Play Book Tag discussion

I read Liane Moriarty's The Husband's Secret several years ago, and always meant to come back around to her books. I am so glad I did. Moriarty is a fantastic writer, and has a brilliant way of combining mysteries with compelling tales of family dysfunction and meditations on the human condition.

Apples Never Fall examines several months in the Delaney family – a retired couple, Stan and Joy, who were once tennis pros and ran a tennis school, and their adult children: Amy, Troy, Logan and Brooke. The book opens with the disappearance of Joy, then slowly reveals the circumstances around her vanishing and the family's varied attempts to deal with it. Everyone has secrets, and they tantalizingly come to light over the course of the narrative. At the center of the mystery is Savannah, a down-on-her-luck young woman who arrives on Stan and Joy's doorstep seemingly at random and whom they take in out of sympathy. However, something seems off with Savannah from the start. As the Delaney children's envious suspicions begin to bear fruit, more revelations surface, throwing motives into question. One wonders as the book progresses whether the obvious culprit in Joy's disappearance is in fact the guilty party, or whether something else might be going on.

Despite being nearly five hundred pages long, the novel moves swiftly and is difficult to put down. I really liked the technique in the earlier parts of the book, which pairs a POV chapter of one of the Delaneys in the past with a modern day chapter from the POV of someone tangential to their lives, struggling with their part in the disappearance and trying to fit their own clues together. Moriarty's prose always delights. She has a fantastic way of packing so much insight into a character in such a small space. I also appreciate that all of her books are set in Australia, as it's a setting I don't get to read about all that often.

I will say the book struggles to find an ending; once the mystery is resolved it continues on for about fifty more pages when it doesn't really need to. The COVID-19 pandemic is introduced near the end which didn't seem all that necessary to the tale. Also, the resolution of the mystery hinges on a lot of convenient coincidences; while all were planted throughout the text, I found the believability of some of them a little stretched (view spoiler)[especially how Savannah hated the Delaneys because they all happened to be mean to her on exactly one day in her childhood (hide spoiler)]. However, this did not detract from my enjoyment of the story, so I won't penalize any stars for it.

All in all, I had a great time with this one and I will try to prioritize reading more from Moriarty in the future.

Nice review, Heather. Glad that you enjoyed it;)

Thanks, Diana! I'm glad you enjoyed it too. I'm looking forward to more of Moriarty's books.

Great review. I didn't like the last book I read from her, but this one sounds good. Since it fits the detective tag (I wouldn't have guessed it) I might fit it in this month.

Heather, I also read this book last month. And I really appreciated your review. It was very well done. I think I also gave it four stars.

@Nancy - I know, I was surprised to see it fit the detective tag too! But there are detectives in the book, so now I can see why it's been shelved that way. It was a happy coincidence, because I wanted to read this for the WPF challenge and my hold on it happened to come in at the library at the beginning of the month.

@Amy - Thanks! I did really enjoy it. I've heard some mixed things about her earlier books but I still want to check them out out of curiosity. She gets into the dark psyches of otherwise normal-seeming families so well!

I love her books! I only ever heard mixed things about nine perfect strangers. I actually nominated her for favorite author. But did not end up choosing her for final four.