Kiersten Modglin | The Arrangement

arrangement kiersten modglin

The Audiobook: 

The Arrangement by Kiersten Modglin
Published July 1, 2021 by Dreamscape Media
Date read: July 9, 2021

The Characters: 

Ainsley and her husband Peter

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon


The Plot (from Goodreads):

Ainsley Greenburg is a fixer.

It’s what she prides herself on.

So, when she realizes her marriage is at its breaking point, she makes a decision to repair it, no matter the cost. Approaching her husband to propose the arrangement is supposed to be the hard part, but Peter agrees to the salacious plan almost immediately.

The rules are simple:

They will each date someone new once a week.

They will never discuss what happens on the dates.

Soon, though, the rules are broken, turning terrible mistakes into unspeakable consequences.

When the only person they can count on to keep their darkest secret is each other, new questions and deceits surface. Can they truly trust the person they share a life with, or will the vicious lies that have mounted over the years destroy everything they’ve built?

Once, Peter and Ainsley vowed to stand together forever, but as they push boundaries of deception, suspicion, and temptation, each begins to wonder if ’til death do us part may come sooner than they’d intended.

Click here for book spoilers for The Arrangement
Book spoilers ahead–if you haven’t yet read The Arrangement, I suggest you turn back now.

The Twist: 

Stephan, Ainsley’s first date, begins stalking her, and one night she calls Peter asking him to come home immediately since Stephan was outside the house and scaring her. Peter leaves his date with his coworker to come help Ainsley, and ended up killing Stephan when he realized he had a gun and was going for Ainsley. As they figure out what to do with the body, they discover Stephan was a cop.

The police investigate, Stephan’s wife shows up to question Ainsley, and then she disappears, taking the police’s suspicions with her. A few days later, the police come back to Ainsley and Peter’s house to say that they found Stephan’s truck and believe him to be a serial rapist. They had found tokens of all his previous rapes in the truck.

Peter and Ainsley decide to lay all their lies out on the table. Peter had cheated on Ainsley with her best friend’s husband, and the best friend was going to tell Ainsley if Peter didn’t.

Ainsley admits that she staged everything with Stephan and set it up so that Peter would kill him, so that they were bound together. Peter couldn’t leave her without killing her too, because she was the only one who knew his secret.

The Ending:

Peter and Ainsley rekindle their marriage and make the best of things. They install a new patio to hide the body under their house. At the very end, Peter goes into his secret room and we find out that he is also a serial rapist/murderer. He had killed Stephan’s wife as well to protect their family’s secrets. He goes to look at his momentos, and finds a note from Ainsley. She knew about his raping all along. She placed Peter’s momentos in Stephan’s truck to set him up.

The Review: 

When you read an excerpt for a thriller about an open marriage, you know you’re in for a wild ride!

I was startled by how short this book was–under 6 hours on audio! I listen to most audiobooks sped up when the narration is clear enough, so I had only been listening for a couple hours when I paused it for a minute. To my surprise I was already 85% of the way through the book!

At that 85%, the plot was just beginning to ramp up, so I was curious how it would all be wrapped up in the last hour of narration. Imagine my surprise when the twists started pouring in, one after another, leaving me with an ending that was nothing like what I had expected.

The narration was perfect–it definitely held my interest, and like I said I enjoy when I am able to speed the books up some. I liked the split POV, and being able to see both Ainsley and Peter’s thoughts about their arrangement.

Spoiler thoughts: I don’t like being lied to by the first person POV, so I felt a little gypped in that regard. The whole point of first person is that you’re in the character’s head, so when their thoughts are lies it feels like a bit of a cop-out to get to the twist.

Kiersten Modglin is a new author to me, but I will definitely be checking out her backlog–especially if they’re all this fast-paced! Sometimes you just need an audiobook that you can finish in a couple hours while you tackle some chores, and The Arrangement definitely lived up to that task.

If you liked The Arrangement, definitely check out my review of its sequel, The Amendment.

arrangement kiersten modglin

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