Kiersten Modglin | The Amendment

The Audiobook:

The Amendment by Kiersten Modglin (The Arrangement, #2)
Published February 1st 2022 by Dreamscape Media
Date read: January 15, 2022

The Characters:

Ainsley and her husband Peter

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Don’t remember what happened in the first book? Click here for spoilers for The Arrangement.

The Plot (from Goodreads):

First, there was the arrangement. A simple, yet salacious fix to the problems looming in their marriage. But when things took a tragic turn, Peter’s and Ainsley’s lives quickly fell into disarray. Now, their secrets have been exposed.

They know the truth—about each other and their marriage.

As they struggle to move on from their past and the damage they’ve caused, new problems begin to surface. Someone they love is hiding a catastrophic secret. The fragile ground they stand on is starting to crumble. Their family is being torn apart at the seams. And, maybe worst of all, a threat from the past is lurking, ready to unveil the things they’d kill to keep hidden.

They thought the nightmare they’d made it through was over, but the worst is just beginning…

Once, they vowed to do anything to make their marriage work. Now, that vow will push every boundary they have left. In order to survive, they’ll need to completely trust each other. But can they? Last time they did, things went terribly wrong…

This time, it might be worse.

If there’s one thing that’s certain, their secrets are too big to let anyone walk away alive.

Click here for book spoilers for The Amendment

Book spoilers ahead–if you haven’t yet read The Amendment, I suggest you turn back now.

At the end of The Arrangement, Ainsley found out that Peter was a serial murderer and a serial rapist. The Amendment starts two months later with Ainsley and Peter in couple’s counseling, and then jumps back to right after Ainsley found out. Ainsley made Peter promise they wouldn’t keep any more secrets from each other, but he is clearly still hiding things.

Peter’s friend from college, the one who taught him to rape and murder, blackmails Peter into letting him hide things in his secret room. It escalates to a body, and Peter asks what Joe needs for the blackmail to stop. Joe wants to sleep with Ainsley.

The Twist:

Ainsley asks for an amendment to their previous arrangement: that Peter let her kill with him. She gets a taste for it with Joe, when he comes to the house hoping to sleep with her. They hide the body together, along with the body Joe left in their garage.

They then find out their daughter’s dance coach was grooming and sleeping with the young girls he taught. Obviously, they kill him, but then they find out he had a girlfriend who might notice he was missing.

The girlfriend was the therapist–Ainsley and Peter went to her initially to vet her. They both told each other they didn’t think they should kill her, and then both kept going to her separately. Peter eventually kidnapped her and was keeping her in his garage before he killed her. Ainsley realized what he was up to. She drugged him and locked them both down there. She set fire to the house and left with the children.

The Ending:

Ainsley takes the kids to the beach, telling them that Peter will be around soon. She asks them if they would like to move there.

She thinks Peter is dead, but suddenly she gets a text from Peter with a picture of the blueprints for their house, with a portion in his hidden room circled and labeled “emergency exit–hidden”. He had gotten out of the house alive. The book ends with this text.

The Review:

Don’t remember what happened in the first book? Click here for spoilers for The Arrangement.

Welcome back to another quick, crazy read from Kiersten Modglin. Similar to the first book in the series, I blew through this one in a couple of hours while doing chores. It made the time fly by! I enjoy this narrator, and her production really enhanced the story for me.

I loved The Arrangement, and was thrown by all of the twists. This time, though, I knew more of what to expect so I was a little less blown away. Once I knew how Ainsley and Peter worked, it was easy to see where the storyline was headed. Nevertheless, it was an entertaining follow-up to the first book.
If you liked The Arrangement, you’ll definitely want to see how Ainsley and Peter tried to salvage their marriage after the events of the first book. Although I liked the first one better, if the author were to write a third I would certainly be interested in listening again. These books are so quick that you really can’t go wrong!

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