The Truth Will Out in Liane Moriarty’s Gripping Truly Madly Guilty

Clementine and Erika have been friends their entire lives, ever since Clementine’s mom took Erika under her wing in response to Erika’s eccentric and mentally ill mother’s hoarding. Clementine, a talented cellist, married and had two kids with her husband, Sam; Erika, staunch in her declarations that she doesn’t want children, is happy in her life with husband Oliver.
Or so we think.
Turns out, Erika does want children after all, and when traditional fertility treatments fail, she and her husband decide to ask Clementine for the ultimate favor: to be their egg donor.
But Clementine’s negative reaction—one that edges on revulsion—causes events to start spinning out of control. On the day of a barbecue hosted by neighbors Tiffany and Vid, tensions rise among the two best friends and their husbands, until something devastating happens, forcing everyone involved to evaluate what they could have done differently.
Narration is shared among all of the characters involved, and swoops between the past—aka, the day of the barbecue—and the present, a few weeks later, as the six adults reconcile who they were with who they have become. Moriarty is a pro at weaving tension into the everyday—or rather, revealing it, as truths about Clementine, Erika, their friendship, and all three marriages disrupt the normal lives they’ve tried so hard to cultivate within their small community. The revelations in this book may be less dramatic than those in previous Moriarty novels such as The Husband’s Secret or Big Little Lies, but may have more realistic resonance.
The truth will out, or so they say—but in this novel, some secrets do stay buried. Truly Madly Guilty is an engrossing, believable, and perfect-for-the-beach read that will keep you up late at night wondering “what if?”