I really enjoyed The Fifth Letter. A fabulous offering from new author Nicola Moriarty.

Joni, Trina, Deb and Eden have been friends since high school. Marriage and kids have come along and it seems like their annual vacation together is. Rocking less of a priority for some of them as Joni desperately tries to bring them all back together. After a wine filled evening they agree to all write an anonymous letter giving away a secret about themselves. But each letter turns out to be a confession and this fun game turns into a nightmare as cracks begin to appear in their friendships. Bit worst of all, it appears that a fifth letter has been written, one that someone tried to destroy, and that Joni has found. What should Joni do and how will this affect them all?

I thought this book was brilliantly written and I found myself totally immersed in the story. The characters worked well together and were all believable. I'm sure any reader would find themselves reminiscing back to their old school friendships and able to translate the story easily. I found the build up to the end pretty good the twists and turns thrown in were an added bonus.

I look forward to reading more from this author. Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin UK - Michael Joseph and Nicola Moriarty for the chance to review.

Wow I loved this book. I struggled to put it down I just wanted to find out what was going to happen.
Four friends who got together in high school get together for a boozy holiday, the years have passed, marriages, children but they have remained friends. During this boozy break they dare each other to anonymously write a secret down in a letter and then they try to decide whose secret is whose. Lots of secrets come out but can he four friends overcome these and stay strong.
A fab book that was a definite page turner.

The Fifth Letter by Nicola Moriarty is about 4 women who have been best friends since high school. This friendship has seen them through quite a lot but with the passage of time they are not as close as they once were due to life and circumstances getting in the way. Joni, Deb Eden and Trina all meet up for their annual get away only this time after a little too much alcohol they decide that it would be a good idea for each of them to write an anonymous letter detailing a secret that the rest of the group doesn’t know about. What starts out as a seemingly harmless game ends up exposing buried grudges and betrayals. Then there is the “fifth letter”, written by one of the group who had a change of mind about the secret they were about to share

I must admit the premise of the book had me interested, you just knew that something was bound to go wrong. After all if Joni and co were once a really close group surely these secrets would not exist between them. And if those secrets did exist for all this time how would sharing them even now and anonymously be remotely a good idea?? Just goes to show nothing good happens when alcohol is involved.

Joni seems to be the driving force behind this group of women. She was the one who banded them as a group at school after something that one of their teachers said. She is also the one who arranges the yearly holidays, coordinating schedules and booking the accommodation. Some of the story is also told from her perspective which could distort the events that take place as we all know different people see things in different ways

Now I am not going to spoil it by giving any clues as to what was in each letter but human nature means that of course despite trying to hide writing styles after each letter was read the guessing games would begin to see who could work out who wrote which letter.

Inevitably the friendships are tested and some don’t quite survive so maybe some things are better left unsaid.

For me although the book was well written and you get to see into the lives of these 4 friends, there is one part of the ending that just seemed a bit odd and out of place. That being said it is still an enjoyable read about friendships and what they can endure.

This is my type of genre so this book sounded good.How wrong I was.The story was written in a childlike way.
It started off good and I was looking forward to the exposure of something explosive.It turned out to be a damp squid with quite boring details and a not very interesting conclusion.
Some of it was a bit stupid and predictable and overall not worth reading.

How well do you know your friends, do you share everything, even secrets which you wouldn't share with your family or other half......really? This is the story of four high school friends who have grown up, got married, having kids, but what happens when one of you hasn't got everything they have.......or is it. A book of truth or dare, love and lies, highly recommended.

Loved the characters in this book, really made me care about them. Well written and easy to read.

The positives of this book are that it is an easy read and one that you want to find answers from so from that point of view I kept reading. However, the story was a little too tame in many respects and I didn't find the inclusion of a priest brought anything to the book at all. At one point I'd totally forgotten Joni was actually speaking to him. The characters were not strong enough for me to have any feelings towards them and therefore didn't actually care what happened to them along the way. A more detailed introduction would have been beneficial to the story as a whole. Four old school friends catching up and exposing their darkest secrets and the devastation this causes is a great basis for a good story but I did feel unfulfilled at the conclusion.

The twists and turns of friendship turned bad through to misunderstandings and jealousy were as expected In story depicting friendships lasting over 20 years.

Nicola drew the reader in with the descriptions she used to weave the story of the 4 friends, I was kept guessing right until the end about who wrote the 5th letter, so well done!

An enjoyable read about secrets and mystery . With likeable characters well worth reading

The Fifth Letter was my first read of 2017, and I enjoyed it. It wasn't all that I thought it would be but it still held my attention.

I got The Fifth Letter as a NetGalley arc so thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read it.


The Fifth Letter is published on January 24th 2017 but it's is very much an ADULT read! It's is about 4 girls, Joni, Deb, Trina and Eden who were friends at school. They go away to a house for a get together trip in their 30's. The main part of the story is set while the girls are in their 30's. One of them has the idea for them each to write a secret - something they've never told anyone else before but it's kept confidential. Then each one of the girls will read a random secret, and try to work out who it belongs to.

It's set in Australia, which is a little different as most books I read are set in the USA/the UK. We see the main characters on a beach a couple of times.

Spoilers below...

There's a FIFTH letter (what the book is titled) as one of the girls writes two letters. This fifth letter is noticed by Joni, so we know it's not hers straight away. The book is kind of a contemporary/mystery trying to work out just who wrote the fifth letter.

While I enjoyed the mystery aspect for what it was, I was slightly let down when it was revealed who the fifth letter had belonged to. I'm not going to spoil who it was here because I don't feel there's really much point in reading this book if you already know from the outset. It doesn't just throw who it is in your face, which is good. The reason that I was disappointed was that I didn't really like the character of whom wrote the 5th letter.
There were a couple of the main girls that I just didn't like from the beginning. I found them boring to read about.

Also, this book deals with the relationships of all of the main characters. We see their friendship falter at times as well as with their husbands back home. For example, one of the husbands is controlling, while another doesn't show that he loves his wife, while another has a thing for one of the other girls in the story...

We learn at the beginning of the book that one of the girls is talking to a Catholic priest in confession. Is this for something she did on the holiday or for something that one of her friends did?

I enjoyed this book as I said above but it wasn't a stand out book that I'll reread any time soon. I'm therefore giving The Fifth Letter 3 stars.

Kept my interest throughout, but the characters were rather two dimensional. I couldn't remember who was married to whom and what traits the four women had to distinguish one from another. However, most women will identify the precarious nature of best friends, especially the love/jealous aspect.Interesting premise,ending abit disappointing.

Seriously disliked this novel - the characters are vapid, silly and not credible at all. I understand that there's meant to a big mystery which we get deeper and into, but the characters, their concerns and how they engage is just so silly! SERIOUSLY thought the ending was stupid - really not dramatic at all. And can I say - a confessional for the point of narration? Just weird. What priest would hang around that long?
Very silly, did not like at all. Just about made it to the end.

This is a good holiday read, or one to curl up with. It got me thinking about my own close, long term friendships and how we would fare in addressing long held secrets. Does everyone have one? I formed my opinion of Joni, Deb, Trina and Eden early on, and it was interesting to see how their interaction and roles as teenagers had clearly formed their roles in an adult relationship. I loved that they set aside time to holiday together every year, but it seemed to be more of an effort for some than others. The story being told from the confession box to the priest was interesting and worked- it was clear what was being relayed and what was outwith that storytelling. Some ups and downs, and held my attention. I wanted to know who had written the Fifth Letter - and I did change my mind as I read. The quirky twist right at the end made me smile.

An interesting concept. Four childhood friends and their secrets,how well do they really know each other. An unusual story which dragged a bit in the middle. Took forever to get to the point and the consequences of the fifth letter.

I hate writing negative reviews, but this was truly terrible - for me anyway. Spoilers throughout; don't read this unless you've finished.

I adore Liane Moriarty's books and since this is her sister, I figured storytelling talent might run in the family, but I disliked it intensely. The plot itself fell apart for me almost immediately: four friends each write an anonymous confession with a secret to share with each other, but as soon as the first one is read for them to discuss openly and supposedly supportively, the obvious flaw arose. One of those discussing it is pretending to have heard it for the first time and therefore has to lie - 'Gosh really? I wonder who wrote that?' which seemed a ludicrously dishonest and ugly way to have a shared conversation about a secret between best friends since childhood. Particularly since no attempt appeared to be made to hide their 'voices' and one of the secrets was 'I hate one of you and want to hurt you'. Surely all that could possibly achieve, at BEST, is to make three people wonder if they are the target, thus damaging ALL the friendships irreparably?

The writing itself was facile and seemed predicated on the notion of women being primarily wives and mothers, before anything else. At one point someone says another woman should give up smoking because her children would resent her for dying before she gets to see them married or produce offspring. Seriously? That's the take-home here? That if you die, the worst thing you could have done is deprive your child of you viewing their wedding? Not the loss of your own life and whatever you achieved in it? Even their secrets were all based on their men - my marriage isn't working, I have a crush on someone else's husband, I'm not a stereotypically devoted mother, I can't give my husband kids, my husband doesn't want to have sex in the shower with me while he cleans his teeth in the morning.

There were some random and, as it turned out, pointless interactions with 'cute surfer boys', lots of emphasis on how attractive or thin the friends were and whether or not that impacted on them (jealousy, insecurity etc) which made me feel that the overarching message was that women can't sustain viable friendships at all because there will always be competition, rivalry, sub-groups, bitchiness and so on. One of them even invents a teenage pregnancy and adoption as her confession, which seemed borderline psychopathic, considering this was just meant to be four mates on a wine-and-pizza night...Thoroughly depressing nonsense.

I do love Australian fiction, makes a refreshing change from US/Brit authors. This book lived up to my high expectations. Definitely a page turner, with realistic characterisations.

It is mainly a story told from the point of view of Joni, but also told from the view of the other three.
Sometimes you don’t know who is narrating, but you make an assumption…..and I wasn’t right some of the time! It made for an interesting read.

As the girls take their annual holiday together, leaving their families at home, they decide to write some anonymous letters. Spill some juicy gossip, tell a secret, a confession? Truth or lie?
When the letters are read aloud, I was trying to guess who wrote it. As a reader we only knew which one was Joni’s.
I loved the friendship aspect of it, and the way the girls interacted. There were some lovely thoughts about each other, and some frankly disturbing thoughts!!
I liked that I got to know about their partners, even though you didn’t get to meet them much, I still felt I knew a lot about them. The characters had a good depth.
In fact I visualised the whole book really well. I felt I was there with them.
An enjoyable read and I’d definitely recommend it.

Thanks to the publishers Penguin, and NetGalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

A story full of secrets and mystery, but also friendship. The four characters are believable and likeable but once shared secrets are divulged it becomes explosive. A slow starter but built up to a page turner. I will look out for this author again.

The fifth letter is an enjoyable read. Others have written a much better synopsis than I could attempt!
This is a story full of secrets and mystery, but above all it is one of friendship. All four characters are likeable and interesting, their closeness and shared experiences make this a book well worth investing your time in.
Thank you net galley and publisher for opportunity to review this book.