Monday, 21 July 2014

Review: Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

I absolutely loved The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty and it is one of those books that I have been actively recommending to the 13+ reading groups that use my library and just about any other person I thought might be interested. It was one of those books that had so many discussion points and overlapping storylines so I was really pleased to see that Liane had a new book coming out at the end of this month. I was even more excited to win an ARC from Penguin Books in a Twitter competition that allowed me to read the new book early.


The Blurb

She could hear men and women shouting. Angry hollers crashed through the soft humid salty summer night. It was somehow hurtful for Mrs Ponder to hear, as if all that rage was directed at her . . . then she heard the wail of a siren in the distance, at the same time as a woman still inside the building began to scream and scream . . .

When a harmless quiz night ends with an act of shocking violence, the parents of Pirriwee Public School can't seem to stop their secrets from finally spilling out. Rumours ripple through the small town, as truth and lies blur to muddy the story of what really happened on that fateful night

My Thoughts

So the book starts with us meeting Mrs Ponder and her cat Marie-Antoinette who lives right next door to Pirriwee Public School and can hear the fall out from whatever is happening at the quiz night. These few pages set the scene for what is going to happen when we learn at the end of the chapter that there is going to be a murder investigation. Immediately you want to know just what has happened at that quiz night!!

The book centres around three mothers all with children starting kindergarten and a cast of other parents and teachers. First me meet Madeline MacKenzie on her 40th birthday, she is the mother to Chloe and Fred and also has 14 year old Alice from a previous marriage. She is on her way to take Chloe to her kindergarten orientation when she has an accident and is helped by young single mum, Jane Chapman who is new to the area and the mother of Ziggy. The pair immediately hit it off, add into the mix Madeline's best friend the beautiful Celeste who is mother to twins Max and Josh and we have one of the teams in The Mummy wars. Leading the other side is Renata Lamont, high flying business woman and mother to Amabella and Jackson. There is no love lost between Renata and Madeline and an incident at orientation just leads to more problems with secrets unravelling as Moriarty leads us to what happened on that fateful quiz night

I truly loved this book and it was one of those books that I could just not put down. It sucked me in from that opening chapter when we learn that someone has died and that the police are treating it as murder. The book is full of interesting and quirky characters including Bonnie (Madeline's ex husbands new wife), Tim(the hot barista), Harper( a team Renata mother) and Perry
(Celeste's controlling husband)

The book covers a wide range of emotive topics from assualt to domestic violence to how to get on with your ex-husband and his new wife. It is entertaining and witty and totally believable. I have experienced the same playground politics that we see in Little Lies so I could totally relate to characters like Jane. At one point I too was a young mum who people thought was the nanny. There is a darkness to this book, full of malicious gossip and intrigue like just who is Ziggy's father, who is having an affair with who. 

I just love Moriarty's writing style and I loved all of the characters in this book including the ones you love because you hate them. Just when you think you have it all worked out Liane hits you with a great big twist and things just aren't what they seem.

I strongly suggest that you grab yourself a copy of this book when it comes out you won't be disappointed.

Published by Penguin. Due out 31st July 2014
Buy from Amazon


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