By Dana Yanez-Soria
Liane Moriarty is an
Australian author
with 6 international
best-selling adult
fiction novels.
Her most recent
works include The
Husband’s Secret
and Big Little Lies.
Her books contain wit, humor, mystery
and the loveliness and grittiness of
marriages, friendships, families and
everyday relationships. She often
shows how people’s lives can become
intertwined by seemingly simple
choices and little twists of fate. Her
books will make you laugh out loud
and feel a deep connection with how
well she seems to understand the
human spirit. I have read four of her
six novels and have enjoyed every one
of them. Liane is an author you should
take a chance on-you will be happy
you did!
The Last Anniversary
This is the 2nd of Liane’s novels,
written in 2006. The story takes place
on the fictional Scribbly Gum Island in
Australia. It is a small island owned and
inhabited by a single unconventional
family and made famous by the
unsolved mystery of the Munro
Baby. The parents of the child simply
disappeared one day without a trace
with the teapot still whistling on the
stovetop and their baby asleep in her
crib. The two sisters who found the
baby end up raising her and using the
mystery to make the island a tourist
attraction, complete with tours of
the untouched house and plenty of
freshly baked goodies to choose from
afterwards. As it turns out, there are
many secrets being kept on the island
of Scribbly Gum. Australian Women’s
Weekly describe it as an “endearing
story, like life, is a mix of the sad, the
happy, the absurd, and the magical.”
What Alice Forgot
So far, this has been my favorite
of Moriarty’s novels. It begins when
thirty-nine year old Alice has an
accident at the gym and passes out,
falling off her bike during a vigorous
spinning class. When she comes to,
she doesn’t recognize the people
around her, the clothes she has on, or
even what she is doing at a gym of all
places-she never works out. The fall
has made her lose the last 10 years of
her memories. She has no recollection
of the 3 children that call her Mummy,
the fancy house and car that seem
to be hers, or the reasons why her
marriage fell apart. She wakes up as a
much nicer and more innocent person
than the woman who fell off her bike.
Her family and friends are sure this
new/old Alice will be short-lived and
disappear once she gets her memory
back. This story is an interesting, heartwrenching, and often hilarious look at
how our life can become something we
never expected it to be.
The Husband’s Secret
“Marriage is a form of insanity; love
hovering permanently on the edge of
aggravation.” -The Husband’s Secret
Cecelia Fitzpatrick has a perfect
life with a perfect husband, perfect
children, and a perfect career. She is
happy as everything seems to be in
its place and her life is proceeding as
planned...until she finds a letter her
husband meant for her to read only
after he had died. Except he is still very
much alive. The simple act of reading
this letter changes Cecelia’s life forever
when she discovers a dark secret about
her beloved husband. Is Cecelia’s love
for her husband enough to keep their
lives intact after she knows the truth?
Big Little Lies
You learn at the beginning of the
story that there was a murder at a
school fundraiser. This story is told
by many voices of characters living in
suburbia as you try to piece together
the days leading up to the murder.
Once again, Moriarty demonstrates
how conflicts, secrets, and betrayals
can poison relationships and how the
characters chose to deal with these
struggles, often by pretending that
they do not exist. The novel is a juicy
mystery with plenty of humor, drama,
and some great twists along the way.
Liane’s other titles are Three Wishes
and The Hypnotist’s Love Story. The
Yankton Community Library owns all of
Liane Moriarty’s titles, often in various
forms including books, audiobooks,
and e-books.
• Literary Speaking •
A Look At Liane Moriarty
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