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.
Don’t mind me as I continue on this spree of Swanson books. He really does have interesting premises, and so I can’t help but be curious as to how things will turn out. This one was a bit more predictable though, and perhaps because I’ve read similar books, I didn’t find it to be particularly thrilling.
Every Vow You Break revolves around Abigail who is slated to marry her very rich fiance. On a drunken night at her bachelorette party though, however, she ends up sleeping with a stranger, with whom she does not even exchange names. However, this stranger makes an appearance again over and over, and seems to have found Abigail, insisting that they shared something special and that she should go with him. A seemingly perfect honeymoon on a secluded island couldn’t possibly have room for trouble, right?
The characters in this book were overall fine. I had no complaints about their development, and for the most part, like most thrillers, the story revolves around Abigail and her perception of her husband and the stranger, as well as what is occurring on the honeymoon. The husband is obviously another key character, but I felt like more could have been done with his character in this story to add to the suspense and heighten the emotions.
I found the suspense to be a little bit lacking in this book. Maybe the truth of the matter was hidden until the end but it didn’t feel like the stakes were particularly high. It mostly just felt like there was a creepy guy on the loose who might come for you. Yet the guy says he’s in love with you so it doesn’t feel like a particular threat. He can only threaten with telling your husband about a one night stand back before you were married. While this wasn’t the sole source of suspense in this novel, it was a big driving force – just not one I particularly enjoyed.
The ending was also only okay. I’ve seen similar endings before (at least two books come to mind), and both times I did not like it. Safe to say I did not enjoy the third time either. There was just an element of implausibility that really caught me off guard, and didn’t quite satisfy me. Unfortunately, this was not the book for me.
Overall Recommendations
Every Vow You Break revolves around our protagonist Abigail, who seems to have it all when she meets and ends up marrying a very wealthy man. But catastrophe strikes when she has a one night stand with a stranger at her bachelorette party, and the stranger comes back to haunt her before and after her wedding, asking her to go away with him. Finally he even finds her on a secluded island on her honeymoon, where she quickly no longer feels safe… You can probably already imagine what will happen, and yes it does. If that appeals to you, then this may be the book for you.
Down the Rabbit Hole 