Nine Perfect Strangers

Every Liane Moriarty novel is different, but the experience of reading one provides the same reliable mainstays: exhaustion (because I’ll be up until 2am reading), awe (at her ability to create characters so real it feels like she’s raided my inner life), and jealousy (because, well, nobody should be allowed to write that well). As a die-hard fan, I thought I knew what to expect with Nine Perfect Strangers. But I had no idea.

Nine strangers book a detox at a resort a few hours' drive from Sydney. All bear the scars of previous emotional or physical crises, which are revealed—often very movingly—as the guests settle into their new surroundings. From the outset, though, there's an insidious feeling of unease, which you shouldn't ignore: It's going to explode into full-blown madness by the halfway mark.

It was the cast of characters that I fell in love with, initially—so human; so lost; so damaged, funny, and absurd—but their journeys were unlike any I’ve been on with Moriarty before. The story is both far-fetched and chillingly plausible, darkly funny, and, above all, utterly gripping. You won’t be able to put it down.

Nine people gather at a remote health resort. Some are here to lose weight, some are here to get a reboot on life, some are here for reasons they can’t even admit to themselves. Amidst all of the luxury and pampering, the mindfulness and meditation, they know these ten days might involve some real work. But none of them could imagine just how challenging the next ten days are going to be.

Frances Welty, the formerly best-selling romantic novelist, arrives at Tranquillum House nursing a bad back, a broken heart, and an exquisitely painful paper cut. She’s immediately intrigued by her fellow guests. Most of them don’t look to be in need of a health resort at all. But the person that intrigues her most is the strange and charismatic owner/director of Tranquillum House. Could this person really have the answers Frances didn’t even know she was seeking? Should Frances put aside her doubts and immerse herself in everything Tranquillum House has to offer—or should she run while she still can?

It’s not long before every guest at Tranquillum House is asking exactly the same question.