild-mannered British director who is too restrained for her. Preppy Bostonian Leelee is married to Brad, whose grave sin was to have lost his fortune in the dot.com bust, forcing Leelee to live an upper-middle-class life in a Palisades cottage while her friends inhabit mansions. Eliza loves Declan, but feels somehow underappreciated, and anyway, she's always had a crush on movie star Tyler Trask (she's a celebrity reporter with potential access to the heartthrob). It takes just a short conversation for Victoria to convince her friends to cheat (though why they all have to do it together is a bit unclear) and soon each lady is engaged in some extracurricular fun, husband and kids be damned. Bitchy Victoria is quickly in over her head-she's chosen her husband's business rival, a sadist threatening exposure if she tries to break it off. Eliza, meanwhile, is conflicted, not wanting to jeopardize her marriage, and spacey Helen wonders why she's unfulfilled by her afternoon trysts. Only Leelee seems genuinely happy now that she's hooked up withJack, the man she's been in love with since she was a teen. The affairs risk exposure at the hands of Anson Larrabee, local gossip columnist and blackmailer, ready to betray the women if he doesn't get what he wants. But then he turns up dead. Karasyov's quartet of bratty heroines sorely lack likeability.

Book Details

Published
June 1, 2008
Publisher
Crown Publishing Group
Pages
304
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780767927048

More by Carrie Karasyov

Similar books