After reading three Liane Moriarty books, I decided to just keep going with the same author for awhile, and as it turns out, The Hypnotist’s Love Story is my favourite. It has the same fantastic tension as Big Little Lies, while maintaining Moriarty’s sense of humour and strong character development. This is not your average story and the plot, characters, and writing are completely original.
The hypnotist, Ellen O’Farrell, has watched as her friends slowly paired off and have children. She’s watched love stories and stories of personal triumph unfold through her practice of hypnotherapy. She’s watched all of this, gently and kindly, while seeing her own opportunities for love pass her by. When Ellen meets Patrick through an online dating service, she thinks he’s a fairly average guy, but when she learns that he has a stalker, her interest is piqued. What is it about this man that makes him so appealing that he has an actual stalker? And who is this woman? She gobbles up every crumb of information that Patrick gives her about the stalker, but little does she know, she’s already met the stalker through her hypnotherapy practice.