Apples Never Fall (by Liane Moriarty)

(Amazon UK link)

I very much liked the first few books I read by the Australian author Liane Moriarty, so put a couple more on my wishlist. I was given ‘Apples never fall’ for my birthday a year ago; for some reason I didn’t start it until last weekend, but I finished it in just three days despite it being quite a long novel close to 500 pages). 

The story involves the disappearance of a woman in her sixties called Joy. She’s married to Stan, and they have four adult children: Amy, Logan, Troy and Brooke. The day she vanished, she sent a mysterious text message to all four, but they can’t figure out what it means - and begin to wonder if someone else sent it. Joy and Stan used to run a tennis coaching business, although they have now retired. All four of their children played tennis to quite a high standard when they were younger.

After nearly a week without hearing from Joy, a police report is filed and an investigation starts.  We’re taken through the questions asked, the theories that abound, and the suspicions that gradually deepen. Has Joy been kidnapped? Has she had an accident? Is she even alive…?  

The book is very cleverly written, with chapters set either ‘now’ or the previous Autumn, progressing forward. So we see questions asked ‘now’, and then flash back to a family scene or incident from a few months earlier which may (or may not) shed some light on what is going on. 

Much of the story revolves around a young woman called Savannah who arrives on Joy and Stan’s doorstep in the ‘September’ section, very early in the book. She’s drenched, she’s crying, and she has a scratch on her face - she tells them that her boyfriend hit her, and that she jumped in a random taxi then knocked on the door of a house that had lights on, and looked friendly. 

Joy is a kind-hearted, motherly person who finds her empty nest and retirement quite difficult to handle. So she takes Savannah in, feeds her, and lets her sleep in Amy’s room. A day or two turns into a longer stay; Savannah is an excellent cook, and good company too. Amy was always quite prickly as a child, and suffered depression; Brooke was close to her parents but has always suffered debilitating migraines. Neither has any interest in cooking or shopping, so Savannah seems the ideal surrogate daughter…

The four adult children are suspicious, although they can’t quite put a finger on why. Troy is a very wealthy man who mostly lives in the United States, trading in something that’s never made quite clear. Logan teaches at a community college and is quite laid back. Amy works as a taste tester, though she doesn’t tend to stick to one job for long. Brooke has just started a business offering physiotherapy. They’re different enough people, and three dimensional so I never had any trouble recalling who was whom. 

As I’ve come to expect with Liane Moriarty, there are twists and turns as new revelations appear; not everything comes to light immediately, and it gradually becomes clear that the family weren’t as perfect as they seemed to outsiders. Secrets emerge, and I really had no idea which way the story was going. I found it compelling reading and could hardly put it down at times. 

Several important issues are touched upon, mostly relationship-based; there are some particularly poignant scenes relating to childhood pressures and abuses. The question is left open as to how far our childhood experiences determine our characters as adults, and whether it’s ever a good idea to try to take revenge. 

I thought the climax to the book was very well done, tying up most of the ends neatly. So I was slightly surprised it didn’t finish soon after; only to discover one more extra little twist in the final chapter. 

Highly recommended to anyone who likes character-based fiction with a bit of mystery.

   Review copyright 2024 Sue's Book Reviews

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

The Hypnotist's Love Story (by Liane Moriarty)

(Amazon UK link)

I was so impressed with the first book I read by Liane Morarty, ‘Big Little Lies’, that I put a few more of her novels on my wishlist and was very pleased to receive some for Christmas last year, and my birthday this year. It’s taken me this long to pick one of them from my unread book shelf. The one I chose was ‘The Hypnotist’s Love Story’. It’s quite a long novel, at 500 pages, but I finished it in just three days.

Ellen is the main protagonist; she is the hypnotist of the title, or rather (as she insists) a qualified hypnotherapist. She lives in a beachside house which she inherited from her grandmother, and runs her business from a light-filled room that overlooks the sea. 

In the first chapter we meet a few of her clients, and learn a little about her technique. She doesn’t promise miracles, and reminds people that they won’t do anything they regret. But she believes she can help one person to become less nervous about public speaking, another to relax about her upcoming wedding. She sees someone with unexplained leg pain and may be able to help her learn to deal better with the pain; someone else isn’t entirely sure what she wants.  

And there’s also someone (which I assumed was one of the named clients) who gives short, first-person accounts of her visit to Ellen for an undefined purpose. We don’t learn who she is until some way into the book, but we do know that she has a connection with Ellen’s new love interest.  

Patrick is a likeable man who was widowed eight years earlier, not long after the birth of his son. He was in another relationship for three years but broke it off, and was single for a while. Now he has met Ellen, and the two of them seem to have developed a spark of kinship as well as mutual attraction. He’s open about his past, and also lets Ellen know that his previous girlfriend is stalking him…

It’s an unusual storyline and I didn’t really know where it was going. I liked Ellen as well as Patrick, and felt that she was probably a very good hypnotherapist. At times she asks herself ethical questions: apparently the profession sparks several different viewpoints about whether or not it is ever acceptable to offer hypnosis, or even relaxation techniques to a family member or partner. 

This book doesn’t have the twists and turns of ‘Big Little Lies’, although there are a few unexpected events. It’s character-based almost entirely; I found it fascinating seeing the viewpoints of the kinds of people I would not normally come across. I found some of the minor characters a bit two-dimensional, and couldn’t always remember the names of Patrick’s parents, or Ellen’s friends or her quirky godmothers. But it didn’t much matter. The story - of a developing relationship as well as of the problems of a former partner who won’t let go - is intriguing. The interactions feel believable, and the main characters realistic. 

I particularly appreciated the lack of bad language, and that private bedroom activities take place firmly behind a closed door. The writing is good, building pace and characters in a way that made it very difficult to put down.All in all, I liked this book very much and would recommend it to anyone who likes thoughtful women’s fiction that’s a bit different from most. 

Review copyright 2023 Sue's Book Reviews

Big Little Lies (by Liane Moriarty)

(Amazon UK link)

I don’t think I had heard of Liane Moriarty, although she has written several books in addition to the one I have just read. But ‘Big little lies’ was this month’s allocated read for our book club, so I acquired a copy second-hand, and have just finished it.

The novel is set in Australia, and centres around families whose children attend a village state primary school. It particularly focuses on the new Kindergarten class, who are due to start school in January. Australia, being in the Southern hemisphere, has its long summer break over Christmas, and the school year begins in January.

However it begins with a chapter written from the perspective of an elderly lady whose home overlooks the school yard. She hears voices from a school fundraising evening, and becomes quite disturbed at the volume, particularly when someone starts screaming… it’s quickly clear that someone has died, although neither the identity of the victim nor the circumstances become clear until almost the end of the book.

The action then moves back six months earlier, when several parents and young children are converging on the school for the Kindergarten induction day, to introduce the children to the school and their teacher. There are several storylines and characters introduced immediately, In particularl, we meet Madeline, who likes confrontation, Jane who is young, single and shy, and Celeste, who is beautiful, wealthy, and rather vague.

Madeline’s daughter Chloe is confident, Jane’s son Ziggy is rather why, and Celeste’s twin sons Josh and Max are somewhat hyperactive. Jane helps Madeline after an accident, and the three women become friendly while drinking coffee and waiting for the induction morning to be over. Unfortunately there’s a nasty incident in the playground, and Jane’s son Ziggy is accused of hurting another child, although he denies it and she is convinced he couldn’t possibly be responsible.

There’s quite a large cast of characters, many of whom don’t play a large role, and since Madeline’s husband Ed confuses two of the husbands it’s not surprising that I did too. The important ones gradually emerge, and it seems at first that, although there are certainly secrets, they’re clear to the reader from early on. One of the women is experiencing domestic abuse, one is quite damaged emotionally by the encounter that led to her becoming pregnant, and another is worried that she is losing her teenage daughter to her ex-husband and his new wife.

So there are some very serious issues involved in the book, yet somehow the author manages to keep it light-hearted, fast-moving, and increasingly tense. Many of the chapters have snippets of information from different parents, given to a journalist who wants to report on the incident at the parents’ evening, and I found that a tad confusing at first. But they add a bit of depth, at times, to the events of the chapters and also a bit of light relief.

The chapters are short, the switches between characters and subplots so well done that I felt almost part of the village community for a while. And the air of tension, not so much as to stress me, but enough to keep me reading any spare moment I could, mainly involved me wondering which of the parents was going to be bumped off. 

Little ‘clues’ dropped by the snippets of conversation had me wondering… none of the main characters were reported as saying anything, so I knew it could be any of them. I was concerned it might be one of the people I had come to care about…

It’s hard to say much about the book without giving spoilers, but I found it gripping, emotive, and thought-provoking.  The last few chapters opened up to new revelations which I might have seen coming, but didn’t. Yet everything was entirely believable in context.

This has to be one of the best books I’ve read all year, and I have already added a few of the author’s other novels to my wishlist. Very highly recommended.

Apparently a TV series has been made of this book, but I don't think I'd like that as much.

Review copyright 2022 Sue's Book Reviews