An absolute triumph - a total return to form for Liane Moriarty, Apples Never Fall is a fantastic family drama, an analysis of loyalties and a breathtaking mystery all rolled into one. Cannot recommend more highly.

I was so excited to read this brand new publication from one of my favourite authors, and Apples Never Fall had me completely hooked.

The story surrounds Joy and Stan Delaney, retired tennis coaches, and their four grown up children. Tennis has always been a huge part of their lives and the family share varying degrees of talent in the sport. When Stan and Joy decide to retire from their coaching business they look forward to a calmer way of life, family time and the exciting prospect of grandchildren.

However drama seems to follow them when a stranger appears on the doorstep, distraught, injured and in need of a safe haven. Joy's maternal instincts kick in but the family are suspicious of the young girl and try to find out if her story is genuine.

The plot deepens when Joy suddenly vanishes, leaving only a garbled text message.She is the glue that keeps the family together and it is totally out of character . The police are mystified by her disappearance, but the clues are there and suspicions are running high.

This is a family drama / crime mystery with a difference. The complex, well drawn characters have a multitude of issues, rivalry, health problems and relationship woes which make them fascinating and completely believable. However, despite everything the family care deeply and will do anything to protect each other. The adult children are all affected by their childhoods where they were constantly encouraged to make their parents dreams come true and become the next tennis superstars. Due to lack of talent, motivation or determination, the siblings turned to alternative walks of life and Stan finds a pupil with a glittering future.

I loved how Liane Moriarty describes an authentic long standing marriage with all the highs and lows, changing emotions and insecurities which are inevitable in real life. The mystery element of the story expertly ties together despite red herrings, secrets and unreliable narrators along the way. Any novel set in the present day needs a nod to the pandemic and the author integrates this, but it is not a major part of the story. As expected the writing flows beautifully between past and present and as a tennis fan I found the content well researched. The extremely well drawn characters light up this emotive and thought provoking story..

This is a book that draws you in with a mystery guest arriving at Joy and Stan's house. Tennis experts now retired. Who is she? How is she connected to their past? Where has Joy gone? A rollercoaster of a ride. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me review this book.

I enjoyed this book but I found it quite slow to get going. I found the character of Savannah a bit unrealistic and I almost gave up reading this book about a quarter of the way through. Hopefully I’m glad I didn’t as it turned out to be a slightly different book to my normal reads, but I’m not sure if I would read it again.

This is a stunning book that I was very very sad to finish. If I could give it ten stars I would. Liane has given us a story that makes you feel as warm and comfortable as grandma Delaneys famous apple crumble. I could easily have continued reading about the Delaney family for a lot longer, can we please have a sequel? Easily the best book I’ve read this year and I read an awful lot. Superbly written, amazing characters with complex but adorable personalities and incredible depth., I could see every one of them in my minds eye and imagine .the moment when Joy and Stan got together as teenagers, years later when he pulled her pony tail to kiss her, each and every nuance in their long married life. Every character is introduced so that we meet them in appropriate moments, then at later moments relevant to that particular chapter, and again just as we think they have no more relevance and. or more to add. Suddenly it all adds together. I almost felt like a relative of the family being party to the trials and tribulations of a happy marriage with four fabulous, but like us all, flawed offspring. And then there is Savannah, where do I start? This book is nothing short of genius., loved every single page.

"Christina shot him a look. His eyes danced. She bowed her head and squeezed the bridge of her nose while she considered the absurdity of this case."

When I was offered this advance copy I was so excited but coming towards the end of this book I felt that absurd really is the sum of it. The jumping in time is tedious and I can only hope when the story is inevitably sold to Netflix for a mini series starring Nicole Kidman in yet another ensemble cast that this element is cut away. It is frankly done to death and not clever anymore. There's a twist at the end because of course there is.

Maybe this will work for the constant churn of television but as a reader I'm just so bored with it.

A cracking goood read by Liane Moriaety. Joy Delaney is missing... or is she? It's all a bit confusing for the local police officers. Her four adult children are not sure. They are all dealing with their own issues. Who is Savannah, who recently appeared in their parents' lives and became a much appreciated house guest.?
Joy and husband Stan Delaney run a successful tennis coaching business. Each of their children were brought up emersed on the world of competitive tennis. The couple were devoted to each other, weren't they? Surely Stan isn't responsible for Joy's disappearance?
The police think that he might be.
A story which takes your through the lives of the characters and the impact of their past experiences on their present lives.

Slow to start, this turned into a novel I couldn't put down. Another great read from Liane Moriarty.

Apples never fall by Liane Moriarty

I must start this review by confessing that I had a vested interest in this story. My middle name is Joy, I’m 69, and I play tennis. However I don’t have four children, or run a tennis academy.
Joy Delaney has gone missing, and her adult family and husband Stan are at a loss to know why. A while before she vanished, a mystery woman called Savannah appeared at their house late one night, and was lodging there for some time.
Very soon the police are involved, and there is a suspicion of foul play.
Against this background, the story of the Delaney family unfolds, along with their relationships with each other and Savannah.
The characters are all believable, flaws, and all, the book is beautifully plotted, with plenty of twists, and every loose end is tied up by the time the slightly chilling end is reached.
Loved it!

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Michael Joseph UK for the opportunity to read this book.

apples never fall is a classic liane moriarty book. there’s characters you love one second and hate the next, the weirdest (in the best way) plot lines and brutally honest but hilarious commentary on social issues. this book specifically has amazing mental health representation through amy’s character, which i related to a lot.

one of my favorite things about moriarty’s writing is her ability to not only craft complex characters and put them in the craziest circumstances, but also to write intricate relationships among different characters — parents and children, in-laws, friends and relatives all play a major part throughout the book as the delaney family try to find a missing joy. there was also a refreshing look at gender roles and sexism, through the lens of joy, an ‘elderly’ woman who got married young and didn’t get to to have the career she wanted. this is not something i’ve read about in other books, so i appreciated the point of view.


finally, this book actually talks about COVID and the impact it has had on everyone. when i got to the epilogue, i was surprised, and thankful that the entire pandemic wasn’t reduced to vague mentions. for some reason, seeing it being written about in fiction just made it seem more real, and i enjoyed reading about it from the character’s point of view.

Liane Moriarty's books are reliably fabulous, so I was delighted to be invited to read an advance copy of her latest, Apples Never Fall. (A bit of an odd title which I presume is a reference to the saying "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree".... although there are actual apples actually falling - out of the basket of a bike - near the beginning.)

Anyway, Apples Never Fall is about the tennis-playing-and-coaching Delaney family - Stan and Joy, now approaching seventy, and their four adult children - and the stranger, a young woman named Savannah, who literally turns up on the doorstep late one night and quickly makes herself indispensable.

Then Joy sends a cryptic text (hilariously relatable in itself - my mum's texts can also be adventures in autocorrect) before disappearing completely. Is it really possible that she's been murdered? The Delaneys' marriage seems pretty solid, after all, even if Joy laments the continued absence of grandchildren and Stan still frets over the tennis protégé who got away, world champion Harry Haddad.

It's a super-addictive read as we get drawn into the lives of Joy and Stan and their four children, Amy, Logan, Troy and Brooke, all former star junior players who failed in various ways to live up to their potential, and who all have personal challenges to face in their adult lives.

We see quite a bit of the Delaneys (including our first glimpse of them) through the eyes of various random onlookers - a waitress, a hairdresser, neighbours. It's an interesting way to both impart information and show how they appear in the eyes of the world as well as to themselves.

And then there's Savannah, the stranger with her own unfathomable agenda.

A highly entertaining read about family relationships, the sometimes toxic weight of parental expectation and the experience of ageing. Excellent.

Amazing! I never saw the twists coming at all. This story flits between present day, when Stan’s wife Joy has gone missing, abs a year earlier, when a stranger turns up on the doorstep. The story weaves neatly together until they link and we find out the story behind the stranger. An absolutely brilliant read that I couldn’t put down.

s there anything nicer than finding an email in your inbox saying 'Hi, we thought you might want to read this'? The answer is no, unless it's a beach, a hot day, a cold drink, an inviting sea and a truly excellent book, especially when the invite in question is for the new Liane Moriarty. I clicked through to Netgalley in record speed.
I absolutely adored this clever forensic examination of family and marriage set against a disappearance. The Delaneys are, from the outside, a charmed family. Joy and Stan, the parents are still sickeningly in love after fifty years together and their four tall, good looking competitive children are all close by. Okay, so none have presented Joy with a grandchild yet, and maybe they seem to have trouble holding onto relationships. And maybe she still worries about Amy's mental health and life choices, especially as her daughter approaches forty, and maybe Brooke's migraines still cause her guilt, and maybe she looks at her sons and wonders why Troy tries too hard and Logan not hard enough, but she knows how lucky she is. Until that is, a stranger shows up at her door and slowly starts to reveal all the secrets and insecurities the Delaneys hide from each other as much as the world. And when, almost a year later, Joy goes missing, her children have to ask the question, how well do they really know their parents? And is Stan really capable of killing his wife? It's unthinkable - isn't it?
Told through a series of flashbacks and overheard conversations we get to know every character, including the police inspector investigating Joy's disappearance, giving us the opportunity to see the family dynamics, mythology and reality from every side. Brought up in a tennis school, all four children still battle with the expectations to win that permeated their childhoods, while Stan broods about the champion who got away and Joy looks back at a life spent juggling motherhood, work and marriage, wondering what the sum total of all those meals and late nights multi tasking really add up to. Is any of it worth the possible glittering tennis career she gave up? Retired and with the children long moved out, she can't help examine all the long years of marriage to a man focused on winning, a man who had the freedom to walk away when things got hard - and he did, many times, for an hour or a day or a week - and wonder how she got to be this senior citizen, desperate for a call from her children and trying to fill her time.
Taut, thoughtful, perfectly plotted and paced and wryly written, this is a book not to missed. Highly highly recommended.

As excellent as I hoped! A fast-paced, tightly woven story about parents and adult children - how much do we really know about the people closest to us? Highly recommend.