The seventy-seventh book I read in 2014 was The Marriage Pact by Linda Lael Miller. This is the first book in her Brides of Bliss County series. I finished this book on 8/25/14. I rated this book 4 stars out of a scale of 5. This book tells the story of Hadleigh Stevens and Tripp Galloway. Tripp was Hadleigh’s brother Will’s best friend, and she tagged along a lot with them while she was growing up. When Will died in the war oversees, Tripp promised Will that he would take care of Hadleigh and watch over her. So when, at eighteen, Hadleigh decides she’s going to get married. Tripp does a background check on the guy and realizes that Hadleigh is making a humongous mistake and decides to come home just in time to stop the wedding.

Hadleigh admits to herself that she secretly wanted Tripp to put a stop to her wedding. What she didn’t want is for him to then turn around and tell her that he got married himself and didn’t tell anybody. Feeling betrayed and hurt, Hadleigh then doesn’t talk to Tripp for the next ten years. During those ten years she gets a college degree and becomes a successful business woman / quilter. When Tripp finally comes home to take over the ranch for his sick Dad, he decides that it is far past time to make things right with Hadleigh. She doesn’t happen to agree however.

Hadleigh knows that she’s been in love with Tripp pretty much all her life. She doesn’t want to let him back into her life only to have him break her heart again, especially since it took ten years to piece back together the last time. But her best friends are pushing her to take the chance. The three girls made a marriage pact to work together to each find the right husband for them.

Overall I thought this book was ok. I liked the underlying story of friendship between the three girlfriends, and the charm bracelet thing they did to commemorate each of them finding true love was cute. I just had trouble buying into the idea that Hadleigh was able to cut Tripp off from her life so completely for 10 years. I mean, that takes a lot of hate and it sounds just exhausting. I feel like they could’ve maybe reconciled sooner. Other than that the book was good: entertaining, light and sweet.

Link to author website: http://www.lindalaelmiller.com/

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Marriage-Pact-Linda-Lael-Miller/dp/0373778708/ref=tmm_mmp_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1409058417&sr=8-1