The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty – Review

Published: July 30, 2013

Publisher: Berkley

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Pages: 396 (Hardcover)

My Rating: 4.0/5.0

Synopsis:

At the heart of The Husband’s Secret is a letter that’s not meant to be read

My darling Cecilia, if you’re reading this, then I’ve died…

Imagine that your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret—something with the potential to destroy not just the life you built together, but the lives of others as well. Imagine, then, that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive. . .

Cecilia Fitzpatrick has achieved it all—she’s an incredibly successful businesswoman, a pillar of her small community, and a devoted wife and mother. Her life is as orderly and spotless as her home. But that letter is about to change everything, and not just for her: Rachel and Tess barely know Cecilia—or each other—but they too are about to feel the earth-shattering repercussions of her husband’s secret.

Acclaimed author Liane Moriarty has written a gripping, thought-provoking novel about how well it is really possible to know our spouses—and, ultimately, ourselves.

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This kind of general fiction isn’t my usual genre, but sometimes I run across some really great stuff, like The Husband’s Secret. Just like in Big Little Lies, this is set in Australia with a big-ish cast of characters that range from the crazy bubbly lady to the not so fantastic husband. The story is elegantly intertwined between past, present, and even a bit of the future is thrown in near the end. It’s so well done and I wondered for half the story how everything would come together. When it finally did I was BLOWN AWAY!

The characters in this book are very well rounded. What I mean by this is that you get to read what they’re thinking, what they’re lives are like, and you can also see how they’re changing throughout the book. The real selling point for me is the fact that the book really focuses on what the characters are thinking. You get a first person perspective of hopes, dreams, fears and freak-outs, which at times is emotional for the reader as well. I had a lot of moments where I was like, “I’ve felt that way too!!”.

This story isn’t about the just a husband’s secret… every single character in the book has some sort of secret they’re hiding. Even the dead one. These hidden skeletons emerge here and there throughout, and I think the only person whose secret isn’t completely let out is Tess’s. Some of her family knows, but not her husband… though he kind of deserved it, to be honest.

I’ve enjoyed both the novels I’ve read by Liane Moriarty, though the characters in Big Little Lies and The Husband’s Secret seem very similar when it comes to personality. I won’t go into detail, but if you’ve read both novels, perhaps you understand. The audiobook versions of both of these novels are excellent – I love the narrator. She does a spectacular job juggling all those characters! I’d love recommendations of other novels that are somewhat similar because I just don’t know much at all about regular fiction novels.