Kate’s Review: “Beneath the Surface”

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Book: “Beneath the Surface” by Kaira Rouda

Publishing Info: Thomas & Mercer, September 2023

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: On a weekend voyage, the power-hungry children of an aging billionaire are unprepared for a storm of deceptions in a novel about ruthless family ambition by USA Today bestselling author Kaira Rouda.

You are cordially invited to an overnight voyage on the Splendid Seas.

An invitation to Catalina Island from billionaire CEO Richard Kingsley. For his sons, Ted and John, and their wives, it’s an opportunity to curry favor, gain control of a real estate empire, and secure their family’s futures. For the controlling patriarch, succession is a contest. He and his newest wife won’t make it an easy win.

Then Richard’s estranged live-wire daughter, Sibley, crashes the party. She’s the least of the night’s surprises. As the stakes for the inheritance of the Kingsley legacy are raised, the beautiful waters of the Pacific look more like a menacing illusion.

Let the games begin for a family who has everything money can buy, and has used lies, deception, and more to keep it. This weekend one of them will be crowned heir. One is in line to lose everything. That’s the plan. But in the coming storm, so much can go dangerously wrong.

Review: Thank you to Thomas & Mercer for sending me an ARC of this novel!

Though I was late to the game when it came to the show “Succession”, my husband and I have been making our way through and enjoying it as a show that we can watch together and be captivated and mortified by the horribleness of the billionaire class. We haven’t finished it but I know basically everything thanks to the Internet, and it boggles the mind how there is pretty much no one to like, and yet I am so invested in their nonsense. So when “Beneath the Surface” by Kaira Rouda came my way and had comparisons to “Succession” to boot, I knew that I wanted to read this book. Bring on more wealthy people behaving just abhorrently, evidently I can’t get enough.

If you are still kind of suffering from “Succession” withdrawals, I do think that “Beneath the Surface” will scratch that itch at least a little bit. It’s a similar set up of an uber-wealthy family dealing with the impending stepping aside of the head of the family company, and the children who all want the coveted CEO spot. In this case it’s real estate tycoon Richard Kingsley, and his children are uptight John, charismatic but duplicitous Ted, and the estranged and wild Sibley. While it only takes place over one weekend and doesn’t rise to the same complex and unnerving heights as the Roys in many ways, I did like seeing the awful kids try and gain favor with their awful father while his awful fourth wife looks on with superiority as well as her own duplicity. I mean, I love this kind of soapy and catty drama as bad people are bad to each other, and “Beneath the Surface” is fun enough that it reads fast and kept me going and awaiting every twist and turn with bated breath. I just really enjoy all the drama that comes with rich people behaving badly (unless we get a “Boar on the Floor” kinda deal like on “Succession” and then I just get uncomfortable), and “Beneath the Surface” has a lot of that.

I will say that the characters, however, could have been more fleshed out. We had a few first person perspective from a few of the characters. There’s Paige, the wife of second son Ted who has been supportive and patient for years, putting her own career on hold to raise their children and to bolster her husband. There’s John, the oldest son who feels like the company should be his birthright but has stumbled enough that his father is disappointed and reluctant. There’s Serena, Richard’s fourth wife who is comfortable being a trophy wife but has her own reasons to want security and power within the company hierarchy. And Richard himself, who enjoys pitting his children against each other. And none of them really move beyond two dimensional archetypes of what we would expect from characters such as these. I think that Paige was the most well rounded and complicated, as I greatly enjoyed her chapters and found her to be the most engaging, but most everyone else hit each point of their roles without growth, or if not growth, glimpses into the layers that we are being made privy to on this tense and high stakes yacht weekend. And as for the supporting characters who don’t have perspective chapters, they are pretty standard and static.

All in all, “Beneath the Surface” is entertaining and fast paced. I enjoyed the plot, and while I needed more from the characters, if this does indeed turn into a series I would PROBABLY keep reading just to see where some of these characters end up, and how their story trajectory changes.

Rating 7: A catty and sudsy plot make for an engaging read, although none of the characters really moved outside the boxes they started in.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Beneath the Surface” is included on the Goodreads list “Can’t Wait Books of 2023”.