Big little stories
Liane Moriarty’s first book was about a band of smugglers, smuggling, er, something.
“I don’t know what they were smuggling. I don’t know if I had any idea what smuggling was. It was mostly taken from Enid Blyton,” says the internationally bestselling Australian author. “But there was a little girl called Serene, Serry for short. I can remember creating that character and I can still feel her as one of my characters – that little girl, I feel I know her.”
Liane – pronounced “Lee-ahn” – Moriarty was 10 when her father commissioned her first story with a $1 advance. Now, 45 years after that effort, titled “The Mystery of Dead Man’s Island”, her books have topped international bestseller lists, clocked up more than 22 million sales and inspired two TV series (with more to come).
Her ninth book, , is on course to follow the same stellar trajectory, with a massive 750,000 first print run and a screenplay in the writing. It tells the story of four adult siblings – Troy, Logan, Amy, and Brooke – thrown into varying levels of anxiety when their mother, Joy Delaney, goes missing. Was she killed by her husband, Stan? Or does it have something to do with Savannah, the self-proclaimed
