Nine Perfect Strangers

Nine Perfect Strangers
by Liane Moriarty

Liane Moriarty is one of my favorite authors. I'd been eagerly looking forward to starting this book. It did not disappoint.  

Much of this story is a character study of nine different people at a health spa. An author, a lawyer, a family of three, a wealthy young couple, and so on. Their different stories unfold during their time at the spa while the spa "experience" becomes even more unusual.  Nothing is what they expected or bargained for up to a point where their collective situation becomes unbearable. 

And I had to wonder all along, just who is this owner of the spa? Is she who/what she says she is? Is her desire to help sincere? Or is she someone very sinister? 

I give Nine Perfect Strangers four of five shots. 

The Husband's Secret

The Husband's Secret
by Liane Moriarty

Liane Moriarty is quickly rising to the top of my pool of favorite authors.  The Husband's Secret is the third of her novels I've read and it looks like I have three more to go before I run out.  I hope she can write faster than I can read. 

The Husband's Secret follows the lives of three women at different places in their lives. Cecilia is the busy mom who is involved in everything and does everything seemingly perfectly.  Little does she know that her husband has a secret, until one day she stumbles upon an envelope addressed to her from her husband. The instructions on the envelope indicated it should only be opened upon his death. 

Rachel is a secretary at the small Catholic school Cecilia's children attend. She is a widow who's daughter was murdered years earlier. When she's not working or caring for her grandson she is grieving for her daughter and searching for the proof she needs to have the 'boy' who murdered her put away. 

Tess has just arrived in Sydney with her young son to stay with her mother.  Her husband and cousin/best friend have just announced to her that they have fallen in love.  She needs time to digest this news and decide what she must do.  Unexpectedly meeting up with an old boyfriend seems to make the adjustment easier. 

The husband's secret is not revealed until far into the book.  It's a secret that could be devastating to their lives, and indeed creates a disastrous situation. I don't know what surprised me more; the secret or the results of the secret coming to light. 

I easily give this story five of five shots. 

The Hypnotist's Love Story

The Hypnotist's Love Story
by Liane Moriarty

I have a very hard time going into a book store and not making a purchase.  This wouldn't be such a bad affliction if I didn't have a daughter who works in a book store.  Because she works there, I can't just not go there.  You see?

One day when I was running errands with my daughter she needed to stop by work.  Lo & behold, I had to make a purchase so I scanned the shelves to satisfy my need.  I happened upon this book by Liane Moriarty.  I had previously read and loved What Alice Forgot which LM had written so I thought why not?

Liane Moriarty has now joined my list of favorite or "go-to" authors.  Welcome Liane!

I was enjoying this book very much when I went to Goodreads to update my progress.  There I made the mistake of looking at reader reviews.  While many if not most of them were very good, a few gave this book low marks.  What I recall about those marks is people not liking the characters or not finding a climatic event which they felt the book was leading to.

I disagree with both those opinions.

While the book is a love story in which a female stalker quite prominently and sometimes scarily inserts herself, it is ultimately a book about relationships.  It's not a mystery or thriller so don't be looking for someone to be pushed off a cliff, drowned or beaten to death.  As the story is told in two voices, it's easy to see how different one might feel on the inside compared to how she may be viewed from the outside. I found the characters to be very real and dimensional.

The hypnotist is Ellen, a hypnotherapist. She meets and falls in love with Patrick, a widower with a young son.  Patrick dated and lived with Saskia for three years after his wife's death.  Saskia has been stalking Patrick since he broke it off with her three years prior.  An unusual love triangle to say the least. Ellen is more intrigued than frightened by Saskia's obsession with her fiance. She feels her relationship with Patrick is more threatened by his dead wife than his stalker.  Through her voice we see her insecurities and frustrations. Saskia thinks she might actually like Ellen if they had met in other circumstances. Her relationship with Patrick included mothering his son in his earliest years. Through her voice we try to understand her obsession with the man and his son after she is stripped of the roles of partner and mother. 

I think Liane Moriarty did a fine job of exploring relationships fraught with more obstacles than most.  While at one point I thought Ellen and Patrick were definitely on the rocks, she writes a monologue for Patrick that made me want to cheer. 

I give The Hypnotist's Love Story five shots.

What Alice Forgot

What Alice Forgot
by Liane Moriarty

Alice fell off her bike during a spinning class and lost 10 years of her life.  Her memory of the last ten years, that is.  Suddenly she was not only ten years older, she didn't recognize her children, her husband didn't live with her any longer and everything had changed.  She tries to get by without letting on that she doesn't recognize her own life much less the people around her.. 

I love this story.  Imagine being transported ten years into the future and trying to understand why your once perfect life was no longer the fairy tale you've been living.  No explanation seems plausible, do you try to 'fix' it or just go with it?  You still feel passionately about a man who treats you as cool as a stranger and it's incomprehensible that these grown children could possibly belong to you.

It's one of those books that causes me to think about my own life and ask those "what ifs."  I give What Alice Forgot five of five shots.