A woman on a plane gets up and points to each passenger, telling them when and how they will die. Naturally, it unhinges some people.

This is one of Liane Moriarty's longer books but oh boy is this one good.

"Fate cannot be fought"

This tale was emotional, thought provoking and funny. I enjoyed all of the characters and their logic behind their motives.

The story follows a group of people flying on a plane from Hobart to Sydney. A "psychic" boards the plane and in the middle of the flight, to everyone's surprise, begins to predict date and cause of death for each passenger. No one takes her seriously until her first prediction comes true, then much to their surprise another two come true. Now the remaining passengers try to fight their fates living cautiously but also changing their lives in order to live more fully. If their days are numbered wouldn't you want to?

I enjoy Liane's writing and books that make me contemplate life and rethink the why.

Here One Moment begins like an ordinary flight where you expect to sit back and relax, only for everything to change in an instant when the passengers’ deaths are predicted. The central character, Cherry, has a unique gift: the ability to foresee people’s future, including the year of their death. The novel explores how each passenger reacts when told their "death year," pulling readers into the intimate and emotional journeys of these characters.

The premise is intriguing, sparking reflections on how we might respond in such a situation. The story did remind me of The Measure in its exploration of fate and mortality.

However, while the story was interesting, I felt the book was a bit too long—by about 100 pages. It could have been tighter without losing its impact. Still, it was a thought-provoking read that kept me engaged, if not fully captivated throughout.

Thank you to NetGalley for an early pre-read of this book. These opinions are my own.

I loved everything about this. Liane has a great ability to wrote a bunch of random characters and by the end weave a tapestry of connection that brings tears to my eyes. Grief, ocd, and depression were themes handled with care.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC.

Liane Moriarty’s “Here One Moment” is a masterfully woven tale that explores the delicate interplay between fate and free will, set against the backdrop of a seemingly ordinary flight from Hobart to Sydney. The novel begins with an unexpected twist: an older woman, unremarkable until she isn’t, stands up and predicts the deaths of her fellow passengers. This eerie proclamation sets the stage for a story that is as much about the inevitability of destiny as it is about the choices we make in the face of it.

Moriarty’s strength lies in her ability to create richly detailed characters who feel both relatable and complex. Each passenger on the flight is meticulously crafted, their lives and secrets slowly unraveling as the narrative progresses. The novel’s protagonist, Claire, is a woman grappling with her own sense of control and certainty. Her journey is one of self-discovery and acceptance, as she navigates the turbulent waters of grief, love, and the human desire for control in an unpredictable world.

The novel’s structure is brilliantly executed, with Moriarty seamlessly blending moments of tension and introspection. Her prose is both sharp and lyrical, capturing the nuances of human emotion with a deft touch. The themes of the novel—destiny, free will, and the struggle for control—are explored with depth and sensitivity, making “Here One Moment” a thought-provoking read.

Moriarty’s signature wit and humor are also present, providing a counterbalance to the novel’s darker themes. Her social commentary is incisive, offering a satirical look at the societal norms and expectations that shape our lives. This blend of humor and poignancy is what makes Moriarty’s writing so compelling and relatable.

“Here One Moment” is a noel that challenges readers to reflect on their own lives and the choices they make, while also offering a gripping and emotionally resonant story. For fans of Moriarty’s previous works, this novel is a must-read, showcasing her talent for blending mystery, drama, and profound human insight.

In conclusion, “Here One Moment” is a beautifully crafted novel that explores the complexities of fate and free will with intelligence and heart. Liane Moriarty has once again proven herself to be a master storyteller, delivering a narrative that is both captivating and deeply moving.

there were so many things that I loved about this book!!! it gave THE MEASURE x MANIFEST vibes & I was invested in the character heavy story from start to finish! 🫨

for a 500+ page literary fiction novel, it sure didn’t read like one! the short chapters & constant POV changes made the story seem so much shorter! and I loved meeting cherry, our “psychic” telling everyone how they’re going to die, and the passengers on the plane

stories focusing on choosing how to live & choosing how to accept fate always get me in a crossroads… it reminds me to live my life to the fullest and be grateful for the time on this planet that I have, but also gets me a little down when I think about losing everyone eventually in life 🙃 but also that’s a ✨ trauma ✨ trigger for me so…

while cherry’s backstory felt a little mundane and odd at times, it all paid off in the end. I love the concept of picking up on little details in stories and in real life, and liane moriarty did an excellent job tying everything together!

definitely my favorite by this author so far!! thank you netgalley and crown / random house for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

rating: 4.5 stars
wine pairing: tasmania sauvignon blanc

On an ordinary day, on a most ordinary route from Hobart to Sydney, Australia, an old woman boards a plane. Aboard that plane are passengers from all walks of life, most with no connection to each other and many without anything quite notable about themselves at all.

And yet as the plane reaches mid-flight, everything changes. The ordinary old woman, almost too prim and proper to notice when she arose from her seat in 4D, begins singling out each passenger with a solemn declaration: cause of death, age of death. Now, the old woman's words are confusing at first (Did she say she has heart failure? And that she's 94?) But as she moves throughout the plane, reality dawns on the passengers: she's predicting the moment of their deaths. And nobody, not even the 7 year-old boy nestled with his mother, or the on-cloud-nine newlyweds, are spared.

When the plan lands, the passengers disembark, and life--with a hefty dash more anxiety for most--resumes for all. The woman, known only later as "The Death Lady" seemingly vanishes, but her predictions begin to come true.

And that, readers, is where the story really starts. "Here One Moment" surprised me in the best possible way. Though not quite as original as "The Measure" when we talk about mortality at the center of contemporary fiction, its sentimentality and profoundness comes in almost unexpected bursts that tugged on my heartstrings so many times. The large cast of characters (a hair too large in my opinion) takes some acclimating to, but its well worth it for the handful of exceptional characters you'll discover on the journey. Simply put, "Here One Moment" begs the age-old question in a fresh and reimagined way: if you knew the moment your time was up, how would you spend what's left?

What a unique book! I am not someone who gravitates toward long books and tend to just pass them up but I’m sure glad I gave this one a go! It only took a couple pages for me to be fully invested in the story and all the characters especially the “main” character aka the death lady.

Read this if you like
-multiple POVs
- character driven
-unique plots
- emotional books

What an absolutely amazing book! I seriously could not put it down. What if you knew the age and way you were going to die? This happens to a plane full of passengers when a random woman starts pointing at each person individually telling them their age of death and cause of death.

When 3 of the woman’s predictions come to fruition, we are taken on a journey through a handful of passengers’ lives and how the “Death Lady’s” predictions have affected them.

Truly a page turner. Liane Moriarty really did it again.

Thanks to Netgally and Crown Publishing for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you @PRHAudio #PRHAudioPartner for the complimentary audiobook and to Netgalley, Crown Publishing, and the author for the ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts.

“But that’s the thing about life: both your wildest dreams and your worst nightmares can come true.”

Liane Moriarty does it again! What a fascinating and exceptional story about fate, love, loss, and faith. There are a lot of characters and storylines at play but never once did I get confused as to who was who, which is a testament to her writing for sure. This will be a book hangover book for me. I feel bad for whatever book I pick up next.

The audiobook is one of the best I’ve listened to so far this year! With dual narrators, one for Cherry and one for the rest of the story, I was immediately placed on that plane and I could visualize Cherry pointing her finger and doling out predictions for death dates. I could listen to Australian accents allll day long.

This book is deep and really makes you think. And feel. Think and feel. I devoured this story and it will stay with me for some time I’m sure.

If you could, would you want to know how and when you are going to die? That’s a HARD NO for me. 🙅🏼‍♀️
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“It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on Earth and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up that we begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it were the only one we had.” —Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Exactly‼️

Thank you to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the opportunity to read an ARC of Liane Moriarty's "Here One Moment", publishing September 9, 2024.

"Here One Moment" pulls the reader in right from the get go. On a short flight, an ordinary older woman stands, as if in a trance. She proceeds to walk the length of the plane, stopping to predict the age and cause of death for each passenger, whether they want her to or not. The predictions range from unremarkable, "I expect cardiac arrest. Age ninety-one", to horrific, when she points to a baby in his mother's arms, "I expect drowning, age seven". Most passengers are rattled in the moment, but otherwise unbothered, not putting much stock in the woman's predictions. That is, until the first passenger dies three months later, from the correctly predicted cause, car accident, and at the correctly predicted age, nineteen. Soon after that, two more correct predictions follow.

Moriarity has written a multi-point-of-view novel where the reader is along for the ride as the passengers grapple with their predictions, but try to continue on with their everyday lives. How much belief do they put in their predicted date of death, and can they do anything to alter their fate? Every other chapter is from the point of view of one of five rotating passengers and one flight attendant, who are all processing their soon potential demises differently. The other set of every other chapters are all centered on Cherry, the death predicting woman. Cherry's chapters are first person with lots of flash backs, so the reader slowly learns and understands how Cherry got to this point in her life, where she is doling out death predictions on a plane. Cherry's POV is Moriarty at her best. It is comical, nuanced, and heartbreaking. It is part coming of age, part discovering your place in the world, part complicated relationships, and part grappling with loss. Moriarty weaves small details from the passenger's lives into Cherry's, and what results is a beautifully written interconnected novel.

I didn't want to put this novel down, and was highly invested in all of the characters lives and fates. While the ending fell a little flat for me, I still thoroughly enjoyed "Here One Moment", and wouldn't hesitate to put it in someone's hands, especially those who have loved her earlier novels more than her recent ones.

Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty is so twisty, riveting, thought provoking and clever I could hardly contain myself when reading it. My jaw hung open as I savored every single word, completely lost in another world. My mind whirred with somersaults in anticipation of the next page. And the next. And the next. I could not get enough of the gorgeous writing, quirkiness and nail-biting tension.

Cherry was an extraordinary nondescript older woman on an ordinary domestic Australian flight. A delay frazzled many passengers so once the flight finally left, passengers were still a bit frayed. But when Cherry started walking down the aisle pointing to each passenger one at a time telling them at what age they would die and how, alarm grew. Some laughed it off, others uneasily shifted uncomfortably while yet others refused to truly hear what Cherry had to say. None of them could get her predictions out of their minds and discussed their pronouncements on the flight and after. The reader is then privy to decisions and choices said passengers made in attempts to alter their destinies. Relief came to those who had decades ahead of them but horror to those who had months. As time went on, a few deaths actually happened as predicted, enough to cause the remaining passengers greater anxiety and alarm. Meanwhile, Cherry has flashbacks to her childhood through adulthood and finally to the present.

More than a great book, Here One Moment is an immersive experience. The premise could not be more perfect. I loved, loved, loved getting into the heads of the characters and could almost taste their fear and trepidation. Moriarty's unparalleled writing continues to amaze me. Though this novel is over 500 pages long, I would have happily read 500 more. Time flew and at times I held my breath. My only quibble is the ending which left me wanting more. Otherwise, this book has everything I could dream of.

My sincere thank you to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this rollercoaster of a ride, only better. Buckle up!

I was absolutely hooked from the very beginning.
What would you do if you were on a plane and a lady told you your cause of death and age of death?
A “psychic” boarded an airplane and in the middle of the flight she stood up and pointed to each passenger and delivered that news. Some people were very nervous and others took it as a joke. Until one of her predictions came true and it was caught on tape. Now everyone is calling her “The Death Lady”.
This book has multiple POVs and follows some of the people on the plane and also the psychic and her life. It’s heavy at times but also shows you to live life to the fullest.
Can fate be fought?

As a longtime Liane Moriarty fan (I've read all of her books), I was very excited for this one. And I was right to be. This is one of her best books, right up with Big Little Lies and The Husband's Secret for me. I predict this will be turned into a TV show at some point.

Following multiple characters after a strange flight in which a woman predicts the age at death and cause of death for a variety of passengers, the book alternates between revealing this woman's life history, and how a handful of the passengers deal with their predictions. I loved the way Cherry was piecemealed out (I think I would really like her as a person, to be honest), and what the book has to say about your relationships with others, grief, and fate. I also liked that it was a bit up in the air on whether fortune telling in general is real or not.

This might be a hair too long (I'm not sure we needed SO much of Cherry's backstory), and there's probably one or two many characters, but this was a delight for me. And the last chapter made me cry.

Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty 512 pages “If you knew your future, would you try to fight fate?”

The book opens with an epigraph: “I have noticed that even people who claim everything is predestined and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road” ~Stephen Hawking

Thank you to NetGalley, author Liane Moriarty, and Crown Publishing for permitting me to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review. I am a longtime fan of Ms. Moriarty’s work, and eagerly anticipated reading her latest novel, Here One Moment. I loved the premise of this story. The author gives readers a unique plot that is written predominantly in the third person, with alternating chapters narrated from the first-person perspective of Cherry Lockwood, soon to be known as "death lady.” Some of the alternating chapters take readers further in depth in the character’s lives than others. The story opens with insightful reflections on human behavior in airports and on airplanes. Readers are provided with glimpses into the passengers' experiences pre-boarding and during the 92-minute delay of their ordinary flight. The large cast of characters dwindles as six take center stage. These six passengers' lives will be forever changed in unexpected ways.
Once airborne, eccentric Cherry Lockwood, a quirky woman with gray hair, unremarkable in appearance and seated in 4D, stands up, counts to three, and begins to walk down the aisle. Appearing to be in a trance-like state, she points at each passenger and flight attendant on the 90 minute flight from Hobart to Sydney, informing them “I expect” and inserting their “cause of death” and “age of death.” Later, no one will even recall seeing Cherry board the flight. Her startling predictions leave the passengers initially skeptical, but as her foretellings begin to come true one by one, their disbelief turns personal. The plane safely lands, and we continue to follow several different points of view in unlabeled, short chapters that alternate with the death lady Cherry’s life story, and where her “powers” may have manifested from.
Readers will find themselves emotionally pondering life’s big questions. How do you live like you were dying? What would you do if you were a passenger on the plane? Would you want to be one of the chosen sox? Do you believe in (and are humans in control of) fate?
There are a lot of characters to keep track of as the POV’s alternate, but most of their stories are compelling. Cherry’s painstakingly drawn own backstory is not. Notable mentions include: Ethan Chang, Sue and Max, Leo and Neve, Allegra Patel and her mother, Dom & Eve, and Paula. The plot is drawn out and more depressing than I anticipated, with a great deal of death, hysterics, and waiting for the next disaster. Due to the fragmented, insipid ending, this was not one of my favorite books that Ms. Moriarty has authored. However, I can already envision the TV version being cast. 3.5/5

If someone told you your age and the cause of your death, would it change the way you live your life? Would changing how you live actually cause the prediction to come true? Or is a future prediction avoidable? Those are the questions explored in Liane Moriarty's newest book and this subject matter is right up my alley. (true story, I have had not one, not two, but THREE people tell me the approximate length of my life (all about the same) and I often wonder if it's worth taking seriously.
This story opens on a short, 90 minute flight, during which, each passenger learns how and when they are going to die. It's good news for many, terrible for some.

Liane returns to her specialty, a large cast of characters, each given a highly developed, dimensional and interesting storyline, which is always impressive. She also managed to make me care and cheer for each of them (and they really need all the cheering on they could get.)

Give this book time! The first 50 pages or so just about did me in. Way too many words! So many words! But after that, we move into the good stuff! Predictions, fall out, flash backs to Cherry's younger life, and characters! What Ms. Moriarty does best! Oh the people on the plane and those around them who are left holding information they may not want to know! Oddly enough, Cherry was the character I was least interested in. I felt she had done her part on the plane and I wanted to read all about the fall out. But in her true style, the author makes everything mean something and the characters in this story intertwined nicely to form an engaging story. Just get past that first 50 pages or so!

Liane Moriarty is one of my fave authors for a variety of reasons, but top of the list to me is the way she can create such grounded, realistic, fully-fleshed out characters. 'Here One Moment' is yet another proof of this -- it's full to the brim with characters that are so humanized, they remind you of people you know in real life.

While it's tough to measure up to her magnum opus 'Big Little Lies', 'Here One Moment' comes close -- expertly weaving a whole cast of characters together in a story about life, fears, destiny, and chance. My only real complaint would be the overall throughline -- the POV chapters centered around Cherry Lockwood -- felt at times confused and disjointed, disrupting the flow of the overall story (although perhaps that was the crafty point, after all?). As I approached the novel's finale, I admittedly worried the plane wouldn't be landed (so to speak) but was happily incorrect and incredibly satisfied with how the ends were tied up, especially given I had grown quite fond of several of the characters (especially Ethan and Allegra).

My many, many thanks to Crown Publishing for this ARC from one of my favorite novelists! What a treat to delve into this one a little early.

This was my first book by Liane Moriarty, and it will not be my last. The premise of this hooked me from the start. An unassuming woman stands up on an airplane and tells each passenger the age they will die and the cause of death. The disruption is unnerving, but the real panic starts when the "Death Lady's" predictions start coming true. Can anyone change their fate?

It is told in multi-POV format by the passengers and the woman who made the stunning predictions, with multiple timelines and short chapters that end on cliffhangers, adding to the tension and the mystery of what is happening. But this is more than just the mysterious event and whether or not the predictions can be beaten. A character-driven slow burn, it is a reflective and very human story that examines how these characters respond to this knowledge, giving the reader plenty of food for thought. I identified with several characters and contemplated what I would do in their shoes.

Moriarty balances the depth with humor to lighten the tone as she examines living life to the fullest, fate, free will, and the butterfly effect. A few twists and surprising connections between characters will keep you guessing about the situation. I enjoyed the author's writing style, how well-developed the characters were, and seeing the many threads come together. This was a unique story, and I enjoyed it!

Thank you to Crown Publishing and Netgalley for the gifted ARC!

I usually love a Liane book! And while I did like this one, it wasn’t my favorite she’s written. I loved the idea of it. And the airplane setting at the beginning had me invested and excited! Overall, a good read, but won’t stay with me.