Cecilia is leading the perfect suburban life. She's the envy of other school mothers, and she managed to marry one of the handsome Fitzpatrick boys. While her husband is away on a business trip, Cecilia accidentally finds a note to be opened in the event of his death. His alarmed reaction to her discovery and immediate early return from his trip pique Cecilia's curiosity, and she opens the letter. A secret from her husband's past is about to bring her perfectly sculpted world crumbling down. Weaving allusions to the Berlin Wall throughout, Moriarty (What Alice Forgot) shows how Cecilia struggles to live her life as she did before the secret burdened her marriage—like those Berliners who attempted normalcy after the infamous wall went up/came down. A simple confession of the truth can simultaneously shatter many different worlds. The secret creates a ripple effect in Cecilia's community, involving more and more people and families. VERDICT Moriarty examines the ease with which darkness can spread into relationships. Weaving stories from multiple perspectives keeps this one interesting all while leaving the reader wondering what will happen next. This great summer read is hard to put down.—Brooke Bolton, North Manchester P.L., IN

Australian author Moriarty, in her fifth novel (after The Hypnotist's Love Story), puts three women in an impossible situation and doesn't cut them any slack. Cecilia Fitzpatrick lives to be perfect: a perfect marriage, three perfect daughters, and a perfectly organized life. Then she finds a letter from her husband, John-Paul, to be opened only in the event of his death. She opens it anyway, and everything she believed is thrown into doubt. Meanwhile, Tess O'Leary's husband, Will, and her cousin and best friend, Felicity, confess they've fallen in love, so Tess takes her young son, Liam, and goes to Sydney to live with her mother. There she meets up with an old boyfriend, Connor Whitby, while enrolling Liam in St. Angela's Primary School, where Cecilia is the star mother. Rachel Crowley, the school secretary, believes that Connor, St. Angela's PE teacher, is the man who, nearly three decades before, got away with murdering her daughter—a daughter for whom she is still grieving. Simultaneously a page-turner and a book one has to put down occasionally to think about and absorb, Moriarty's novel challenges the reader as well as her characters, but in the best possible way. Agent: Faye Bender, Faye Bender Literary Agency. (Aug.)