The New Husband by Brian O'Rourke

Brent and Mary have been married for a number of years and are a quiet and unassuming couple. She works as a data analyst and he deals with coding. Brent came from a dysfunctional family and his parents and brother verbally, physically, and emotionally abused him. Consequently, Brent suffers from terrible depression and low self-esteem. Even when his brother dies, he refuses to attend the memorial service. When the opportunity comes up for him to attend a wellness retreat filled with meditation, counselling, and farm labour, they dig into their savings and Brent leaves for a month where contact with Mary is not allowed in any form.

When the month is up, Brent comes back but is a changed man. He is full of energy, his body looks amazing, and he wants to go all out to start a new business. Initially, Mary is thrilled with the change, but as time goes by and his behaviour becomes more and more erratic and he refuses to speak about the retreat, she becomes suspicious of him. Is the new Brent just too much?

I figured out the ending quite early on but still wanted to see how it would all tie together. The story was an interesting idea but the execution felt somewhat forced. To have the reader believe that Mary picked up on so many things but did nothing about it was odd. Brent’s behaviour was ludicrous and his physical change rapid, yet Mary believed that the changes could have happened at a retreat in thirty days. The fact that Brent was so focused on one thing should have been a big clue to Mary, but I guess when you love someone, you want to believe them.

As for the stalker and the PI. Really, Mary? For someone who watched Netflix, she needed to brush up on her police procedures.

So while I enjoyed the story and the fact that it was a quick read, one thing struck me as strange. In one section, a character places a rag over the mouth of another and knocks them out with chlorophyll. Now I am no biologist and perhaps chlorophyll has properties I’m unaware of, but should that not be chloroform? The staple of crime tv shows?

It wrapped up a little too neatly for me, but an interesting idea, nonetheless.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to review the book.