![Truly Madly Guilty](https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1463025056m/30173436.jpg)
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is the second Liane Moriarty novel I've read and it was just as involving and intriguing as 'The Husband's Secret'.
It revolves around two friends - Clementine (a cellist) and Erica (an accountant). Thrown together at school (when Clementine's mother, Pam, saw that Erica needed a friend), they are an unlikely pair without, it seems, much in common.
Clementine and her husband, Sam, have two little girls, Holly and Ruby. Little Ruby plays a central role in the story. Erica and her husband, Oliver, are childless, apparently by choice. But Clementine is shocked when Erica and Oliver ask her for a huge favour - one that Clementine doesn't see coming.
Erica is obsessively tidy, and no wonder, because her mother is a hoarder, and Erica's home life as a child was truly horrendous. So her relationship with her mother is complicated to say the least. Clementine and her family helped her to lead a more normal life, but Clementine is not as invested in the friendship as Erica is, and there is some resentment there.
The two couples are invited to a barbeque at Erica's neighbours, Vid and Tiffany. Vid is rich and loud, and Tiffany has a somewhat shady past, but they are very welcoming and everyone seems to be having a good time. Vid and Tiffany"s ten year old daughter, Dakota, enjoys having the two smaller girls to play with too, for a while.
Everyone gets a little tipsy, and secrets are shared. Erica and Oliver feel a bit left out, though, as the other two couples get along so well.
But while the adults are enjoying themselves, there is a terrible accident, involving a fountain and Clementine's little girls. It's quite shocking and so believable - you can easily identify with the parents and how easily terrible things can happen.
For much of the book you don't know exactly what happened at the barbeque - the chapters switch from that Saturday to a few weeks afterwards and back again. The suspense builds and builds. The point of view switches as well, and each character's 'voice' is quite distinctive. It's very effective.
Meanwhile, Oliver and Tiffany discover the body of their grumpy next door neighbour, Harry. They all feel guilty about that too - as he has been dead for some time (since the day of the barbeque) by the time his body is found. But towards the end of the story, what happened to Harry in his last few hours is revealed, and when I read that part of the novel I had to put the book aside for a while and compose myself. It was terribly sad. You have been warned!
What happens at the barbeque changes all their lives and their relationships with each other. Liane Moriarty draws characters with depth and they are totally believable, and there was never a point in the story where I thought a character's actions didn't ring true.
This was another page turner, but what really strikes you about Liane Moriarty's books is that her characters are so real that you forget they are fictional. The story was suspenseful and brilliantly plotted, but it's the people you really care about, right down to the minor characters.
I will definitely be seeking out the rest of Liane Moriarty's novels.
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