The Last Anniversary

Afterwards, Sophie will always remember the Anniversary Night starting like a sedately moving merry-go-round, with smiling faces and shimmering lights and pretty music, and then gradually, imperceptibly, getting faster and faster until finally it was whirling wildly out of control, a mad, streaky blur of colour and half-glimpses of frantic mouths, which was when she decided she'd like to get off now please because she was feeling sick.

The Gordon family are famous for a long-ago mystery, where two people disappeared leaving their food warm on the table and a tiny baby in a crib. That baby is now an elderly woman, but the story has never lost its hold on the public imagination, and every year on the anniversary a local festival brings in show more the punters. This year is the first year since the death of Connie, the family matriarch, who always used to ensure that everything was just so. Without her, one of the daughters is planning to skip the event (and shake off her controlling husband for a night), a granddaughter is dreaming of turning the story into a successful true-crime podcast, and an unknown man is sending threatening messages about the fact that he knows the story of what really happened. Into this mix comes Sophie, the ex-girlfriend of one of the grandsons, who Connie unexpectedly left her house to - as well as a promise that if she moved in, she would meet her ideal man. There are a lot of emotions and secrets boiling away under the surface, which come to a head on the anniversary night. show less

I'm rounding up from 3.5 stars because I really needed some fluff and this hit the spot even if it didn't hit all the right notes. I'm a sucker for Liane Moriarity's writing style and I enjoy her charismatic and slightly over the top characters. When Sophie discovers that her ex-boyfriend's aunt has left her her house on Scribbly Gum Island she is confused but elated. She'd always had a soft spot for beautiful island - the fact that it was home to Australia's greatest unsolved mystery was just a bonus. Told in alternating perspectives from a myriad cast of wonky characters - The Last Anniversary is a tale of adapting to change and coming to terms with the past. For years those on Scribbly Gum Island have lived with the secret of the show more disappearance of Alice and Jack Munroe. Now that there is a new resident on the small island who isn't family - will the secret escape? Fortunately, Sophie is more interested in finding true love and having a baby before she hits 40 (it's approaching so quickly!). The interactions between all the characters is wonderful, absurd, and fun. A light fluffy read that is enjoyable despite being a little over the top. show less

Moriatry crafts novels that suck you in immediately. The timeline and family tree in this one are a little trickier to follow than her others, but I read it in one weekend and that helped me keep everything straight.

The Gordon family has lived on a small island in Australia for years. A mystery involving a vanished family and abandoned baby has haunted the shores for decades. When Connie, one of the eldest members of the family passes away, she unexpectedly leaves her home to her grandson’s ex-girlfriend Sophie. The odd choice baffles the family, but soon Sophie steps into her ready-made life on the island. She meets Connie’s whimsical sister Rose, Enigma, the mystery baby and her adult daughters: Margie and Laura. The grandkids, show more Grace, Thomas, and Veronica are all adults as well. Each one adds a unique twist to the story.

Grace’s story was powerful because it gave such an intimate look at post-partum depression, something so few people understand. I also loved seeing Margie’s transformation. Standing up for yourself after years of being put down is incredibly difficult. The big twist/reveals weren’t as shocking as some of her other novels, like Big Little Lies, but that didn’t matter. I just enjoy the worlds she creates too much to care.

BOTTOM LINE: The magic of the island is infectious. You want to visit it and be swept away by the mystery of it all. It’s not my favorite Moriarty novel. It definitely feels like an earlier work, but that just means she’s getting better with each book and I have even more great novels to look forward to. show less

There were some great characters in this novel - and there were some serious topics addressed as well. I felt such compassion and fear for Grace, and empathy for Sophie, and admiration for Margie. The revelation of secrets at the end of the book was satisfying without wrapping everyone up in a bow - and there was that last big surprise that Ms. Moriarty specializes in.

4.25 stars
“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you might as well make it dance.” - George Bernard Shaw

Warning: Do not read this book in the vicinity of sleeping babies or people with a nervous disposition. Your frequent spontaneous peals of laughter may startle them.

The Last Anniversary is not a new book, but it is presently on the New York Times Bestsellers. It was originally published in Australia in 2005. Apparently interest in it has been revived due to the huge international success of the author’s more recent books. Frankly, as much as I enjoyed her other novels, this is my favorite – so far.

Sophie Honeywell is a 39-year-old Sydney, Australia resident who works in human resources. She is the only child of Hans show more and Gretel Honeywell, a couple with an insatiable sense of fun and bottomless love for life, each other and their daughter. Sophie is a lovely person inside and outside with a sparkling personality who inspires confidence in almost everyone she meets. Three years prior, she broke up a year-long relationship with Thomas Gordon, just seconds before he was going to whisk her away to Fiji in order to propose to her on one of the islands’ white beaches. She was puzzled to hear his voice on the phone, asking to meet for a drink after work. He would only say that someone had died and he really could not say anything further on the phone.

At the hotel lounge, Thomas explained that Aunt Connie, the family matriarch, had died in her sleep the day prior. Among the very organized stack of papers she left was a letter addressed to Sophie. Aunt Connie and Sophie had only met briefly two or three times during Thomas time. Aunt Connie and the rest of Thomas’ family lived on Scribbly Gum Island, a suburb of Sydney, across the river, though Thomas himself rarely visited the place when Sophie knew him. The letter from Aunt Connie informs Sophie she is the new owner of her lovely home because she knew Sophie would love and appreciate it. She shares a special memory with Sophie from one of her visits to the island, a small moment that meant literally everything to Aunt Connie.

Although Scribbly Gum Island is fictitious, scribbly gums are in fact a type of eucalyptus tree. Moriarty used the very real Parramatta River as the location for her tiny island of six homes. Aunt Connie and Aunt Rose’s grandfather had won the island in a bet with a very wealthy man in the early 20th century. During their childhood, there were two homes – one for grandfather and one for the girls and their parents. Like millions of other people around the world, the Doughty family had a tough time during the Great Depression.

Then an incident occurred which was to turn around their bleak circumstances. Alice and Jack Munro had been renting grandfather’s house after he passed away and on one particular day they asked the Doughty girls, teenagers at the time, to stop by for tea. When the girls got to the house, a marble cake was cooling, the tea kettle was whistling, and the Munros were gone, save for their baby girl, nestled in her crib. The sisters took the child home with them, talked their father into letting them keep her.

Thus The Munro Baby Mystery is born. Connie, the older of the sisters, had an entrepreneurial mind and a fascination with mysteries, especially the real-life mystery of the Mary Celeste. This was a boat that was found abandoned in the Atlantic, on its way from New York to Italy, all ten people who had been aboard had disappeared. No signs of struggle or violence. Connie draws an analogy between the Mary Celeste and the Munro Baby Mystery and the Munro baby, named Enigma by the Doughtys, became a regional celebrity. Her story becomes the family business, a virtual gold mine. Besides tours of the Munro Home, there are souvenirs, selling the story to the media, and an anniversary festival celebrating the date they found Enigma.

By the time Sophie enters the picture, Enigma is grandmother to Thomas, his sister Veronika, and their cousin Grace. She has been a living mystery for 73 years. The emotional ramifications of Connie’s death will rock this rather dysfunctional family to its very core and make this festival marking the discovery of the Munro baby the last anniversary. It is a heck of a ride.

The Last Anniversary is filled with Moriarty’s (does Sherlock Holmes pop into your mind?) trademark wit, and her profound insights into human behavior. She tackles some serious issues in this book – adultery, rape and postpartum depression. Grace is a very successful children’s book writer and illustrator who at age 33 has just given birth to 8-week-old baby Jake. She is repulsed by being a mother and by the baby himself. She is convinced that the child does not like her at all. She fears that the maternal dysfunction of her great-grandmother Munro, who abandoned her own baby is in her DNA. She sits and stares at a carton of milk on the table for two hours, unable to move. Because of Grace’s physical beauty and her own reserved personality, no one recognizes the signs and when Callum, her husband, shares with his own mother that Grace is just not herself, he is basically just shushed. Sometimes husbands don’t get enough respect.

Only a writer of Moriarty’s caliber and remarkable insight into human behavior could produce novels that cover such hot-button subjects and manage to make the reader laugh, drop kick them in the heart, and yet keep turning the pages. show less

Sophie is bequeathed a house on a tiny family-run island, that makes its income from an old mystery.

I enjoy Moriarty’s novels for their insightfulness wit & understanding of contemporary life & issues. But found this one difficult to keep an interest in, too slow-moving and a cast of hum-drum characters, and a lot of post-natal depression.

Margie, a minor character, was the most interesting, married to a man who belittled & ignored her, turning herself & her life around.

Liane Moriarty is my airplane author. Not because her books are fluff, but because she writes the kind of books you want to read in one sitting. I enjoyed this one, but was a little annoyed at how many loose ends there still were at the end of the novel. Sometimes open-ended endings are satisfying, but this one left me feeling a little betrayed. I had invested time in these characters—the least she could do is tie up some of those ends! Still an enjoyable read, with a lot of well-rounded characters, but not my favorite Moriarty novel.