RITA Reader Challenge Review

The Marriage Contract by Katee Robert

This RITA® Reader Challenge 2016 review was written by Kate KF. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Mid-Length Contemporary category.

The summary:

Teague O’Malley hates pretty much everything associated with his family’s name. And when his father orders him to marry Callista Sheridan to create a “business” alliance, Teague’s ready to tell his dad exactly where he can stuff his millions. But then Teague actually meets his new fiancée, sees the bruises on her neck and the fight still left in her big blue eyes, and vows he will do everything in his power to protect her.

Everyone knows the O’Malleys have a dangerous reputation. But Callie wasn’t aware just what that meant until she saw Teague, the embodiment of lethal grace and coiled power. His slightest touch sizzles through her. But the closer they get, the more trouble they’re in. Because Callie’s keeping a dark secret-and what Teague doesn’t know could get him killed.

Here is Kate K.F.'s review:

This book showed me that I can really like contemporaries. I’ve been bouncing off them as the conflicts kept feeling too contrived . For this one, the reviews made me curious so I had grabbed a copy before the RITAs that I hadn’t read yet. Once I started reading, I was squeezing in as many chapters as I could when I had time. I loved how Teague and Callie’s story was one in the midst of a real, messy world, that their internal and external conflicts weren’t easily solved, and that I believed that they would get their happy ending. Since their physical attraction to each other was never an issue, sex was a way for them to get closer. I was impressed how the author portrayed their relationship changing through these encounters.

Their main issues came from the fact that neither of them was used to truly trusting anyone outside of their families and even within their families, trust depended on numerous factors. To begin with, they have a powerful physical attraction to each other but Callie brings out Teague’s protective nature. This was an aspect that could have easily been written as too much, since he wanted to know how she had been hurt in her encounter with her first fiance, who she had sneaked off to try and meet. Instead it was made clear that his mother had suffered domestic violence and that he respected Callie as he respected his mother, so the protectiveness was a positive. It also was a way to highlight their different family dynamics: Teague’s one of seven children while Callie is one of two and her brother died in a car crash within the last year, so her father watches over her more.

Because she liked Teague.

He wasn’t like any man she’d known before-something that was becoming clearer and clearer the more time she spent with him. He treated her like a woman of worth, which shouldn’t be so startling. But it was.

The heart of this novel are the three Irish mob families; the O’Malleys, the Sheridans and the Hallorans, who are dangerous and fractured families. Their criminality in this book is mainly focused on violence with a mention of the Hallorans’ business of sex trafficking. I appreciated how the stakes were high and how the author presented PoVs from among the families to show that nothing is really black and white. One of the ways that this was effectively presented was by using the different generations and hierarchies of the family to show what being a member of a crime family means to them.

All of the fathers, who lead the families, move quickest toward violence while among the children the reactions varied: Aiden, Teague’s older brother was eager to start a war, while Teague wanted to find a way out of this life. Callie is in an interesting position as she’s trying to find a way to move the Sheridan empire to the legal side of the equation by turning the restaurants where they meet into good businesses. She comes up against the inherent sexism of the crime families: she’s her father’s heir but also a woman, which means she’s left out of decisions.

These layers of reactions to being a member of a crime family made it easier for me to sympathize to varying degrees with the families and all the PoVs helped as well. I didn’t find them confusing but this set up isn’t the same as many books with only the hero and heroine’s voice. Taking the time to introduce other characters makes it clear they will get their own stories. The quote below from the man who is the hero of the next book illustrates some of the future of the series:

James nursed his second whiskey as time ticked by. There were things to do and calls to make, but he hadn’t moved from this spot since Teague left hours ago. He respected the man’s willingness to put the safety of his family before anyone else–even a relative innocent. Because whatever the family-O’Malley, Halloran or Sheridan-none of them were truly innocent.

Lately I’ve been reading my way through Donna Leon’s Brunetti series and The Marriage Pact reminded me of her Venice with the way violence goes through everything and how there’s rarely an easy out for anyone. The Boston setting had me thinking about Leverage in terms of how all the characters have edges but no one’s simply good or bad. In terms of the sex, which began early on with Teague and Callie, I found it hot and did a great job of shifting as their intimacy changed. My only little quibble was that from early on Teague called Callie, “Angel.” It was sweet but I never really felt like it was established why. It was one of the few tiny details that I wanted more explanation of.

I finished The Marriage Contract and happily read the preview in the back because it picked up where the book ended. For anyone disturbed by violence and especially threats of rape or torture, I wouldn’t recommend this book, but for me those elements were balanced by the characters acknowledgement of how messed up their world truly is.

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The Marriage Contract by Katee Robert

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  1. Gigi says:

    I really struggled with this book. Organized crime is really nasty business and I felt it was sanitized here, I mean I don’t think the author ever makes clear what exactly these crime families are in the business of. Isn’t uman trafficking, drug trafficking, racketeering the bread and butter if the mob nowadays? These are serious crimes and I just couldn’t get past it to enjoy the romance.

  2. Heather T says:

    After it had gotten a great review on this site, I tried to read this book but had to put it down because it was so badly written. Does it get better as it goes on?

  3. Kate K.F. says:

    @Gigi, I can understand where you’re coming from and I think I wouldn’t have bought into it as much if I hadn’t been reading about worse criminals in another book. And no, it was only really made clear for one family but not the others, that will probably be shown later.

    @Heather T The writing didn’t stand out to me but I did find the first chapters a little rough. It pulled me in so I wasn’t noticing. Someone else who noticed the writing might have more thoughts.

  4. Jill-Marie says:

    I’m reading this now, and liking it OK, although I do think the writing is a little rough. My big problem is that this one just hasn’t grabbed and shaken me and screamed “READ ME! NOW!” — I edit for a living, so getting revved up to read for pleasure can be difficult (which is probably why I’m addicted to audiobooks, frankly). I may have to resort to the audiobook to find out how this ends, because there are.so.many other books on my Kindle and shelves that are calling. :/

  5. Kate K.F. says:

    @Jill-Marie, I know that feeling of a book not grabbing you, I’ve had a number of contemporaries that I read and put down as I didn’t care. This one I cared about but editing definitely changes reading. I work as a fact checker and it makes me skeptical of so much and alters how I look at sites. I hope the audiobook works better but if not then that you can find something else you like.

  6. kitkat9000 says:

    I read this based on another review and all the additional glowing recommendations…and hated it. So much so in fact I refuse to try anything else in that series. If I’d bought this I would’ve been pissed.

  7. Kathy H says:

    Sorry to have to disagree with the reviewer, but I really disliked this book; I finished it because I thought, with an “A” from Smart Bitches, it had to get better. Not so!

    The characters seemed flat and poorly developed–the evil ones so evil, good ones so good. Callie’s overwhelming angst didn’t make much sense and seemed obviously manufactured to provide fake tension. The plot followed a very predictable pattern except for the deus ex machina at the end.

    This author will not get another read from me.

  8. Mina Lobo says:

    I picked this up because of the two A reviews on SBTB and I have to say – i’m not normally into this kind of contemporary, but I really enjoyed it, for all of the reasons the reviewer noted above. Especially because Teague’s protective without being a brutish, pig-headed prick about it. He respects the heroine and that’s a huge turn-on for me. I did think the writing was shoddy in places, but I was so into the story and Teague and Callie that I just had to keep going.

  9. Jacqueline says:

    That makes two contemporaries I’ve found to break The Great Book Slump of 2017.

    Fingers crossed I’ll find paranormals to fit the bill, because that’s where I’m currently stuck at.

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