Ponder Post: the Husband's Secret

I just finished reading the Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty and really, really liked it. The plot was intense and the characters were well developed. I highly recommend you give it a try. The back cover of the book reads:

Chapter One opens with Cecilia, wife of husband John-Paul Fitzpatrick, finding an envelope in her husband's handwriting addressed:

For my wife, Cecilia Fitzpatrick,
To be opened only in the event of my death

From out of the blue, in Chapter Two, there is this discussion among Will, his wife Tess, and her cousin Felicity. "Okay...", I confusedly think, as I flip back to the first chapter to see if I'd missed something " ... who are these people?" No. I had not missed anything. These were new characters. I plunge on to Chapter Three where I read about Rachel and her grandson Jacob. Now I am really getting annoyed. "Why didn't this @#$%^ author write three books instead of rolling them all into one? Couldn't she generate enough pages? Is this some new publishing gimmick like the overused practice of flashbacks?" I rant on to myself, pretty annoyed, but I forge ahead. By Chapter Six I was absorbed in the book and fascinated by how all these characters became interrelated and how the life of each affected the others. It was really well done. I was glad I'd hung in there. 

The Husband's Secret is set in Australia at Easter time, which lends a bit of extra interest, since Easter comes in the fall season in the land Down Under. Chocolate bunnies and Easter eggs amongst fall foliage is a bit unexpected so the unfamiliarity kept me on my toes. Throw in a dose of Catholic religion and guilt and it was one great book.

The book also had several passages of pithy thought sprinkled throughout that made me stop and think. For example, this one about the grandmother Rachel:

She always pretended to herself that she didn't let Lauren help because she was trying to be the perfect mother-in-law, but really, when you didn't let a woman help, it was a way of keeping her at a distance, of letting her know she wasn't family, of saying
"I don't like you enough to let you into my kitchen."

Or this example about the wife Cecilia:

She knew what was giving her that little blip of pleasure. It was because she had made a decision. Something was clearly not right. She had a moral obligation to do something immoral. It was the lesser of two evils. She was justified.

So – good plot, great characters, clever interrelations, unique setting, pithy thoughts, not to mention a shocker of an ending – need any more convincing to read this book?

Oh, and when you do read it... do not, DO NOT, skip the Epilogue!