Book review: The Second Mrs Strom by Kaira Rouda

I stuffed up big-time when reading The Second Mrs Strom by Kaira Rouda. It wasn’t until the very end I read the note by the author and she mentions taking Paul Strom out on a second outing following his appearance in Best Day Ever. Do’h!

I LOVED that book (it’s my fave of Rouda’s) and realising that would have given this so much more context. This opens with Paul narrating and he’s surprisingly loathsome straight off… in Paris elbowing other tourists out of the way and literally telling them to “Shoo!”. Had I realised he was the same character we loved to hate in Best Day Ever I would have understood that Rouda had no intention of us liking him or finding him more palatable. Of course if my memory was better I might have recalled his name or some of his backstory (which he shares here). But alas… I read this with fresh eyes and found myself somewhat agog at his smug arrogance.

If you had met me a year ago, you wouldn’t have noticed me. A beautiful woman, but a struggling nobody in a tiny apartment, invisible…

Meeting Paul changed that.

And now here I am in Paris, after a whirlwind courtship and a stunning beach proposal. I smile at my handsome husband, my eyes shining in the candlelight, my huge diamond ring sparkling on the starched white tablecloth. Other women look at me in envy. They see a couple completely in love.

Despite this incredible luxury vacation, my husband and I can’t escape our problems.

I wonder if Paul knows the truth. That our first meeting, when we fell in love, wasn’t the coincidence he thinks it was. That what I want from him has nothing to do with his money.

Thankfully we have a second narrator, Cecilia – Paul’s wife of one year – however she’s initially a bit of an enigma, as we’re taken back to the time she meets Paul, the pair marry and move across the country together. We learn Paul’s former lover left him a fortune. Like hundreds of millions of dollars but he sees himself as very deserving rather than lucky. His sense of privilege is scary as is his very heightened sense of (quite frankly unjustified) superiority.

Rouda stages this cleverly as we hear from both Paul and Cecilia. It means we’re privy to memories and thoughts as well as what they actually say – the latter often completely incongruous with their actual thoughts and feelings. I should mention I’d not read the backcover blurb (inset above) before starting this so wasn’t expecting the extent of the duplicity, but we learn they’re both playing a role and their games get twistier and twistier.

In the present this plays out over the course of a day. Again Paul’s planned the ‘best day ever’ and there’s a sense of foreboding given his rather manic frame of a mind – leaping back and forth from suspicion and seething anger to narcissistic confidence. And amidst the events of that day Cecilia’s recapping the last year of her life, catching us up to the present.

This would be a great bookclub book as it would be interesting to gauge the extent readers find either character likeable – if at all. I must confess I found myself bonding with Cecilia though my perception of her did travel on a fairly tumultuous journey. I was reminded of the Steve Cavanagh book I just read featuring a somewhat-evil (sociopathic) character. It made me wonder if we judge people the same even the person they act out against (harm or kill) is actually not a nice person. Is it more palatable and are they forgivable? A la’ Dexter – serial killer of the truly evil.

So there’s much to think about here and Rouda ends it with some ambiguity and – again in her note – promises we’ll be meeting at least one of the characters again. And at least I’ll know to expect it next time and there will be a next time as, though this book is a mindf*ck of a ride, I very much enjoyed this rather twisted (rather than twisty) read.

The Second Mrs Strom by Kaira Rouda was published by Bookouture and is now available.

I received an electronic copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes.