The Marriage Act

Set in a near-future Britain, the novel follows five interconnected storylines against the backdrop of the Sanctity of Marriage Act, a law that incentivizes couples to upgrade to government-monitored "Smart Marriages." Couples who upgrade receive better healthcare, lower taxes, and access to affluent "New Towns," but must allow an AI device called an Audite to randomly record their daily conversations. If the Audite detects marital problems, a three-level intervention system activates: Level One increases monitoring; Level Two assigns a Relationship Responder to counsel the couple; Level Three sends the case to a Family Court that can impose mandatory divorce. Those who refuse face discrimination, higher taxes, and relegation to neglected "Old Towns."

The novel opens with a transcript of British Vlogger Jem Jones's final livestream. Jem, once the beloved public face of the Marriage Act, describes months of sustained online abuse, including death threats and the poisoning of her dogs. On camera, she produces a gun, places it to her temple, and pulls the trigger.

Roxi Sager, an aspiring Influencer and mother of two in New Northampton, sees Jem's death as an opportunity. Frustrated by her stalled career, she records a tearful video calling for AI monitoring in every home. The video goes viral, but her Audite soon places her marriage to Owen on Level One. An anonymous troll account targets her with accusations that Owen is having an affair. Using a Government contact, Roxi traces the account to a woman named Antoinette Cooper and drives to Cooper's home, only to see Owen leaving. When Roxi confronts Cooper and shoves her, Cooper falls, her neck striking the bottom stair, and dies instantly. Searching the house, Roxi discovers Cooper was not Owen's mistress but his unlicensed relationship therapist. On Cooper's laptop, she finds recordings revealing that Owen deliberately triggered their Level One status to force her to take their marriage seriously and was behind the troll account himself. Convicted of manslaughter, Roxi is approached in prison by Henry Hyde, the Prime Minister's shadowy special advisor, who offers her the role of new spokesperson for the Marriage Act. Roxi accepts and tells Owen she wants a divorce, admitting that the attention of strangers fulfills her in ways her family cannot.

Jeffrey Beech, a Relationship Responder, arrives at his new assignment after finishing with previous clients in Doncaster, whom he murdered before burning their house to stage a murder-suicide. His new clients are Noah and Luca Stanton-Gibbs, a married couple. Noah is a junior doctor; Luca works in events catering. The couple believe their Audite flagged their relationship by mistake, though real tensions soon surface. Jeffrey is attracted to Luca and systematically drives a wedge between the couple, undermining their surrogacy plans, attacking Noah in counseling, and positioning himself as Luca's ally. When Noah takes a mental health break, Jeffrey spends days alone with Luca. He then assaults Luca, strangling him unconscious and filming himself with Luca's body before sending the video to Noah. When Noah rushes home, Jeffrey kills him. Luca regains consciousness and rejects Jeffrey's confession of love. Jeffrey begins strangling Luca, but Noah had switched the Audite back on before the confrontation, and the emergency alert summons police. Noah is resuscitated after severe injuries but left with brain damage and partial paralysis. Jeffrey is convicted of four murders and sentenced to life in prison. On the morning of his prison wedding to a woman identified through DNA Matching, a genetic system claiming to identify each person's guaranteed romantic partner, Hyde has Jeffrey strangled in a prison van, staged as a suicide.

Arthur Foley, a seventy-five-year-old retired firefighter, has been living with his wife June's dead body for seven months. June had a rare, incurable form of dementia and died in her sleep. Unable to face losing her and terrified the Act would force him into a new relationship, Arthur sealed her body in their duvet with parcel tape and used air fresheners to mask the smell, playing old recordings of her voice to fool the Audite. When a Relationship Responder discovers June's body, Arthur is prosecuted for fraud, since June's pension continued to be paid, and for failing to report her death. Sentenced to thirty weeks of house arrest, Arthur then learns the local authority is seizing his home to cover debts. Facing relocation to a distant hostel, Arthur climbs into the camper van he and June once used for trips across Europe, attaches a hosepipe from the exhaust to the window, and turns on the engine. Imagining June beside him, he closes his eyes and dies.

Anthony Alexander, a Government operative, is revealed to have orchestrated Jem Jones's death. Jem was never real: She was a Deepfake, a computer-generated character designed by Anthony under Hyde's direction to build public trust in the Marriage Act. Anthony managed the Bot armies that harassed her and designed her death by Deepfaking her hand onto footage of his own hand holding a gun. Anthony attends a meeting of Freedom for All (FFA), an activist movement opposed to the Act. When Hyde unveils plans for Young Citizen Camps, residential facilities where underperforming students would be separated from their families, Anthony tries to resign, recognizing that his own son Matthew, who has ADHD, could be targeted. Hyde retaliates by threatening Anthony's family. Anthony sends his wife Jada and Matthew to Florida for safety, then works on Hyde's propaganda while secretly recording the truth on a memory stick hidden inside the household Audite. When Anthony drives to Heathrow to collect his family, Hyde hijacks the autonomous car, reveals that Jada has been arrested on fabricated drug charges and Matthew sedated in a psychiatric facility, and crashes the vehicle into a bridge pillar. Anthony dies instantly.

Corrine Nelson, trapped in a loveless marriage to controlling businessman Mitchell, secretly volunteers for an FFA splinter group that targets politicians supporting the Act. After an attack on MP Eleanor Harrison leaves a teenage volunteer named Nathan hospitalized, Corrine's situation worsens: Mitchell tricks her into a Smart Marriage, and when she files false domestic abuse claims to escape, he threatens to release video linking her to the Harrison incident. Corrine blackmails Harrison into pressuring Mitchell, but Harrison double-crosses her by revoking Mitchell's Government contracts, bankrupting the family, then erasing every copy of the incriminating video. Stripped of leverage, Corrine rebuilds her life in Old Northampton. Her daughter Freya introduces her to Will Harrison, the MP's son, who confirms his mother is a sexual predator. At a massive FFA rally in London's Kennington Park, Corrine, Nathan, and Will publicly accuse Harrison from the stage.

The rally also features Luca and Noah, who describe how Jeffrey destroyed their marriage. Jada plays the recording Anthony hid in the Audite. On giant screens, Jem Jones appears to address the crowd, then reveals she never existed. Anthony's face replaces hers as he explains how the Government created and destroyed a Deepfake to manipulate the nation and exposes the Young Citizen Camps. Jada slips away, planning to travel to Paris that night using her sister's passport, where her family waits with Matthew. In the aftermath, Freedom for All wins the next election in a landslide, promising to repeal the Marriage Act. A final headline reveals that Hyde has been appointed Special Advisor to the US President, overseeing similar camps in America, suggesting the cycle of authoritarian control is beginning again.