Housewife Blues and Chihuahua Stories

Book SynopsisMarci Thompson always knew what life would be like by her 30th birthday. A large but cozy suburban home shared with a charming husband and two brilliant children. A celebrated career as an established writer, complete with wall-to-wall mahogany shelves and a summer book tour. A life full of adventure with her friends and family by her side. Instead, Marci lives alone in 480 square feet of converted motel space next to a punk rock band, hundreds of miles from her friends and family. She works in a temporary accounting assignment that has somehow stretched from two weeks into nine months. And the only bright spot in her life, not to mention the only sex she’s had in two years, is an illicit affair with her married boss, Doug. Thirty is not at all what it is cracked up to be.Then the reappearance of a cocktail napkin she hasn’t seen in a decade opens a long-forgotten door, and Marci’s life gets complicated, fast. The lines between right and wrong, fantasy and reality, heartache and happiness are all about to get very blurry, as Marci faces the most difficult choices of her life.My ThoughtsThis was one of those impulse free read purchases that I made a while back on Amazon, it turned out to be a really good decision as when I opened up the book it sucked me in immediately with Marci's story and kept me turning pages all day until done as had to know how her journey ended!Marci is working as a temp and within the firm she is working for is a married man whom she becomes involved with, they fall in love but he stays with his wife of over 20 years only seeing Marci on occasions when the wife is out with friends or out of town. It is an unsatisfactory life both professionally and personally and Marci feels even lower as her 30th birthday has come and gone without any of her life goals being realized. Out of the blue one day she receives an email from Jake Stillwell. Once upon a time they were "friends with benefits" and in a moment of drunken exuberance Marci and Jake penned a contract or "Marriage Pact" on a cocktail napkin which basically stated they would marry each other if they were both single once they hit 30. When she gets this reminder from Jake Marci is at first caught off guard, on further thought though she realizes that she has feelings for Jake that stem deeper than mere friendship and this causes her to reevaluate her relationship with her lover from work, Doug. One day Doug sends Marci a short email asking her to stay late after work at which point he tells her their relationship is over, this starts a chain of events that cause her to quit her job, call Jake asking him to help her move home and in the end also causes Marci to accept Jake's proposal to become engaged to be married to him.This story does not end with Marci moving back to her hometown in Georgia, it takes some very interesting turns into the relationships between Marci and her friends and family. Marci finally understands that all this time her search for independence has in fact really been a coping mechanism that allows her to walk away when things become too much for her to handle. This includes not pursuing her dreams of writing, not allowing herself to form a lasting relationship with anyone and most of all keeps her from facing up to the fact that her life will never be what she wants unless she takes a chance on failing.The Marriage Pact is one of those books you can dive into and lose yourself easily, it's characters are very easy to relate to and the relationships between them are believable as well. For anyone who loves a friends to lovers story this is one you will totally enjoy, once you get past some of the back and forth from present day to past events that can be a bit overwhelming every now and again.If like me you need to know what happens than by all means pick up this book and see how life turns out for Marci after all! I downloaded a copy of this book when it was a free read, the author later approached me to review it and so even though it was already in my possession because of her query it was read sooner so as to share my honest thoughts .