The Husband’s Secret weaves together the lives of three women dealing with their own personal tragedies, secrets, and the repercussions of their decisions. As she did in Big Little Lies, Moriarty is great at mining the insecurities and dramas simmering below the surface of happy-seeming suburban families. This was a fast read for me, though not an "unputdownable." I don’t always like Moriarty’s writing style, but I can’t deny that she writes a compelling story that keeps me turning the pages.

This sweet book follows Don Tillman, an Australian genetics professor who decides to embark on what he calls The Wife Project to find his perfect partner. Don likely has Aspergers syndrome, and he figures his best chance of finding someone is using a scientific approach.

Along the way, he meets Rosie, a woman he quickly eliminates from The Wife Project, but who intrigues him with her search for her biological father. He quickly jumps into The Father Project in the first of many bursts of spontaneity and excitement that Rosie brings into his well-ordered life.

When Alice wakes up on the floor of the gym, she finds herself in an alternate universe: one where she is 10 years older, has three children she doesn't remember, a husband she no longer loves, and a sister who speaks to her in strained tones. Alice's memory is gone, and she's trying to figure out how to live a life she no longer recognizes--and get back the man she loved ten years ago.

I was intrigued by the premise of this novel, and it was entertaining, but the domestic drama failed to capture my attention. Maybe elements of her novels are too close to my own suburban mom life, but most of Moriarty's novels fall a bit flat for me. This was a decent lighter read with an interesting spin, but not one that will stick with me.

It was a cloudless summer day in the year 1900. Everyone at Appleyard College for Young Ladies agreed it was just right for a picnic at Hanging Rock. After lunch, a group of three girls climbed into the blaze of the afternoon sun, pressing on through the scrub into the shadows of the secluded volcanic outcropping. Farther, higher, until at last they disappeared. They never returned. . . .

Powered by the dreams and struggles of three generations, The Thorn Birds is the epic saga of a family rooted in the Australian sheep country. At the story's heart is the love of Meggie Cleary, who can never possess the man she desperately adores, and Ralph de Bricassart, who rises from parish priest to the inner circles of the Vatican...but whose passion for Meggie will follow him all the days of his life.

My Review

Wow–this book delivered on the hype and met all of my high hopes for a truly excellent read. It was gritty, brutal, a little dreamy, and utterly absorbing.

Twelve-year old Eli Bell loves his messed-up family: his older brother, August, who stopped talking after a childhood trauma, and his mother and stepfather who are heroin dealers and former addicts. Eli’s best friend and babysitter, Slim Halliday, is a notorious felon, famous for his multiple escapes from prison. Things go south when the violence of his parents’ business comes to their home. His stepfather disappears and his mother ends up in jail.

Eli embarks on several missions: to save his mother, to find out what happened to his stepfather, to become a crime journalist, and to become a good man–all while taking down the man running the drug show in his seedy Australian suburb.

Fair warning: parts of this book are brutal and a little gruesome. Dalton based the story on his own youth as the child of drug dealers–Slim Halliday was a real person who was actually Dalton’s babysitter–which makes it all the more fascinating. I didn’t realize this tie to real life until I finished the book, and I immediately started Googling to learn more.

Two brothers meet at the line of their properties in the Australian outback, with their third brother dead at their feet. They grieve his loss and investigate what could have happened--but there are few suspects on the isolated outback, and secrets that people want to keep hidden.

While a mystery is at the center of this story, it's really a character examination, filled with family dynamics. This is one of those novels where the setting--the forbidding outback--has a life of its own. It was fascinating how Harper managed to make such an expansive setting feel so suffocating. As unappealing as life in the outback would be to me, this book piqued my interest in life there and in Harper's other stories set there. I look forward to reading more of her books.

ate lost her husband. She's raising her son and working her fundraising job at a university, while barely managing her grief and the demands of daily life. Hugh, her understanding boss--who was also her husband's best friend--makes things a little easier. When Kate and Hugh are stranded together on a work trip, she has to decide how she wants to move forward with her life, and what her husband would have wanted for her.

This contemporary novel has some romance, but it's examination of grief takes it out of the realm of rom-coms (despite the cover that leans that direction, as well as some humor). It's emotional and vulnerable; the author has personal experience that she draws on. Sad but hopeful, and well worth the read.