The Next Wife

By: Jamie Steinberg

I’m pretty sure that Kanye West wrote the song “Gold Digger” about Tish Nelson. Kaira Rouda’s book The Next Wife follows her life with husband John as they run a successful event planning company, EventCo. Readers explore the inner monologue and the tribulations of Tish, John, Kate (John’s ex-wife) and Ashlyn (John and Kate’s daughter) leading up to and after a tragedy that sends their lives and their business into a tailspin making for a fast and intriguing read.

John Nelson is a successful business owner with a company on the rise. He is married to his wife, Kate, and has a beautiful young daughter. While the organization is thriving, it seems that John feels that his personal life has grown stale. In walks Tish.  She’s a former small-town girl (with secrets to hide) looking to marry-up. She becomes his executive assistant and her plan to seduce him works. He divorces his wife, eventually marries Tish and they begin running the company together – much to Kate’s dismay. Kate is bitter, to say the least. From her perspective she had a happy life, and it was all upended thanks to Tish.

Cut to a few years later and it is the big night of EventCo launching their IPO. Post announcement Tish is insisting on taking John away to Colorado so he can relax after all the hard work they put into this achievement. Ashlyn, now grown and in college, is disappointed as she was expecting to have a daddy-daughter dinner. Once in Colorado, everything goes wrong. Tish expects this to be a romantic getaway, but actually evolves into a possible ending of her marriage as John wants to go back to Kate! What happens next sends a chain reaction of events that has Tish’s cushy life spiraling, turns Kate’s world on its head and leaves Ashlyn torn up.

At first Rouda’s book is a slow read. It isn’t until the major event in Colorado that the tale gets juicy enough to be deemed “hard to put down.” However, when this occurs you will find yourself not wanting to set it aside to see if Tish gets to keep her high-priced life, if Kate really wanted to get back with John and if Ashlyn’s disdain for Tish subsides or pushes her over the edge.

The Next Wife is a decent read with an unexpected ending. Sure, towards the end of the book you might think you have it all figured out, but there are a number of twists that will leave you gasping with shock! I suggest bundling up on a cold Winter night by the fire with a glass of wine and devouring this intriguing read.