The Husband's Secret [Kindle Edition]

Liane Moriarty

Liane Moriarty (Author)

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Book Description

The #1 New York Times Bestseller



One of the Best Books of the Year —Entertainment Weekly



One of the Top Ten Books of the Year —People magazine



“It’s a knowing, touching, and entertaining page-turner. What a wonderful writer—smart, wise, funny.” —Anne Lamott



"The Husband's Secret is so good, you won't be able to keep it to yourself." —USA Today



“Shocking, complex and thought-provoking, this is a story reading groups will devour. A knockout!" —Emily Giffin, New York Times bestselling author



“Emotionally astute, immensely smart, and as cinematically plotted as any Tom Perrotta Novel destined for critical accolades and a big-screen adaptation.” —Entertainment Weekly



“A novel that’s perfect for vacation reading.” —People



"Brilliant." —Sophia Hannah, international bestselling author of The Wrong Mother





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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, August 2013: Liane Moriary is probably doomed to be forever labeled a writer of “chick lit.” But despite its dopey name, her new novel, The Husband’s Secret, is better described as a comedy of manners and one with a serious undertone. As in her previous books, most successfully What Alice Forgot, Moriarty here wittily and observantly chronicles the life of middle aged, middle class Australian women, suburbanites who grapple with prosaic issues like marital fidelity and torturous ones like moral guilt and responsibility. You can’t help but laugh along with the small observations--“And there was poor little Rob, a teenage boy clumsily trying to make everything right, all false smiles and cheery lies. No wonder he became a real estate agent.” But it’s the big ones--Can good people do very, very bad things, and what, exactly, are we responsible for, and for how long?--that will make you think. This is a deceptively rich novel that transcends its era and place at the same time that it celebrates same. --Sara Nelson

From Publishers Weekly

Australian author Moriarty, in her fifth novel (after The Hypnotist's Love Story), puts three women in an impossible situation and doesn't cut them any slack. Cecilia Fitzpatrick lives to be perfect: a perfect marriage, three perfect daughters, and a perfectly organized life. Then she finds a letter from her husband, John-Paul, to be opened only in the event of his death. She opens it anyway, and everything she believed is thrown into doubt. Meanwhile, Tess O'Leary's husband, Will, and her cousin and best friend, Felicity, confess they've fallen in love, so Tess takes her young son, Liam, and goes to Sydney to live with her mother. There she meets up with an old boyfriend, Connor Whitby, while enrolling Liam in St. Angela's Primary School, where Cecilia is the star mother. Rachel Crowley, the school secretary, believes that Connor, St. Angela's PE teacher, is the man who, nearly three decades before, got away with murdering her daughter—a daughter for whom she is still grieving. Simultaneously a page-turner and a book one has to put down occasionally to think about and absorb, Moriarty's novel challenges the reader as well as her characters, but in the best possible way. Agent: Faye Bender, Faye Bender Literary Agency. (Aug.)

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Product Details

• File Size: 1213 KB
• Print Length: 417 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult (July 30, 2013)
• Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00D7Z4GQY
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray:
  Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #96 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #2 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature
  • #9 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary
  • #11 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction > Women's Fiction

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

588 of 629 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Husband's Secret - available Aug 29, 2013 June 3, 2013

By mzglorybe VINE VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Vine Customer Review of Free Product (What's this?)

Wow! I rarely give out 5 stars for a novel, it has to be exceptional, and this is. A difficult review to write without giving too much away. Suffice it to say that the writing is what makes it exceptional. Moriarty develops each character with a skill that has the reader often wondering... what would I do in this case? The way she strings the relationships together make this fiction novel totally believable, and has the reader caring about each character, drawing us in and reading far later than we intended to.

We don't always make the the right choices in life. Sometimes not making a choice is a choice in itself. This is a thought-provoking, emotional, and masterfully crafted novel focusing on the complexities of relationships, secrets, forgiveness, trust and love, that will have you thinking about this novel long after you've finished it. The novel also has a couple of back-stories going on as well, it's not all about the husband's secret, but all the pieces are intricately woven, bringing it to a satisfying conclusion.

In my humble opinion, I loved the ending (except for the fact that it was indeed ending.) The epilogue was my favorite part, actually. It reinforced a suspicion I had about the "secret" earlier in the novel, but also gives us a look at everything from other "what if" perspectives. I will definitely read more by this Australian author. Highly recommended for book clubs, there is a lot to discuss. Don't miss it. Thanks to Amazon for the opportunity to review the uncorrected proof (advance readers copy) prior to its release.

724 of 808 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing examination of conscience April 3, 2013

By Shelleyrae TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Kindle Edition

I am a huge fan of Liane Moriarty and I have enjoyed every single one of her novels, most recently What Alice Forgot and The Hypnotist's Love Story. The Husband's Secret is her fifth adult fiction novel and for me, her best yet.

"For my wife, Cecilia Fitzpatrick
To be opened only in the event of my death"

She found the envelope amongst a stack of old tax records and imagined it contained a sentimental message, given it was dated just a few days after the birth of their first child, fifteen years ago. Cecilia has no idea that the letter will blow her world apart.

The story of The Husband's Secret unfolds from the third person perspectives of three women, Cecilia, Tess and Rachel. At first the connections between these women are peripheral but the secret Jon-Paul has been keeping for decades will change them all.

Cecilia has been married to John-Paul for fifteen years, they have three bright and beautiful daughters and a busy, happy life. Cecilia is the P&C president, a successful Tupperware host and her neat and orderly world is shattered when her husband returns early from a business trip.
Tess is devastated when her husband announces he has fallen in love with her best friend, cousin and business partner, Felicity. Her only thought is to escape and she abandons her life in Sydney to return to her childhood home. Tess isn't interested in renewing old friendships but finds she can't resist the attentions of an old flame.
Every day is an effort for Rachel. It is only the presence of her toddler grandson that relieves the grief that has haunted her since her teenage daughter was murdered more than twenty years ago, and now her son and his wife are moving to New York. Bereft, Rachel renews her obsession with the man she suspects murdered her daughter, a man that teaches at the school where she is a secretary, a man she is convinced is really a monster.

With consummate skill, Moriarty winds her way through a minefield of moral ambiguity as her story explores the very personal implications of choosing between right and wrong. I'm desperate to avoid spoilers so I can say little except that the author challenges the simplistic notions of guilt, of punishment, of justice and redemption.

The Husband's Secret is so successful in large part because of Moriarty's wonderfully crafted characters. The everyday rhythms of their lives render these complex women familiar somehow and I quickly became invested in their fate. As a mother myself I understood each women's concerns about protecting their children and I empathised with them as they struggled to decide how best to do so.

The Husband's Secret is a compelling, thought provoking novel, inspired by an article about real life deathbed confessions and their surprising consequences. An intriguing examination of conscience, love, betrayal and forgiveness this novel will stay with you well after the last page has been turned. Read more ›

283 of 329 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Compelling Novel About Secrets, Huge and Terrible May 26, 2013

By Mary Lins TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Vine Customer Review of Free Product (What's this?)

I became a big fan of Liane Moriarty's novels after reading "The Hypnotist's Love Story"; she writes compellingly and realistically of modern marriage, betrayal, joy and heartbreak. So I was thrilled to have the opportunity to review her latest, "The Husband's Secret", which I thoroughly enjoyed.

There are three main characters, Cecilia, Rachel and Tess, who are all experiencing upheavals in their lives. Moriarty excels at describing how the quotidian details of one's life can change due to the "before and after" of cataclysmic events. She deftly uses both Tupperware and the Berlin Wall as metaphors for sealing in and keeping out.

The novel is about secrets, and I don't want to reveal any of them because Moriarty does it so brilliantly in the novel. Basically we are asked, as observers, to contemplate how a person can live with a huge and terrible, secret. And how can you live knowing someone else's huge and terrible secret? Human existence is complicated and messy and far from black and white/good and bad. Humans make strange and often irrational choices. Are they always indefensible? These are the kinds of things that Moriarty is so good at dissecting for her readers, and why we keep coming back for more.

Without revealing anything, I want to say a word about the ending. I expect some readers are going to have a problem with the climax and the denouement. I thought about it for a while after finishing the book and before sitting down to write this review, and I decided that I'm fine with it. I think Moriarty made the right writing and plot choices here and it worked for me. I highly recommend this novel.

164 of 204 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Australian Chick-Lit October 15, 2013

By Suze

Format:Kindle Edition

I'd rate this as a so-so novel.

I have mixed feelings about this book. My biggest issue with the book was the way the women were portrayed. I felt like I was reading a book written in the 1960's or 1970's. Their lives revolved around keeping a spotless house, running school committees, baking muffins, selling Tupperware, the Church, taking their kids to afterschool activities, and commiserating about their daft husbands who couldn't operate a washer or organize a carpool if their lives depended on it. I kept expecting one of them to realize there's more to life than making the perfect soufflé, burn her bra, and ride off into the sunset with the young hippie who had shown her that sex could be fun. It seemed like it was going to turn out to be that kind of book - although it wasn't. Maybe it's because it's an Australian book, but the women seemed totally unreal to me. They didn't behave like any women I know.

I enjoyed the second half of the book more than the first because the separate threads started to come together and the plot took some interesting twists and turns. It does make you think, although, once again, the choices the characters made didn't always ring true to me. The author did include an interesting epilogue that showed how a few slight changes in what people had chosen to do many years ago could have led to vastly different outcomes for all the characters. It was a nice touch.

I couldn't wholeheartedly recommend this book because I found the portrayals of the women to be so bizarre, but it's not a terrible book. I guess it just hit the wrong note for me.