The Last Anniversary

The Last Anniversary is Liane Moriarty's 2005 novel about Sophie Honeywell, who inherits a house on Scribbly Gum Island and walks into a family shaped by an old unsolved disappearance. AMC Global Media identifies the AMC+ series as based on Moriarty's book, and Penguin lists the English paperback with ISBN 9781405918510.

The book sits between Moriarty's lighter social comedy and her darker domestic-mystery work. It has the readable surface of a family ensemble, but the real pull is how a community turns one mystery into business, identity, gossip, and private damage.

Read it before the AMC+ series if you want to understand the island as a social machine. The adaptation can make Scribbly Gum visual; the novel shows how many people have a stake in keeping the old story useful.

Sophie Honeywell is drawn to Scribbly Gum after an unexpected inheritance gives her a new place and a new set of questions.

The Munro Baby mystery is the island's founding story, part family wound and part tourist attraction.

Connie, Rose, and the wider family shape the legacy Sophie enters, with affection, secrecy, and control mixed together.

Grace and Margie help widen the book beyond a single mystery into questions of marriage, motherhood, and ordinary loneliness.

No. 1 - Official AMC+ route. AMC Global Media describes the series as based on Moriarty's best-selling book.

No. 2 - Strong Moriarty doorway. The book is useful for readers who like her ensemble mysteries but want an earlier, less famous entry.

No. 3 - Adaptable setting. Scribbly Gum Island gives the story a contained world with a clear screen hook.

Read this if you are...

• Coming from the AMC+ series.
• Interested in family secrets that are also community rituals.
• Looking for Moriarty beyond Big Little Lies.
• Drawn to Australian domestic fiction with mystery pressure.

Skip it if you are...

• Wanting a hard-boiled crime novel.
• Looking for a single-protagonist thriller.
• Avoiding stories about postpartum strain, secrecy, or family resentment.
• Impatient with ensemble detours around the central mystery.

• Read the island as a business. The mystery is emotional, but it is also part of the local economy.
• Notice the women outside the headline secret. Moriarty spreads the book's pain through quieter domestic plots.
• Keep the tone in mind. The book can be funny and sad within the same family scene.
• Compare the series' emphasis. A TV version may make the old disappearance more dominant than the novel does.

• Liane Moriarty - Big Little Lies. For her sharper school-community mystery.
• Liane Moriarty - Nine Perfect Strangers. For another ensemble built around a contained setting.
• Michelle Frances - The Girlfriend. For domestic suspicion with a cleaner thriller shape.
• Maria Semple - Where'd You Go, Bernadette. For comic family mystery and social pressure.
• Kate Morton - The Lake House. For a larger historical-family mystery comparison.

1. What does Scribbly Gum gain from keeping the mystery alive?
2. Does Sophie inherit a home, a story, or a responsibility?
3. Which family secrets seem protective, and which seem selfish?
4. How does Moriarty balance comedy with emotional pain?
5. Does the old disappearance matter more than the present-day relationships?
6. What should the series make visual about the island?
7. Which subplot changes how you read the central mystery?
8. Does the ending close the story or leave the family still negotiating it?