The Husband's Secret (by Liane Moriarty)

(Amazon UK link)

I liked the first two books I read by Liane Moriarty so much that I put a couple more on my wishlist. I was given ‘The Husband’s Secret’ for Christmas 2022, but have so many books on my to-be-read shelves that I have only just read it. As with the author’s other books, it’s set in Australia. 

It opens in a dramatic and well-written way. Cecilia is the somewhat perfectionistic mother of three daughters: Isabel, Esther and Polly. Esther (aged 8) is very bright; possibly on the autistic spectrum although this isn’t mentioned. She regularly develops passions for unlikely topics, and the current one is the Berlin Wall. Cecilia recalls that she has a piece of stone from the wall, as she was there soon after it fell, so she goes to the attic to see if she can find it.

And there she comes across an envelope with a note saying it should be opened only in the event of her husband’s death. It’s in his handwriting, and she is naturally intrigued, but she has a high sense of ethics, and she’s in a hurry anyway… so she doesn’t open it. Her life is highly structured; she runs successful tupperware parties and organises her three daughters in an apparently endless round of activities. 

But then the next chapter introduces Tess, hearing some shocking news from her husband Will and her cousin Felicity, who has been her best friend all her life. The three have set up business together and Tess had no idea that anything was going wrong. Tess’s mother has recently broken her ankle, and her son Liam (aged 6) is having a hard time with another child at school. So she makes a snap decision to take Liam out of school and fly, with him, to look after her mother for a week or two - possibly longer. 

And then, when I was still struggling to recall all the people introduced, we meet someone else: Rachel, who works as secretary/PA at St Angela’s, the primary school which Cecilia’s daughters attend. Rachel is probably in her late 60s, although she’s described in places as white-haired, wrinkled and elderly, so perhaps she was meant to be a decade older than that. Rachel suffered a terrible tragedy 27 years earlier, and marks the date every year. 

We don’t learn exactly what happened until later in the book, but it has resulted in her feeling less close to her son Rob, and actively disliking her daughter-in-law Lauren, even though Lauren clearly does everything she can to help. Rob and Lauren have a son, two-year-old Jacob, who is the light of Rachel’s life. She’s hoping they might have another baby, but instead they tell her some devastating news…

So the scene is set for a lot of drama. The writing is excellent: tense, and yet with light-hearted moments. The plotting is very cleverly done; inevitably Cecilia’s husband’s secret is revealed part-way through the book, and she is then confronted with an ethical dilemma. I hadn’t seen it coming, and I certainly couldn’t imagine how it would, eventually, reach a kind of resolution.

My only disappointment is that the main characters were hard to distinguish. With so many people introduced in the first few chapters of the book, I had to backtrack and write a pencil note at the front of the book, reminding me who was married to whom, and the names of their children. The action switches regularly between these three women (and sometimes to other people); by the time I was about half-way through the book I could recall who was whom, most of the time. 

But none of the characters really got under my skin. Rachel doesn’t feel any older than the other two women; but Tess feels considerably younger, and behaves in an oddly immature, irresponsible way. I quite liked Esther, who provides some delightful asides, but her older sister Isabel doesn’t have much of a role in the story at all; she’s very shadowy. Liam is a likeable child who’s quite intuitive, and Polly is a bit over-precocious. My favourite character of all is a minor one: the headmistress of St Angela’s School who is scatty and disorganised, but wonderful with the children. 

Still, the story kept me reading - I picked the book up at every available moment, if only to read a few pages - and I appreciated the epilogue, which is cleverly done: it’s written from an authorial viewpoint, which can feel awkward, but it works well. And we learn some more secrets, some of which can never be known, and see what alternatives might have happened, ‘if only…’. 

Definitely recommended if you like fast-paced women’s fiction with a bit more depth than some. It’s certainly thought-provoking as several characters confront serious ethical issues.

Review copyright 2024 Sue's Book Reviews