Have you noticed that when it comes to famous and/or beloved writers, the unexpected is not welcome? I couldn’t believe how many people groused about Tana French’s last book (review here) when it turned out not to include the Dublin Murder Squad, even though it was a great story on its own.

I will confess, however, that I myself have done some “editing” when it comes to authors I like: For instance, I freely tell everyone that Jenny Colgan’s books previous to 2012 are not up to her standards, while all the books written during and subsequent to that year are wonderfully plotted, characterized, and entertaining.

I have come to the conclusion that while there may sometimes be validity in people’s rejection of particular titles because they were written early in a writer’s career, the truth is probably just that they didn’t follow the successful formula the author later evolved and made her own. In other words, they were unexpected.

One such novel of which I just turned the last page with great personal satisfaction is Liane Moriarty’s book The Last Anniversary. When I picked it up, I had already read many of Moriarty’s books, beginning with the later, more well known (and successful) ones and gradually working my way backwards. Her more recent books are not precisely formula, but they do seem to deal with women (and men) of a certain age, a certain financial and social status, and at a particular stage in their marriages, their careers, their parenthood, or what have you. So The Last Anniversary came as something of a surprise.

First of all, while the protagonist is about the right age (39), nothing else about her conforms to Moriarty’s other characters who, by this time, have entered into (and sometimes already exited out of) matrimony, have most of them had children, and almost uniformly live in the suburbs populated by others such as themselves. Sophie Honeywell is a successful business woman, popular and with many friends, but the last person in her circle to remain single. She sometimes wonders if she did right, breaking up with Thomas Gordon on the very day he had been planning to propose; she simply didn’t feel passionate enough about Thomas and was, in fact, a little stifled by his adoration, but perhaps she has missed her one chance in life to have the family she has always wanted? Sophie mostly doesn’t let it get her down, and she never thinks about Thomas (now married to someone else) until an odd occurrence brings him back into her life.

While they were dating, Thomas took her to the family “compound,” an island in the Hawkesbury River about an hour from Sydney where his entire family lives. Sophie had actually been there before she met Thomas; Scribbly Gum Island has become a tourist attraction because of an unsolved mystery regarding the Munro Baby. Thomas’s family are the caretakers of the mystery house from which Alice and Jake Munro went missing, leaving behind a whistling kettle, a freshly baked cake, and their baby crying in her cradle. Thomas’s great-aunts Connie and Rose discovered (and raised) the baby, and turned the mystery of her parents’ disappearance into a rather lucrative business—tours of the house, followed by cups of tea and scones, not to mention the sale of tourist tat.

Now, Thomas’s Aunt Connie has died, and she has somewhat inexplicably left her house not to any of her own relatives but to Sophie. There was something about Sophie’s innate cheerfulness that Aunt Connie had enjoyed, the few times they had met, and she decided Sophie was the type of person she wanted living in her house after her, even though she is no longer with Thomas.

Sophie makes some token objections but is secretly delighted; she adored Aunt Connie’s house from the moment she set foot in it, she loves the idea of living on an island, and she is more than ready for a change in her life. Although Sophie, an only child, is quite happy with her own family of three and has been quite spoiled with love and attention by her parents, she is also happy to be absorbed into this new, larger family.

The thing I liked so much about this book is that it relentlessly pursues the unexpected. With that build-up you would think that the next event would be for Sophie to find some young man associated with the island who was perfect for her, but with some obstacles in the way that would make it just absorbing enough to watch them work out how to come together. That doesn’t happen.

As you are introduced to other characters on the island, you develop new expectations, but the story keeps building them up and then taking yet another twist. Margie, one of the two daughters of the Munro Baby, is in an unhappy marriage with husband Ron, who no longer sees or values her. Margie eventually decides to take action to change her life, but keeps it a secret from everyone who knows her best. Granddaughter Grace, a young and beautiful artist married to Callum, has just given birth to Jake and is suffering cruelly from postpartum depression, but manages to present a blank face to the world and hide her secret. Aunt Rose, adrift after her big sister Connie dies, wonders if it’s time at almost 90 years old to start making her own decisions instead of abiding by Connie’s iron-willed decrees.

Moriarty hits a perfect balance between the whimsical and serious sides of this story. She addresses such issues as post-natal depression, the tick-tock of the baby clock for women approaching their 40s, stale marriages, and women’s insecurities in general, but she never lets the individual issues overwhelm the direction and mood of the book.

Threaded in amongst these narratives as a sort of semi-comedic relief is the central mystery of the Munro Baby, which certain younger members of the family are determined to solve. Connie and Rose know the truth, as does Enigma (the actual Munro Baby, now in her 70s), but Connie decreed that none of the others were to know until their 40th birthdays had arrived.

Although Sophie remains firmly the protagonist, the glimpses into the backgrounds, desires, and secrets of all the other characters make this a lively story that keeps the reader guessing almost to the end. None of the secrets are resolved in quite the way most readers would expect (and there is a perfect little “easter egg” at the end from an unexpected direction), which is what made this book a success for me, despite its lack of resemblance to Moriarty’s later oeuvre. Take a chance on it yourself and see if you agree.

Can I say that the various covers used on this book were irritating in their almost complete irrelevance to the story? Why not a picture of an island? or a deserted house on the shore? or even the damned marble cake left freshly baked on the table? Why a tree? Why a floating key on a ribbon? Why a hill with a baby buggy? (the closest, but still not accurate) C’mon, publishers, figure it out.