Entertainment Weekly’s “Best Beach Bet,” Summer ’16
A USA Today Hot Books for Summer Selection
A Miami Herald Summer Reads Pick
“Caroline Lee with Liane Moriarty makes one of the great pairings in audio publishing. Moriarty constructs a plot the way God builds an onion...Before you know it, Lee and Moriarty have you hopelessly hooked until you reach the dense, intricately interlocked heart of this wholly satisfying listen.”—AudioFile, Earphones Award Winner
“Liane Moriarty is one of the few writers I’ll drop anything for. Her books are wise, honest, beautifully observed, and—unusually—I can never tell where they’re going to go.” —Jojo Moyes
“Moriarty’s fans will rejoice at her latest title as she tackles marriage, parenthood, friendship, and sex, in this provocative and gripping read...This novel sheds light on the truths that we all fear as parents, spouses, and friends. It’s perfect for those long summer days, but readers will have to pace themselves to not devour it in one sitting.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“Perhaps the most anticipated release this summer, Moriarty is at her finest in this keep you guessing multi-family drama surrounding a tragic event at a casual neighborhood barbecue. You will not soon forget this cast of troubled yet very likable characters, and the relationships that both bind and nearly destroy them.” —Huffington Post
"The author of Big Little Lies doing what she does best: unraveling people's public selves with an urgency that keeps you reading." —Glamour Magazine
“[A] brilliant story of love, marriage, parenthood and, of course, guilt…It’s wonderfully suspenseful, slyly sentimental, sometimes outright sad—and also truly, madly, amazingly funny.” —Forth Worth Star-Telegram
“Liane Moriarty has done it again. Truly Madly Guilty has it all—suspense, drama, humor, and a cracking story cleverly told.” —Fabulous Magazine (UK)
"[Liane] Moriarty is back with a story full of neighborhood secrets, indiscretions, and twists. Like her other best-sellers, this story centers around a fateful event, and details are doled out to readers in small, tantalizing bits and pieces. [Caroline] Lee’s narration sets the pace with just the right amount of suspense and delicious anticipation for those wanting to know what happened in this suburban backyard gathering. Lee draws listeners into Moriarty’s puzzle, skillfully distinguishing among characters and providing them with authentic accents and emotional resonance; even the children’s shrill yells add to the neighborhood soundscape." Booklist
2016-05-05
Relying less on comedy or edginess than in previous novels (Big Little Lies, 2014, etc.), Moriarty explores the social and psychological repercussions of a barbecue in Sydney gone terribly awry. What happened emerges slowly through glimpses of characters coping—or not coping—weeks after the event intercut with an unfolding chronicle of the actual barbecue day. Both past and present are seen through the eyes of those remembering, who have been affected very differently by the events. Leading up to the barbecue, Erika and her husband, Oliver, accountants whose buttoned-up personalities compensate for miserable upbringings (in Erika's case by a hoarder and in Oliver's by alcoholics), have invited Erika's childhood friend Clementine, a cellist preparing for an important audition, her husband, Sam, and two small children, 2-year-old Ruby and 5-year-old Holly, for afternoon tea and are nervously planning to ask Clementine to donate eggs to help them have a baby. Oliver is understandably upset when Erika accepts a spur-of-the-moment invitation from their wealthy, very sociable neighbor, Vid, to bring everyone over to his backyard for a barbecue. But Clementine, who was instinctively dreading Erika's tea, jumps at the chance for a lively afternoon with Vid, his sexy wife, Tiffany, and their brainy 10-year-old daughter, Dakota. While Dakota watches the smaller girls, the adults proceed to get mildly sloshed. Then Erika, drunk for the first time in her life, screams, and a child ends up in a life-threatening situation. The suspicion and guilt the adults and even children secretly feel in the aftermath cause rifts and secrets to surface within the three marriages and within Erika and Clementine's friendship. The setup here is reminiscent of fellow Australian novelist Christos Tsiokas' The Slap (2008), but while Tsiokas uses a minor incident to propel his corrosive examination of middle-class lives, Moriarty's characters resolve their issues too neatly and with too much comforting ease. Not one of Moriarty's best outings.
