The Last Anniversary stars Sophie Honeywell, who broke up with her boyfriend a few years ago, hours before the elaborate proposal he had planned. Since then, he’s married and had a child. Sophie remains, as she calls it, “mortifyingly single”. Then Tom’s aunt dies, and leaves her house on Scribbly Gum island (damn Australians) to Sophie — along with the mystery associated with the island.
“Sometimes a girl has to stop waiting around and come up with her own fairytale ending.”
As usual, Moriarty juggles a lot of storylines here. There’s Sophie’s love life, of course, and the Munro Baby mystery that’s haunted Scribby Gum island for years. Then there’s all the family on the island — fat Aunt Marge, who joins Weight Watchers and discovers a lot about herself (I actually loved this storyline); Grace, who’s suffering from postpartum depression and has decided to pair up Sophie and her husband since Sophie loves her baby more than she does herself (I had a problem with this one — I thought the actual postpartum depression was handled really well but the whole “Sophie can marry my husband” thing was just stupid); Grace’s bitchy mother; Tom’s sister Veronika, who shrieks at everyone and is determined to solve the mystery, and so on.
All in all, it’s an interesting (albeit nutty) group of people, and the majority of the storylines intersect and work together smoothly. And it was fun to solve the Munro Baby mystery, of course.
