Here’s the best news you’ve heard all year: Not a single page disappoints…The only difficulty with Truly Madly Guilty? Putting it down.” —Miami Herald
"Perfect for those long summer days, but readers will have to pace themselves to not devour it in one sitting.” —Library Journal (starred review)
Entertainment Weekly’s “Best Beach Bet,” Summer ’16
A USA Today Hot Books for Summer Selection
A Miami Herald Summer Reads Pick
“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
"The author of Big Little Lies—which is being made into an HBO series starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon—brings it again. This time, the lives of a few happy families are changed forever after a barbecue. Well done, in more ways than one." —Skimm Reads
“Emotionally riveting…Moriarty is a deft storyteller who creates believable, relatable characters. The well-drawn cast here will engage readers and remind them that life halfway around the world isn’t much different from life here—families argue, neighbors meddle and children push boundaries.” —Washington Post
“[A] masterpiece…Extremely relatable and thought-provoking…Ms. Moriarty’s shining talent in Truly Madly Guilty is her uncanny ability to get into the mind of her well-developed characters, turn the mirror on the reader and make you think about your own relationships, both past and present.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Moriarty is a talented tale-spinner and a sharp, witty social observer…Moriarty fans, pack Truly Madly in your beach bag.” —USA Today
“Truly Madly Guilty will be widely read…It has all the requisite trademarks of one of her hits…It probes some of the things she writes about best: fraught friendships, covert backbiting, stale marriages.” —New York Times
“Stacked with her signature themes: female friendship, duplicity, the darkness lurking beneath lucky, ordinary suburban lives…The last twist, though, is nearly worth the wait, and what sets Moriarty’s writing apart…has as much to do with her canny insights into human nature as her clever plotting…Compelling.” —Entertainment Weekly
“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)
★ 07/01/2016
Three couples, one ordinary day, one barbecue. Clementine and Sam have a rock-solid marriage and are parents to two beautiful little girls. Clementine's best friend Erika and her husband, Oliver, enjoy their child-free lifestyle. Friends since their youth, Clementine and Erika have a complicated relationship. Tiffany and Vid enjoy entertaining in their mansion with the sprawling backyard, but they have their secrets. They all come together when Vid invites Erika and Oliver to their house for a cookout at the last minute, and she in turn, invites Clementine, Sam, and their girls. What starts out as an ordinary afternoon quickly takes a turn for the worse. Moriarty's fans will rejoice at her latest title (after Big Little Lies), as she tackles marriage, parenthood, friendship, and sex, in this provocative and gripping read. Alternating between present day and the day of the barbecue, the author builds suspense, keeping readers on the edge of their seats wondering what happened to cause such fallout among the couples. VERDICT 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. [See Prepub Alert, 2/21/16.]—Erin Holt, Williamson Cty. P.L., Franklin, TN
Caroline Lee with Liane Moriarty makes one of the great pairings in audio publishing. Moriarty constructs a plot the way God builds an onion. The characters are human and interesting in the outer layers, though in ways opaque, like the behavior of strangers whose inner lives we don’t understand. Here, Clementine, her family, and their friends, Erica and Oliver, have been devastated by something that happened at a neighbor’s backyard barbecue. But what? How? Why? Lee’s performance is emotionally shrewd and irresistibly entertaining, always fully invested in each character as he or she is by turns touched, puzzled, outraged, or horrified by unfolding events. Before you know it, Lee and Moriarty have you hopelessly hooked until you reach the dense, intricately interlocked heart of this wholly satisfying listen. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
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.
