Set in Vienna in the years running up to annexation, The Pact is about the intertwined lives of four girls - three from the poorer neighbourhood (Elica, Bernie and Dagna) and one from the wealthy, Jewish neighbourhood (Anna). The plot follows the girls as they grow up from being young children to becoming young women, with love and betrayal being major parts of the story.

Anna has always been the odd one out, being from a wealthy family, and being Jewish compounds that in 1930s Austria.

The novel had an interesting plot, although some of the dialogue did feel stilted and a little dry. However, I wanted to keep reading the whole way through and definitely did not see that ending coming!

The Pact is a WWII historical coming of age story. We follow three girls mainly ( there is an extra blood sister though). One being Jew, while the others are accepted.

In the prologue, we are introduced to Anna who has just been betrayed. Her and her family had been hiding in a tiny attic praying that the moment would pass over. Her main question of who betrayed her stayed with me throughout the book. It was a good read, especially the plot twists!

However, my main issue with the book is how incomplete some of the character building is. To me it doesn’t seem solid. We get introduced to a character and then get a few repeated descriptions of them and that’s it. It had me yearning for more of an in-depth story.

Another problem would be the dialogue. It’s stiff and somewhat forced, especially in the beginning. It felt like actors just getting into character and learning their lines. It made the conversations feel unnatural.

Seeing that this is book one, I can’t wait to continue reading for the next story!

“The Pact” by Roberta Kagan is aptly named. This book follows three (really four) girls when they are children promising to be there for each other no matter what. What they don’t realize is that WWII will be looming in their lives in about a decade … and things no matter how much they hope will change.

What I liked about this book: the beginning section with the friendships. This was a bit full of tropes - the pretty girl, the smart girl - but the “promise to be your friend forever” bit did work - even though there were some twists and turns and some meanderings in the friendships. What I also liked was how Ms. Kagan brought the war into the book slowly. I also liked how the parents of the girls are not all “just there,” some of the parents are involved in the book in positive ways, which I appreciated. Ms. Kagan’s writing style is a bit simplistic, but it fits how the girls were at the beginning of the book. As the girls mature, the writing becomes a bit more complex, which I found fitting. I even liked that this book ends on a huge cliffhanger - stay tuned for book two.

My two minor complaints would be that there’s a bit of repeated information and also how quickly the girls fall into relationships - I’d call it insta-lust. Granted, these are teenagers, so I cut Ms. Kagan a bit of slack on that.

I think this book series could be an interesting one and I’m interested in reading the next book, at minimum, in this series.

3.5 stars

I enjoyed the character development starting so young helping to really show us who each character is right from the get go. I felt like I really knew each of the girls, however I hated two of them the whole way through. Given the time era though it would be unrealistic to love everyone. I found the description of the friend ship frustrating from chapter to chapter as it would be they’re close in one then the next page they’ve fallen apart. I felt the ending was rushed in comparison to the rest of the book. I do however love Anna’s character and look forward to reading book two to see where her story goes.

Thank you for the early read!

The Pact is a coming-of-age novel about a group of girls who bond in pre-WWII Austria: beautiful Elica, boyish Bernie, kind Anna who is a Jew, and mean Dagna who hates Jews and is only truly friendly with Elica. They make a "blood sisters" pact and Elica, Bernie, and Anna vow to be friends always. The writing drew me into the story right away but as the novel went on, it became darker as jealousy of Anna's wealthy Jewish family led to plot twists and turns. My only complaint about the story is that it ends with a cliffhanger so I have to wait until Book 2 to find out what happens to Anna and her family after the Anshluss.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

The title The Pact could not be more apt...the words conjure up many images, many possibilities. Is the pact kept? Is it not? This harrowing book is about sisterhood, class disparity, courage, love, hope, shame, hatred, jealousy, betrayal and forgiveness. Twists, turns and surprises wait around the sunniest and murkiest corners. My emotions were all over the place as I read, anxious to turn each page, eager to discover more.

In 1929 in Austria Jews are persecuted. Young girls Anna, Bernie and Elica become friends under unusual circumstances and make a blood pact to become Sisters in Blood to help each other out always. Their backgrounds are very different...Anna is a Jew from a wealthy family and Bernie and Elica are both poor Gentiles. As time goes on, the new führer is spreading his hateful "filthy Jew" ideology and shockingly, even friends and neighbours turn each other in, sometimes out of spite or retribution, other times from fear or in need of protection. A fourth girl, Dagna, joins the group but for the wrong reasons. As you imagine in a story containing a mix of Jews and Gentiles during such turbulent times, there are bound to be mental and physical skirmishes.

The class divide is evinced at the girls' birthday parties and by the reactions of their parents to girls beneath or above their class. Political standings can make or break relationships. As the girls grow older they develop their own ideas and go separate ways, though meet when possible. Easier said than done. Wealthy Jews have everything taken away and are reduced to nothing as they, too, are "subhuman". The girls fall in and out of love and must make difficult moral and ethical choices. Meanwhile, the world changes all around them as their worlds within change.

Author Roberta Kagan writes with a powerful and insightful drive as she fills her books with minutest details and matters of the heart, not to mention the intense sorrow and pain of war. She also describes her inspiration for her new series.

Historical Fiction readers who do not know author Roberta Kagan, now is the time! Talk about an excellent place to start in the genre. And for those who do, you are sure to enjoy this book very much.

My sincere thank you to The Book Whisperer and NetGalley for providing me with an early digital copy of this superb book. The potential for stories in the subsequent instalments is huge and I cannot wait to see what happens to the characters next.

Thanks to NetGalley I got an ARC to this book in exchange for an honest review and I liked it a lot. There was a lot of watching girls become women and how to navigate that journey. But it is also not too light for the setting either, which I would imagine would be a tricky line to tread and keep readers interested. I couldn’t put the book down and was relieved to see it was “book one”. Hoping that book two picks up where this one left off.
Happy reading!

The idea was great, a sense of who betrayed Anna ran throughout the book and I changed my mind on numerous occasions.
What I didn’t enjoy was the dialogue. All the girls shoulder the same, the author didn’t give the four girls enough of an individual voice, All the dialogue was stilted and unnatural. It felt like the author was using the dialogue to help move the plot line along rather than let it evolve naturally through conversation. This jarred on me. I also felt that it needed one more editorial go through. One paragraph used ‘Elica’s birthday’ about five times. This repetition was annoying to me,
I understand there will be another book after this one so it ended on a cliff hanger. I would like to learn more about how Anna develops as a character so will look out for it.
Thanks to Netgalley for this ARC.