She’d once been appalled to hear of women claiming PMS as a defense for murder. Now she understood. She could happily murder someone today! In fact, she felt like there should be some sort of recognition for her remarkable strength of character that she didn’t.

"Oh, calamity!" is right. Our fabulous weekend has been foiled. Ransacked. Thwarted. Smashed to smithereens. Pardon my bitterness—instead of a day at the spa with Tray, I'm cleaning my house (dreary) and she's working in Provo (blasted work).  But alas, we're silver-lining-kind-of-girls, and thankfully there's one here: she's Vegas bound next weekend! Heaven help the soul who tries to derail this one.

I always say, "When life hands you lemons, pick up a great escape read." Okay, maybe I've never said that before, but it seems like sound advice to me. Some days just call for a page-turner. The hands-down best page-turning escape read I've come across in years is Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty. This one has it all: suspense, drama, witty dialogue, laugh-out-loud humor, and an ending that not even my Nancy-Drew-trained eyes saw coming.

The book centers around three women whose kids attend the same elementary school in an Australian beachside town—where we learn from the outset is the scene of a tragedy. Something's gone terribly wrong at the school's annual Trivia Night, leaving someone dead: in the words of my favorite character, Madeline, "Oh, calamity!" The who, how, and why of it will keep you guessing to the end. It's more than a mystery though. To steal Amazon's description (I've got a house to clean, people), "Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the dangerous little lies we tell ourselves just to survive."

*If you're a book listener, Caroline Lee's narration is spot on. This is one of those books made for listening. Even more fantastic? Word has it that Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon will be starring in an upcoming Big Little Lies miniseries on HBO.

**This is not your mother's beach read (language is quite salty). 

Posted by Rachel