THE HUSBAND'S SECRET - Liane Moriarty
Penguin Hardcover (also out in PB & e-book)
ISBN-13: 978-0-399-15934-3
August 2013
Women's Fiction

Sidney and Melbourne, Australia - Present Day

Cecilia Fitzpatrick  has been married to John-Paul and living in Sidney for over fifteen years.  Cecilia is an energetic woman; she's the PTA president, doting Mom to three daughters, business owner, and organized to a fault.  There is nothing Cecilia cannot do without her day planner in hand, which becomes her quandary when she opens a letter addressed to her from John-Paul.  On the envelope, her husband directed that the contents be viewed if he is dead; which he is not.  Away on one of his business trips, Cecilia waits until John-Paul calls her, then she tells him about the letter she found in the attic.  But he just laughs, tells her he's embarrassed, and please do not open it.  Like any good wife, Cecilia opens it anyway and discovers a dark secret that will change all their lives.

In Melbourne, Tess O'Leary and her best friend, Felicity, have finally made a success of their advertising business.  Tess is happy and all is right with her world.  Until the day her husband Will, with Felicity sitting by his side, confesses that he and Felicity are in love.  Horrified and more than angry, Tess immediately packs up her six-year-old son, Liam, and moves to Sidney to live with her mother.  Once there, she enrolls Liam in St. Angela's, a Catholic elementary school.

St. Angela's school secretary, Rachel Crowley, is upset and angry.  She's losing her family, again!  Her son, Rob, and his wife, Lauren, are taking Rachel's grandson, Jacob, and moving to New York!  Don't they care that Rachel already lost everything when Rob's sister, Janie was murdered?  It was almost twenty years ago, but still, she feels as if it were yesterday.  And now she is losing another child.  Making matters worse, that horrid Connor Whitby is still working at St. Angela's; they should have canned him long ago.  Don't they know that he murdered her sweet Janie?

A HUSBAND'S SECRET will tear apart the lives of these three women, Cecilia, Tess, and Rachel.  As the pages turn and the scenes play out, these three women meet, get to know one another, and find that their lives are entwined more than they could imagine after Cecilia discovers John-Paul's secret.

With razor sharp characterization and lots of suspense, A HUSBAND'S SECRET is one book that will draw you in and not let you go until the very end.  And even then, you will wonder about secrets...

Diana Risso