Member Reviews
Liane Moriarty is an auto-read author for me. I was so excited to be approved to read an advanced reader copy of Here One Moment, a story about a group of passengers on a short domestic flight. And there just so happens to be a woman walking up and down the aisles, pointing at people and telling them their age and cause of death.
Some passengers are told they’ll live to see old age, but a few are told they’ll die soon – in a matter of months or years. When the first passenger dies exactly as predicted by “The Death Lady” and then two more die, the passengers from the flight are terrified that she’s right.
The story alternates between The Death Lady’s perspective (her name is Cherry) and a few of the passengers. You get a good glimpse into Cherry’s life and all the things that led her there to that day and that flight, as well as how those few passengers with terrifying death predictions deal with that knowledge. Is it real? Surely not!
I always love Moriarty’s writing, though some of her books hit better than others. This one I absolutely loved. The story was so compelling I tore through it in just a few days. There was a feeling of mystery and dread throughout the book that had me longing to see how it would all work out. I had tears streaming down my face at the end.
It reminded me of The Measure by Nikki Erlick, but better. What would you do if you knew how and when you would die? It’s a great topic for a book club read. I can’t wait for this book to come out for everyone to read it!
Thank you to @NetGalley and @CrownPublishing for the advanced reader copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
I have always loved Liane Moriarty books. I was so excited to get this one sent to me early.
If you knew your future would you try to change it? This book goes through several different characters who all meet on an air plane. Each chapter is a different character as well as the lady from the plane who is telling everyone their fate. Is she real? Is she fake? Is she a phony? One thing I did love about this book was the shorter chapters. I'm a shorter chapters kind of girl. Get to the point, lets do it. However, at times I was confused because there are so many chapters but none of them are labeled with who the chapter is about. I love making notes when I read my ARC books and would have loved to been able to bullet names and info. This book is pretty long and I feel like there was a lot of fluff in between. Not needed information. It definitely wasn't my favorite book of hers.
I was a little thrown when I started reading this book while on an airplane and the scene with Cherry predicting passengers’ deaths occurred. This book was not at all what I expected and I grew impatient with the pace earlier on in the book, but then was happily surprised by how the story unfolded. I enjoyed the connections between some of the characters and seeing how they were impacted by Cherry’s predictions and how their lives unfolded. Great book!
Moriarty has just not been hitting the mark for me lately. Her writing is fine as always, the concept was okay, but this one… missed something for me.
5 stars for this unique and compelling saga with a great ensemble cast that will leave you pondering death, life, and fate.
Filled with short punchy chapters, I flew through this read, invested in each character and eager to see how their stories would unfold. Moriarty's emotional, moving, and often comical writing kept me flipping the pages. I recommend this to anyone looking for a one-of-a-kind story filled with both mystery and drama.
I have attached my review from Goodreads below. Thank you for this story!
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6735398019
Unfortunately, I did not end up finishing this book, but I think it may just not have been the right fit for me. After hearing so much about Liane Moriarty's work, but having never read any myself, I wanted to try something new. Liane's writing is fantastic and you can tell she put a lot of thought into the storyline, the characters, and the overall feel of the book. I have always been a fan of mulit-viewpoint books, and in the case, Liane did not disappoint. However, I found the story too slow for me and it never seemed to really dig its hooks into me. That being said, I have a few friends who I think this book will be perfect for and I will still be recommending it to them.
I give this 3.5 rounded up to 4 stars. This was not my favorite Moriarty read, but it still kept my attention.
I felt as though this book could have been so much more with such a great plot idea, but I felt it fell a little flat.
But thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and honestly rate this book.
A woman walks up and down the aisles of a commercial passenger airplane, pointing at people and telling them when and how they were going to die. Thank you, Liane Moriarty, for adding one more item to my Fear of Flying list. I did not expect to love this book as much as I did. The characters were multi-dimensional and likable. I was rooting for every one of them. The ending ties everything together and makes sense. As with all of Moriarty's books, it moved quickly and was well written. Now I can't wait for pub day so I can talk to my reader friends all about this book. This would make a great choice for a book club.
By all accounts, the short, domestic flight was perfectly normal until a woman stood up and started predicting when and how each passenger would die. While disturbing, no one took her seriously until three of her predictions came true. We follow this woman and some passengers from the plane as they navigate what could be their last moments.
Thoughts 💭
What an interesting concept! What would you do if you knew when and how you would die? Would you try and prevent it or accept the inevitable? Initially, it seems like no matter what they do, they can't escape their fate. It leaves the characters and me with a helpless feeling. It turns into much more. What would you do if your days were numbered? The over lying message is to not wait until the last minute to live your life because any minute could be your last (whether it's predicted by a psychic or not).
While I enjoyed the message of the book, it was really long. I felt like the same effect could have been accomplished about 100 pages sooner. We get a lot of backstory on Cherry (the psychic), and most of it wasn't needed. I think sending time on the passengers was more important, but even their stories dragged a little. This was a fun read if you have patience for a longer story.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty
4 stars/ 5
Liane Moriarty is one of those authors that you either love or hate. I love her, but sometimes I wish she was just a little less wordy. She does write great characters, though, and the woman can sure write an ending!
In her latest novel, Here One Moment, an older woman (maybe a psychic?) has an episode on an airplane and ends up stating the cause of death and age of death for all the passengers. This is unsettling for sure, but most people dismiss her as crazy, until her predictions start to come true...
This book is an exploration of what people do with this information. Moriarty gives us a character study of four or five of the passengers as well as the psychic and what brought her to that day on the plane. I was intrigued by the passengers stories but the psychic's was a little longer than necessary.
Here One Moment has a similar premise to The Measure by Nikki Erlick and if that book didn't exist, Here One Moment might have been five stars. But The Measure was so well-crafted and had such tight storytelling, that this one pales slightly in comparison.
Here One Moment is an enthralling story though and if you like character studies, you'll like this one! Thanks to @netgalley, the publisher and the author for this advance copy which I read in exchange for my honest thoughts.
Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I am a huge lover of Liane Moriarty. The way she weaves stories together and still ends up blowing my mind, and this one was no different. I'm so grateful to @netgalley for letting me have an eARC before this book is published in September.
The story starts on a flight where a woman nobody really noticed suddenly becomes the center of attention as she points to each passenger in turn and informs them the date and cause of their death. Some passengers are thrilled as they're promised longevity and peaceful end of life. Others are devastated as they or their children are handed imminent or tragic deaths. Most of them laugh it off, but as the predictions start coming true, the jokes are suddenly not funny anymore.
I loved the aura of mystery during this book, the constant potential dread, and the ways the characters' stories interact and build while we explore some of their backstories. There were characters I loved and characters I hated and ones whose stories we just get a glimpse of. If you like Liane Moriarty, you'll love this book. If you love intersecting timelines and storylines and POVs, you won't be able to put this book down.
I have enjoyed all of Liane Moriarty’s books, but definitely found Big Little Lies and The Husband’s Secret to be the best. This one is right up there with the best, a five star read for me. I don’t usually love books told from multiple points of view, but this one is an exception. I loved all the characters so I was not sad to move to another character because I couldn’t wait to see what was happening with them. I also loved the way there were connections between the characters as the story unfolded. The ending was very satisfying so overall a great read!
This was a very intriguing read by Liane Moriarty! A so called psychic on a plane goes row by row predicting the passenger's age and cause of death. When a few of her predictions come true, the passenger's and their families are reeling about what may be in their near future! We follow the passengers along with the past of the psychic, Super captivating read!!
This book is so different from Liane Moriarty's other works and it's a good thing! I am a frequent plane traveller, so I thought it was so interesting that a lot of the book took place on a plane. I loved the multiple POVs and learning more about the main character's life through the alternate chapters. I was left guessing if the fortune telling was real or if everything was really a coincidence. This is a book that inspires you to live your life to the fullest.
Hmmm…what would you do if someone predicted your death or a death of a loved one. When a psychic predicts the death of several people on an airline flight, the plot revolves around its affects on each person. The book also moves backward in time to give history of this psychic. As in many of Lianne Moriarty books, there is an ensemble of characters, each with their own quirks and personalities. Having read all of Moriarty’s books, this one is written in her similair style. if you like her other books, then this one is for you! It is on the longer side, but completely entertaining.
Solid 4 stars
Another amazing novel by Moriarty- this time honed in on our often contradictory beliefs about fortune telling. An older woman starts walking the aisle on a flight within Australia to Sydney and while pointing to each passenger in turn calls out what she expects them to die from and the date of their death. Passengers react from dismissive scoffs to horror as the cabin crew comically fights their way to thwart her.
She’s initially passed off as mentally ill, until one of her predictions of the time and type of death come true. Then everyone’s rattled: form the young mother of a child supposed to drown to newlyweds who she predicted their marriage will end in intimate partner homicide. As everyone reaches out for support and scrambles to change their lives to stop the fated pronouncements from coming true.
Underlying all the tension and the powerful stories of the people on the flight, there’s much philosophical consideration of the power we place in fate and determinism versus the free will be captains of our destiny. Moriarity casts a detailed light on all the “fortune-telling” people overall turn to, from psychics to astrological signs to tea leaf readings. You cannot help but we swept into a thoughtful and revealing self-examination of your own beliefs on the subject.
Thanks to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.
So honored to have been given as advanced copy of this amazing new book from Liane Moriarty. This book had such an original plot and was so interesting to read I could not get enough! This story takes place when the passengers of a flight are given an expected age and cause of death by a fellow passenger. This goes on the affect their lives after the flight is over as they are now saddled with the threat of impending mortality as the death predictions start to come through. The books follows both the passengers and the women who predicted the deaths but has no recollection of doing so. I utterly enjoyed this one from cover to cover!
The following review was posted on Goodreads on 8.5.24:
HERE ONE MOMENT is a quieter, more contemplative novel than some of Moriarty's others. It's not exactly a page turner, but it is compelling and thought-provoking. I enjoyed it.
The book's premise is unique and intriguing. As the passengers on the plane wonder about the "Death Lady," so does the reader. Is she a fraud or a true psychic? If her predictions are accurate, how will that alter what the characters do/do not do with their lives? If you knew the day you will die and your cause of death, how would that change your life? Interesting questions to ponder.
Like all of Moriarty's novels, this one features appealing characters; skilled, upbeat prose; a warm, humorous vibe; and a compelling story. It's not my favorite Moriarty book, but I liked it a lot.
Liane Moriarty has always been one of my go to authors. I love her books and when I was approved for her newest novel , I was so excited. When picking up the latest from favorite authors, I rarely even read about the book ahead of time, so that I can be suprised with their latest.
How would you live your life if you knew when and how you would die? Would you change anything?
This story starts with an airplane full of strangers, who become connected by one strange passenger on their flight. Cherry Lockwood walks up and down the aisle of the plane, pointing to passengers while predicting their age and cause of death. Is she a psychic, is she unstable?
The story unfolds with chapters following a few of the characters, including Cherry. Chapters alternate between a telling of Cherry's life and select passengers and how they are dealing with their given predictions.
Sounds like a great premise, but it was a slow, long read. The chapters describing Cherry's life were long and I struggled to get through them.
As I was getting towards the end, I enjoyed how it all wrapped up and tied together (without giving away anything!).
Thank you to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for this digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.