Liane Moriarty is an Australian novelist, born in Sydney in November 1966. Her books include “The Husband’s Secret”, “Big Little Lies” and “Nine Perfect Strangers”, and four of her novels have been adapted for television.
The eldest of six children, she studied at the University of Technology Sydney and began her career as an advertising copywriter, later running a freelance copywriting business and working in marketing for a legal publisher. Her sister Jaclyn published a first novel in 2000, which prompted Liane to try a book of her own. A children’s book about the Olympics failed to find a publisher, so she enrolled in a creative writing course at Macquarie University and wrote “Three Wishes” there. Pan Macmillan bought it in 2002 and published it the following year.
Her first major success came in 2013 with “The Husband’s Secret”, in which a woman in suburban Sydney opens a secret letter from her husband. “Big Little Lies” (2014) follows the mothers of three kindergarten children in the months before a death at a school fundraiser. It won a Davitt Award in 2015, and Moriarty became the first Australian author to debut at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Her characters are usually middle-class suburban women, and her plots often turn on a crime or a mysterious death.
HBO adapted “Big Little Lies” in 2017 with Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and Shailene Woodley. “Nine Perfect Strangers” became a Hulu series starring Kidman in 2021, “Apples Never Fall” a Peacock miniseries in 2024, and “The Last Anniversary” an Australian series in 2025.
Between 2007 and 2010 she also published three children’s books about Nicola Berry, which her website presents as the Space Brigade series. Her tenth novel, “Here One Moment” (2024), concerns a woman who predicts the deaths of fellow passengers on a flight. “Big Little Truths” (2026) is her first sequel and returns to the characters of “Big Little Lies” ten years on. Her website states that her books have sold over 25 million copies and been translated into 40 languages. She lives in Sydney, and her sisters Jaclyn and Nicola Moriarty are also authors.
Publication Order of Big Little Lies Books
| Big Little Lies | 2014 |
| Big Little Truths | 2026 |
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| Three Wishes | 2003 |
| The Last Anniversary | 2005 |
| What Alice Forgot | 2009 |
| The Hypnotist’s Love Story | 2011 |
| The Husband’s Secret | 2013 |
| Truly Madly Guilty | 2016 |
| Nine Perfect Strangers | 2018 |
| Apples Never Fall | 2021 |
| Here One Moment | 2024 |
Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas
| The Price of Honey | 2026 |
Publication Order of Nicola Berry Books
| The Petrifying Problem with Princess Petronella | 2007 |
| The Shocking Trouble on the Planet of Shobble | 2009 |
| The Wicked War on the Planet of Whimsy | 2010 |