The Husband’s Secret – Liane Moriarty

 

How well do you know a person? How well do you know the person you are married to? In this book, the past can truly come back to haunt you and one wife has to decide if she can live with things she found out or if she can’t.

Cecilia Fitzpatrick is a successful and happy mother and wife living in suburban Sydney. She is respected in the community, even if she is a little bit of  talker, she is organized and has endless amounts of energy. Everything is perfect. Except when she finds a letter addressed to her, from her husband to read after his death. Curious, she reads the letter and discovers a secret that shatters her entire perfect world and the very foundation on which her life is built. She has to decide what to do with the information, but meanwhile there are other people involved.

Tess’s husband Will, has told her that he is love with her cousin Felicia. Rachel, still grieving after many years about the unsolved murder of her daughter, is heartbroken again because he son and his wife plan on taking their family (including her precious grandson) to America. Her grandson was the only thing filling her days, and now he will be gone. She is left with only the memories of her daughter and the certainty that she knows the killer not only walks free, but lives in the community!

The major theme of the story is sadness. There are marriages that are broken, lies that are revealed, wrongs that were never righted and in the end, prices that have to be paid.

It leads you think…what would you do if your spouse told you a deep dark secret? What could you live with?

Big Little Lies -Liane Moriarty

I really liked this book. It was funny, suspenseful, heart-warming and real. I loved that the characters were people I knew in real life. As a parent in a small community school district, you really do meet most of these ‘types’ of parents. It is also wonderful to read a book where your say to yourself – I want to read more by this author.

In this story we open with a murder investigation. We don’t find out who is murdered until the end of the book (which is great). Also, I believe it is difficult to guess who has been murdered and who did the murder until the end. Unless you are Sherlock Holmes. I admit, I have a hard time knowing Whodunit until the end, but this one I think would have most people guessing.

We meet a new mother to the community, Jane, who has a five year old son Ziggy. She befriends Madeline and Celeste who both have kids starting Kindergarten as well. On the very first day of school, Ziggy is called out for bullying one of the little girls in class. Ziggy says it wasn’t him, and Jane believes her son. Lines are drawn as parents defend Ziggy and Jane or Renata (the mother of Chloe who was bullied). All leading up to a trivia night held at the school when the murder took place.

Leading up to the night, we see into the lives of each of the characters. Their perfect lives are lead bare and we see that what is on the surface or posted on social media, isn’t always the truth. That success doesn’t equal happiness, that profile pictures rarely show the hidden scars and that you should never judge a person based on first glances.

As I said, I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more of her stories.