The Husband's Secret

Title: The Husband's Secret

Author: Liane Moriarty

Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia

Publication Date:  April 1, 2013

ISBN: 9780399159343

Pages: 394

How I Got It: SheReads September selection

Goodreads Summary

The Husband's Secret is a funny, heartbreaking novel of marriage, grief, love and secrets. When her husband announces he's in love with her best friend, painfully shy Tess picks up her young son and returns to her mother's house. There she begins an unexpected affair with an old flame. Rachel is a woman in her sixties consumed by grief and anger at the loss of her daughter twenty years earlier. When her son announces he is taking her beloved grandson overseas, Rachel begins a descent into deeper bitterness and pain. Cecilia is the quintessential "I don't know how she does it" woman. A devoted mother to three daughters, she runs her household like clockwork, is President of the P&C, owns an extremely successful Tupperware business and is happy in her fifteen-year marriage. Until she discovers a letter in their attic labelled: "To my wife Cecilia, to be opened in the event of my death"... Her husband's secret is a bombshell beyond all imagining with repercussions across the lives of all three women.

My Review

I love being a member of SheReads book club because I get a chance to read books that I probably wouldn't have picked up. I've been recommending this to a lot of my friends that ask for recommendations because they don't read as much as I do. A lot of my mommy friends are loving it because of the short chapters.  They can put it down and pick it up according to their schedule. Problem is (or is it?) that no one wants to put it down! It's one of those "just one more chapter" sort of books. With three storylines, the first few chapters took me a bit to straighten out all the characters and I found myself asking "How are these storylines going to merge"? I was also impressed that I was equally invested in all the storylines. No slugging through a slow storyline to get to the one I wanted to read.  

The story centers on Cecilia and her husband.  Cecilia is a Type A mom that stumbles across a letter her husband wrote for her to open in the event of his death. At first she thinks nothing of it and sets it aside. Then her husband's reaction causes her to rethink ignoring the letter. Opening the letter and discovering her husband's secret shakes her world and prompts readers to ask "What would I do?" and "How far would I go to protect my husband?"

Some of the previous SheReads selections have not been my cup of tea but this selection is a hit on my list!