Review: Best Day Ever by Kaira Rouda

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Synopsis:

A loving husband. The perfect killer?

‘I wonder if Mia thinks I have a dark side. Most likely as far as she knows, I am just her dear loving husband.’

Paul Strom has spent years building his perfect life: glittering career, beautiful wife, two healthy boys and a big house in the suburbs.

But he also has his secrets. That’s why Paul has promised his wife a romantic weekend getaway. He proclaims this day, a warm Friday in May, will be the best day ever.

Paul loves his wife, really, he does. But he also wants to get rid of her. And with every hour that passes, Paul ticks off another stage in his elaborately laid plan…

Review:

Confession: I have a thing for creepy, narcissistic, psychotic men.

Books with an arrogant, psychopathic male narrator really seem to be my bag. American Psycho, A Pleasure and a Calling, and now this, have all been 5 star reads with terrifying and disturbing men at the centre of the story.

This book was nothing like I had expected it be, but for all the right reasons. I had seen a lot of reviews rating this poorly because they felt it was too slow, but for me, that made this book all the more sinister and menacing.

We follow Paul and Mia on their journey to their lovely country house. Paul is determined to make it the ‘best day ever’. At the end of the day, he is murdering his wife, but in the meantime, he wants her last day alive to be pleasant and full of love. As the story progresses, we fall deeper and deeper into the narcisisstic mind set of Paul Strom. Successful businessman, and loving husband and father.

I loved how angry this book made me. When a book can conjure up such strong emotions in me, I know it’s a good’un. Paul is such an arrogant, horrible man. His mental journey through the book gets darker, seedier and more pathetic with every turn of the page. It’s gripping.

I can’t fault the bulk of this book, it’s one of the most skin crawlingly creepy books I’ve read in a long time. I can, however, fault the epilogue. To me it felt unnecessary and sort of ruined a certain aspect of the ending… (More info / spoilers on what I mean here will be on the GR review behind spoiler tags).

At the end of the day, this won’t be for everyone. I personally love slow, descriptive novels where we step into the shoes of a madman and follow all his wild and disturbing thoughts, but they aren’t for everyone! This is a 380 page book, set over 24 hours, so you can really get a feel for the pace of the novel from that. If you umming and arring over this one, personally, I’d say read it! Do it! But I won’t be offended if you don’t get on with it.

This book was fantastic. A perfectly paced, spine tingling horror-thriller. Fully recommended to any slow thriller lovers out there.

*Buy it here: Amazon UK | Book Depository | Wordery

Thank you SO much to HQ for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

*affiliate links