I’m lowering my rating from 3 to 2 stars since I now finished all but one books in the series and this one is the weakest by far and simply pales in comparison.

“The pact” is still a book I enjoyed most of the time while reading it. I liked the San Francisco backdrop and the friendships and social dynamics in this. It kept me engrossed from beginning to end, which is great, but (and yes, it’s a big HUGE but!) I didn’t warm up to the romance in here and since the focus here is on the romance that’s a bit of a deal breaker, wouldn’t you agree?

Maybe it’s a matter of taste, but Linden is as far from the well-spoken, respectful and civilised men who I rather like to come cross in my romance novels as can be. I don’t want to quote Linden here, but let’s just say his vulgar and obscene and at times disrespectful talk isn’t a quality in his favour. Speaking of qualities in favour of Linden… oh wait there are none. Besides his good looks and huge you-know-what of course - and that’s just boring. I don’t really mind a flawed character but in this case I’m not sure if his flaws were meant to be actual flaws or just character traits. It doesn’t matter. It just didn’t work for me.

This is a friendship-to-romance novel but oh boy, did this trope annoy me! Linden and Steph have been friends for almost a decade although they clearly have feelings for each other. Everyone knows it but them. However, instead of at least attempting to sort it out, they keep living in denial. Consequently they start entertaining a string of different relationships with other people that are – naturally - all destined to fail and make matters worse. It was painful to read about how these two idiotic people were unable to own up to their feelings and didn’t realise how, because of that, they were hurting everyone around them and constantly creating a mess of things.

So although I did enjoy the reading experience in itself for the most part, the romance between the two main characters frustrated me to no end.