John Marrs is on top form with The Marriage Act. Full of twists and that incredible terrifying ability he has to make these surreal situations feel far too plausible.

Full review to come.

John Marrs brain never ceases to amaze me. How he comes up with some of these futuristic storylines over and over again is just crazy. And the scary thing is that, it always feels like it could happen in the not so distant future. Always entertaining and surprising, The Marriage Act is another winner for me.

Set in the same worlds as The One and The Passengers, The Marriage Act looks into a world where the government controls marriages.. those that sign up for a smart marriage are rewarded with tax breaks, better housing and schools. It also comes with a range of monitoring devices that pick up any issues with your health and relationships. And once you are in, you cannot get out. We follow multiple characters, from both sides of the argument and see how their choices control their lives.

For a long book, it certainly flew by for me. I loved all the different story
Ines, and how each character dealt with this new world. Not sure ai would want this level of monitoring in my life. There are some characters that you will live to hate and those you will want to buck the system.

Thanks to Macmillan for another fantastic read from a go to author for me.

Another masterpiece by John Marrs, set in the near future the Government bring out a Sanctity of Marriage Act. And with many benefits, what happily married couple wouldn't want to prove their love and commitment to each other by signing up to a Smart Marriage. But these benefits come at a cost, an Audite ( think upgraded Alexa) records random conversations, watches your every move. And if it picks up on any issues then you're moved into a 3 step relationship programme to help make improvements. Battling every step of the way is the Freedom for All group
The book centres on 4 couples, and apart from Arthur and June none are particularly likeable but that just adds to the riveting storyline. The marriage act makes you question everything so by the end no couple feels they are truly themselves.
It's a very clever concept and the cliffhangers at the end of each couples chapter keeps you invested in the story
A great read
I was gifted this copy from Netgalley and Pan Macmillan but under no obligation to leave my review

I adore John Marrs - and he has done it again! Another brilliant page-turner.
Every book that I have read by him has been great! They are always so thought provoking.
The themes feel a bit far-fetched, but at the same time feel like they could really happen - how far away are we from the things that happen in this book?! Scary thought!

I usually struggle with books that have lots of characters but with Marrs's writing, I never have that problem. The characters are so distinctly different.
I also loved how this book contained little 'easter eggs' to a couple of John Marrs previous books. There's reference to 'the one' and 'the passengers'

The reason I couldn't give this book the full 5* was because the pacing felt a little rushed towards the end, and I did get a tad lost when lots of plot was being thrown in my face all at once.
That being said, I thoroughly recommend this book for a read that will stir up so many questions - perfect for a bookclub!

The Marriage Act is a new law that offers preferential treatment to married couples above those who are single. This book looks at the lives of several couples under this Act, and the impact that it has on them.

John Marrs book are always thinkers! Set in a slightly dystopian near-future, this book once again made me terrified of technology, of the government, and of the human race! An absolute page turner.

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

John Marrs on absolute top form again in the world of the near future. Building on the “one” DNA match, “passengers” in driverless cars and “keepers” of the truth, the Marriage Act takes Alexa to sinister levels. If you thought your phone was listening to you, imagine if they were assessing your relationship and there was a risk you might have a relationship counsellor moving in….

The Marriage Act is the second novel that I’ve read by John Marrs and it had some throwbacks to the previous story (The Passengers) with hints at the impact of the hacking of autonomous vehicles and society gradually giving up its control to companies/the Government.

Set in a not-so-distant Dystopian future, the scary thing about this story is how realistic it is and how terrifyingly possible such a future could be.

It initially seems like a straight forward story of greater Government interference in marriages via the installation of Smart devices which monitor relationships and record interactions. The author, however, really delves into how this spirals out into wider society, affecting home ownership, education, employment and social mobility.

There is quite a cast of characters - some vapid, self-obsessed wannabe influencer types staging their lives for likes. These in particular highlight how social media and the quest for validation can bring out the worst in people, with Roxi being selfish and Jeffrey manipulative and devious.

But there are also some more sympathetic characters, including Arthur and Corrine, who you can really root for.

Overall I found the book to be a sometimes sad, sometimes nerve-wracking 1984-esque take on where society is headed, with plenty of plot twists to keep you on your toes to the very end!

SPOILER FREE REVIEW!
Many thanks to Netgalley and Pan MacMillan for the eARC of The Marriage Act by John Marrs. I’ve been struggling to read at all lately but when I have managed, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book!
In the not too distant future the UK has introduced The Sanctity of Marriage Act where married couples are rewarded with better housing and huge tax benefits because married people are happier and more productive… with these benefits they also get the Audites. AI monitors to help with all sorts of aspects of life from physical health to marriage advice… I honestly am in awe of authors and how they create stories, and this one really makes you think!
As with all things there are the people who are for and against The Marriage Act and this book weaves a great story from both sides with multiple points of view, but isn’t too confusing whilst doing so.
John Marrs has done in again with another great, thought provoking story. Out in January 2023. Well worth a read, especially if you like books that take us a step into the future with many believable possibilities!

I got excited reading the description of this book and I really like the author’s previous work. However, I got confused with the many characters that were introduced and I couldn’t get into the story until much later. I was thoroughly disappointed.

This was the first John Marrs for me and I certainly found it interesting. An interesting concept with the Smart (monitored) marriages where a couple's interactions can be constantly monitored and tips for improvement given or even interventions.
The plot goes a little far and loses any believability that it started with but I enjoyed the story.
Many thanks for the ARC.

Britain, in the near future. Marriage has been weaponised by a far-right government as a means to control society, privilaging married couples over unmmaried people in terms of taxes, mortgages and limited resources. We follow four couples in this society facing the choice: do I stay and profit? Or do I leave and face the consequences?

As any good dystopian novel should, The Marriage Act portrays a possible future that is only ridiculous at first glance, but chillingly plausible just under the surface as round-the-clock monitoring and AI intelligence bleed into all aspects of human life.

The Marriage Act is a book I won't forget in a hurry, and I definitely plan to read more of Marrs' books in the future.

I want to thank NetGally and Pan MacMillan for a free copy in exchange for a honest review. All opionions here expressed are my own.

At first I did not like this book and thought ‘this is not for me’ but there was just something that compelled me to keep on reading. As I got further into the book the more engrossed I became and can imagine that this is what life will be like in a few more years. I think this is the darkest of Marrs books to date, it does not make for comfortable reading but will probably be a huge success like all his others. Thanks to the author, Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

My favorite book by John Marrs will probably always be THE GOOD SAMARITAN, but I also love the sci-fi/speculative fictional worlds he has created with books like THE ONE and THE PASSENGERS.
While it's not necessary to read those books first, I believe they will give you a better understanding of THE MARRIAGE ACT as they exist within the same universe.

Just as FAHRENHEIT 451 so accurately predicted the state of our reading world today, I believe THE MARRIAGE ACT may do the same thing with our views on traditional marriage. The premise is chilling...married couples sign up to a Smart Marriage, where they are recorded and monitored by their smart watches and the house Audite (which sounds like an Alexa device), and they are given alerts and tips on how to better communicate.

Then things get really creepy when the "Relationship Responder" comes in. Depending on the severity of the issues within the marriage, the responder will either LIVE WITH or will spend an inordinate amount of time with the couple to offer analysis and advice on the relationship and is ultimately responsible for deciding if the relationship should terminate. I haven't been married or in a relationship in a long time, but I think back to all the micro-aggressions that were in certain conversations AND the inside jokes that would sound hostile to an impartial third party but actually came from a place of dark humor. I think I would have been in a lot of trouble.

There is a large cast of characters to keep track of, but they were easy to track because their relationship issues were all different and gave the reader a very well-rounded view of how this premise would work. Will definitely make you think about all the devices we surround ourselves with and how much data they are collecting.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the early copy. Releases May 2, 2023 from Hanover Press.

Typical John Marrs - very readable, a nice mix of the sci-fi and the domestic, but also some ideas that don't quite gel together. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

I really enjoy Black Mirror style dystopian thriller stories, and as I’m getting married in 2023, this book certainly caught my eye!

The premise is a strong one; the government have stepped in and introduced ‘Smart Marriages’ – the idea being that as married couples are likely to live longer, happier lives, they will be entitled to better housing and healthcare perks. There’s always a catch though, isn’t there? As well as singletons becoming akin to second-class citizens, each Smart Marriage comes with an Audite (think Alexa integrated with your smart-watch), which monitors random snippets of your conversations and flags them to the authorities if it spots trouble in your marriage!

John Marrs weaves some realistic word building – using newspaper articles and promotional material on the Smart Marriages to really show us how this technology became the norm in society. It’s actually really easy to see how this had been implemented and accepted and this made it all the more sinister! My only caveat was that even though it’s set in the future, there’s still references made to Twitter, which considering what is happening at the moment jarred a little – I think perhaps creating a whole new social media platform would have been a better step! There were some references to self-driving cars, and I think this is set in the same world as other books from John Marrs (such as The Passengers) which is really well done and will add a whole new element for readers of those books too.

The chapters jump perspective between quite a few characters and their partners – Roxi: a wannabe social media influencer, Jefferey: a Relationship Responder, Corrine: an activist against the system, Antony: a government official and Arthur: an elderly man scared of change. Each character gave a unique perspective on the events unfolding, although I certainly had viewpoints I preferred and some which I wanted to skip over in places. Arthur’s story in particular was heart-breaking and really well written. I thought there were perhaps too many of these as there were a lot of characters to get your head around in places. The pace was kept high throughout though and there were some really well-written twists that I did not see coming. The twist early in the book gets a very special mention – I was thinking about it for a long time afterwards!

Overall, The Marriage Act is a cautionary tale and one that feels uncomfortably close to our reality at present. Thank you to NetGalley & Pan Macmillan for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This standalone novel is set in the same dystopian society created by Marrs for his previous novels The One and The Passengers. Having realised that that artificial intelligence can be used to match partners based on their DNA the government go one step further and introduce The Marriage Act, those who sign up get rewarded with a number of benefits including better healthcare for their family, better schooling for their children, better tax allowances and they get to live in a better neighbourhood, all of these things being dependant upon your marriage remaining stable. Those that sign up must agree to having a smart device placed in their homes that monitors their conversations.

I'm a fan of the author and having already read his aforementioned novels I was keen to get stuck into this one, its and intriguing look at a future thats not difficult to visualise since we already have smart devices in our homes.

With alternate chapters told from different perspectives I did initially find it difficult to keep track of the many characters and if I'm totally honest I found some more interesting than others. Social media plays a big part in this novel and its many pitfalls including the influence we allow others to have on our lives made thought-provoking reading.

A intriguing read that I wanted to like more than I did, it took me longer to get into than his previous novels and although I enjoyed reading it I was never completely captivated by it. That said this would be a perfect bookclub choice, the topics it raises have endless discussion opportunities.

I was unable to read this as the formatting does not work when downloaded to kindle. If there is a format that works for kindle please send it as I did really want to read this!

This was an intriguing read which is set in the future. The government has introduced a marriage act which has amazing benefits but if they see you struggling they will send in responders to help try and fix your marriage.

This is about four couples, I found it difficult to keep track of who was who in the beginning but soon got involved in the story without anymore problems with the characters. The story talks of previous books like The One and The Passenger and I liked the way they were mentioned within the book. Other things that were mentioned were past covid, rate of inflations, the amount of prime ministers and that people were striking for better pay. I found this very bizarre that it was written in a book while it was all happening in todays news!

Overall, I enjoyed the story, maybe not as much as John Marrs previous books but still found it to be an enjoyable read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced ARC of this ebook in exchange for my honest review.

I have read and loved all of John Marrs’ books to date, and The Marriage Act is another fantastic dystopian set story!

In this book we meet five key characters whose perspectives the story is told from: Roxi, Jeffrey, Corrine, Anthony and Arthur (he was my favourite character and my heart really went out to him so many times as I was reading). In this near-future setting, the government thinks it has solved the answer to society’s problems through the Sanctity of Marriage Act. An Act that actively encourages marriage as the norm, with those choosing to remain single being penalised by the system. But the couples in this book are about to discover just how difficult and impossible relationships can be when they are governed by an Act that monitors every aspect of their personal lives, including the words they speak in the comfort of their own home and the way things can spiral as a result...

I loved the alternating perspectives in this story as each showed a different side to the impact of the Sanctity of Marriage Act on a person’s life. Something I always really like about John Marrs’ dystopian books are the short, punchy chapters with many a cliffhanger/surprise at the end of them. This was the same in The Marriage Act and I found myself racing through the pages, desperate to get back to a particular character again to find out what would happen next!

There were so many brilliant details in this futuristic world and I could easily see some of these things happening in the future; it felt so believable! I love that the website referred to in the book (www.smartmarriage.co.uk) actually exists too and thought it was clever that the information on the website is interwoven throughout the story. I would definitely recommend looking on this website if you are intrigued by the premise of this book and want to know more before reading.

There were also so many great shocks and surprises throughout this story and I absolutely loved the ending in this regard (there was one thing in particular that made me very happy as I was reading)! I love when there are things that I never see coming and this happened several times in this book which was just fantastic!

The Marriage Act is such a unique and thrilling read and John Marrs for me is the ultimate author! I honestly cannot recommend his books highly enough!

Omg, the premise sounded soooooooo good, but could not care less about any of these characters, if anything found them all annoying. the premise was very interesting, but it did not hit the mark with me, sadly. I am going to try other books by the author, but this did not do it for me.