This was not my favorite book by this author. The premise is intriguing, but the execution of the story fell flat for me. Cherry as a character was not terribly interesting. The only character I was rooting for was Eve. Too much disparity between the premise of the story and the way it was written. It didn't read like a thriller.

Wow! Once again, Liane Moriarty gifts the world another 5-star story. Is there an option for 10 stars? The writing style is a little different in this book and for just a split second I wondered if this would live up to her previous accomplishments. Spoiler alert: It does! It all comes together beautifully; I finished the last page with tears of joy and laughter.
On an ordinary day, ordinary people board an ordinary flight. But for some of them, this flight will become anything but ordinary. An unassuming, unspectacular woman will begin predicting the age and cause of death for many of the passengers on board. Some get a kick out of this quirky, obviously fraudulent(?) woman when she predicts they will live long into their 90s and some even 100s. But, for some, the predictions are very young and tragic. And when some of her predictions start to come true, they have to decide, can fate be fought? Can you change your destiny? Do you decide to "live your life...live it hard"?

This is quite easily the best book I've read so far. It kept you hooked, and I couldn't put it down. The characters are all amazing, and I loved how ****SPOILER**** the girl in the car driving slowly ultimately died because of her predicted death since she was only driving slow enough to get hit due to the lady telling her she died driving. lol. I really enjoyed it.

Wow! This is my favorite Liane Moriarty novel. I liked her other books but this one takes the cake. I am shook. I absolutely loved it. It was emotional and deep. It was also funny. I even laughed out loud at some points.. The cast of characters were fantastic. I am left thinking about this story. Amazing!!

I loved this book so much! Another best seller for Liane Moriarty in my opinion.

The book tells the story of a woman on a plane who randomly gets up and tells the age and cause of death of each person in the plane, even children!

This is shocking and upsetting for a lot of the passengers to say the least especially those who are told they don't have long to live and afterwards they start to come true.

You learn about the lives of some of these passengers and about the fortune teller's own life as well. I really thought the story was well told and really wanted to see what would happen with the passengers and the fortune teller herself as I stated to care about the fate of all those involved.

I'm not sure what inspired Ms Moriarty to write this book, but I'm really glad she did!

Thank you NetGalley for a chance to preview, Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty. I cannot lie, I was a little nervous to start this book after hearing how long it was. But, I had faith that Liane wouldn't let me down and I was spot on. I loved this book. Ironically, I started reading it on a plane flying home from vacation. The premise of the book intrigued me. Imagine a psychic walking down the aisle of a plane spewing out how old you'll be and from what you will die of. How would you move forward with your day to day life. That is exactly what this book is about. My only issue, and it's a me issue, is I was getting confused from chapter to chapter which passenger had which prediction. I highly recommend this book. Oh, and as far as it being long, you get so engrossed in it that the time flies by. All of a sudden, I looked down and I was at 93%.

3.5, rounded down.

The premise was instantly intriguing: what would you do if you were told the cause and time of your death? A woman goes around an airplane telling each person how they will die, and at what age they would die. People start to die exactly how the woman predicted, and the story follows the people's reactions in the aftermath of the news, along with the woman's backstory. The novel focuses on several characters:

(first 20% spoilers)
- Leo, a workaholic father told that he will soon die in a workplace accident
- Ethan, a single guy told that he would soon die of assault
- Paula, a mother of 2 children, told that her infant son would die at age 7 of drowning
- Sue, a retired grandmother, told that she would die of cancer
- Allegra, a flight attendant in her 20s, told that she would die of self-harm
- Eve, a newly married (the flight was for her honeymoon!) wife, told that she would die of intimate partner violence.

I was really really interested in the perspectives of Eve, Allegra, and Paula, since their predictions were the most meaningful to me. However, they got the least amount of book time, which bumped my rating down. I got to see Eve struggle in her relationship with her new husband, wondering what the right course of action is--does she leave him, take extra precautions, or ignore it? Paula's son had 6 more years before his predicted death, but as a mother, she wanted very much to ensure his safety, so she grapples with that issue. Then, Allegra wonders if she will get depression (which runs in her family) and want to self-harm. Her story is fascinating, as the knowledge of her prediction could lead her to get early intervention for her potential depression--and if she got treatment, would she still self-harm?

The novel's discussion of determinism vs free will was fascinating, and I really liked seeing it play out. At times, the way people reacted to the prediction in hopes to change it led to it happening. At others, their actions prevented the prediction.

The main perspective of the book is Cherry, the "Death Lady" who gave the predictions. Every other chapter was her backstory (so the 6 other characters had to fight for time every other chapter!), and I truly did not care. Her story had nothing to do with the main themes or the main discussion, and other than her predictions, did not affect any of the other characters. I found myself skimming her perspective because it was so boring and took away from the main part of the story. This alone bumped my rating down from a 4.25 to a 3.5.

Overall, I found this book highly interesting and thought-provoking and liked the time I spent reading it. Thank you to NetGalley + Crown Publishing for the ARC!

Thank to NetGalley/Crown publishing for approving my request for a copy of this book. I loved Here One Moment, a 5* book for me. The pace was excellent, I really did not want to stop reading. Early in the book a small group of people, traveling on a plane from Hobart to Sydney, learn their cause of death and age of death from an older woman, seemingly in a trance. The book follows a small group, and the “predictor” after the flight and their reactions to the predictions. The book also tells the life story of the women who predicted their deaths.
Highly entertaining and an interesting look at how different people react to the ability to control fate. I’ve read all of Ms. Moriarty’s adult fiction books and this may be my favorite.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Crown Publishing for an advance copy of this novel that asks questions about knowing the unknowable, and if sharing this information with others is a good thing, a bad thing, or something entirely new.

This might be a strange aside for a book review, but it does have much to do with the book in question. In 1983 I saw in theaters a movie called Krull. This movie was supposed to be the Star Wars of Fantasy Adventure. Easy to say it was not. The movie though had a character that always stayed with me. The character was a Cyclops named Rell. Rell's race had the gift of knowing the moment of their death. Rell was asked by Krull to join his group, save the princess, and overthrow the evil something or other. It's been a while. Rell said no, he preferred to die at peace, and not in some battle against evil. Of course Rell comes along and saves many by his courageous not-at-all-peaceful death, and something about this moment burrowed deep into my brain. Would I want to know when I was to pass on? And would I want it peaceful, surrounded by friends and family, or doing something courageous. Many works of art have asked this question, or maybe Liane Moriarty is a Krull fan. Moriarty's novel Here One Moment asks this question of a group of people, and also probes into the life of the one that shared this information with others, and what it means to be laden with such a gift.

The book begins with an unassuming woman boarding an airplane .A plane carrying a most diverse cast of people, young old, famous, and unknown. The trip is uneventful, no dips, no lost time, no doors falling away. However everyone on board is changed by the unassuming woman visiting each person and telling them how and when they will die. Some are far in the future, but for a few the end is coming soon. No one really takes this seriously until the first person dies. Followed be a second, in the way the woman saw it. And questions of mortality, legacy and remembrance start to cross a lot of minds.

A far different book from Moriarty than one usually expects. Yes there are the usual twists, and turns, but this is book of its time, and for us humans who are spent living in it. Knowing that you might not have the average life span, what would one do. Be better. Be worse, just wait for the end. Moriarty asks many question, but presents no real answers, leaving that for the readers to decide, which I thought was different. The story is good, with a slow start, but once past the opening the book picks up. The story is told from differing points of view, and flips narration styles, first person for the clairvoyant, third for the people who are broken the news. Once the book starts going it really is hard to put down.

A different kind of book from Moriarty, but one that I enjoyed as it shows that Moriarty is not content to glide on past books, but is always striving for different ways to tell a story, and creating different tales to share. The talk of death might bother some, or it might comfort some. That is in the mind of the reader, a conundrum that Moriarty skillfully presents.

A seemingly ordinary domestic flight turns extremely weird when passengers learn the exact time of their deaths from a mysterious woman dubbed "The Death Lady." As these predictions begin to unfold with disturbing accuracy, six passengers grapple with their own mortality. The story is a comedic exploration (but think delightful grandma humor) that gets into questions about fate, free will, and how we choose to live with the knowledge of our own finitude, while gradually unraveling the mystery surrounding The Death Lady herself.

***Here One Moment. If you were told when and how you would die would you…could you change your future? This is the premise of this Liane Moriarty novel. Most of the passengers on that flight are told they will live long lives. Six are not. The story follows the six and delves into the life of the prognosticator. This reader had a hard time getting invested in the story. It’s not badly written, the characters are defined and put in interesting situations, but there was nothing compelling me to keep reading uninterrupted. I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this book from NetGalley.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC. I really loved the hook of this novel, and I’m glad I stuck around for the ending. However, there was quite a bit of head hopping that confused me. I still was invested, and I loved the beginning scenes enough to read it.

I absolutely loved the concept of this story and I was hooked just from the description. Unfortunately I loathed the execution.

The initial chapters of the flight scenes were of interest because from the description, I knew what was going to happen. I thought the “what did you say” replies, one after another was overused, unrealistic and unimaginative. But the scenes were a good foundation for the story.

The book wasn’t at all interesting after the flight landing until Chapter 54 when finally the whole basis of this story was beginning. Or so I thought. I thought wrong. It just became more of the same dribble of characters lives that I cared nothing about. I wanted to read how they’d deal with their death date, the panic, the life altering poor choices. I didn’t want to read about their mundane daily activities or how their husband organized his spices.

So I was expecting big things at the end. Surely this acclaimed author was going to finish with a standing ovation from the shock and awe she’s known for giving readers (and TV viewers). Alas, no. It’s as though half way through writing the book she decided to switch from a thriller to a self-help, philosophical book.

I won’t spoil the ending but I’ll just say it was not death, devastation and thrills as one would expect from the beginning of the story.

Here One Moment is touted as a “I-can’t-wait-to-find-out-what-happens novel” but it’s more I-can’t-wait-for-this-to-end novel.

PS: Because Cherry and Cheryl sound so similar she’s often mistakenly referred to as Cheryl?! Cherry and Sherry, sure. But Cheryl? No.

I absolutely loved this book! This is my new favorite of Liane Moriarty’, although I also loved Big Little Lies and Apples Never Fall. On a flight to Sydney, an eccentric “psychic” predicts the day and manner of death of several passengers. The story alternates between the storylines of the passengers as they grapple with whether these predictions will come true and how they want to live their lives if so.

Even though this sounds like a heavy topic, Moriarty’s writing is so witty and I found myself chuckling out loud several times. I love the way Moriarty’ develops her characters so well. This had some themes similar to The Measure which I also loved.

I highly recommend this book and will absolutely read anything else Liane writes in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for an ARC.

What would you do if you knew the exact way and age in which you would die? That is the question that the passengers on the flight from Hobart Airport to Sydney must face when an elderly woman takes it upon herself to walk the aisle of the plane, point at each person and state this information.

Here One Moment is told through multiple POVs, including that of Cherry Lockwood aka "Death Lady" as she becomes known in the press. Stories of the passengers on the flight are interspersed with the story of Cherry's childhood with her fortune telling mother while give credence to the idea that she did in fact have the ability to predict these deaths. Then, as three people die in just the way she predicted, the passengers start to reckon with whether their lives really are predestined or if they are in charge of their own fate.

I loved the structure of this book, though at times Cherry's chapters felt a bit long winded, and the way that Moriarty made the reader care about the different passengers on the plane - especially those who are told them will perish imminently. There was Allegra, the flight attendant who was told she would die of self-harm, who the reader wonders might succumb to the back injury she received on the plane. There is Ethan, the young man who was told he would die of assault, who finds himself faced with his roommate's increasingly enraged ex-boyfriend. There is Timmy, the young child who was told he would die of drowning at age 7, who finds himself at three different sets of swimming lessons a week.

I am a huge fan of this book though it did send me down the though spiral of "Am I living each day to the fullest?", but that is not rare for me. If you're not in the frame of mind to face that question for 126 chapters (some quite short), then maybe wait to pick this up until you are.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced digital copy of this book!

I will preface my review with the fact that I really enjoy Liane Moriarty’s books. However, this one fell a little flat for me.

I was really excited about the premise of this book. A plane full of passengers, on a short domestic flight. What could possibly happen.? Suddenly, one of the passengers stands, walks the aisle of the plane, and starts telling the other passengers, their age and cause of death.

Sounds quirky, right. The passengers are torn on whether they believe the information or not, but what happens when some die, just as predicted?

I really enjoyed the beginning of this book, the middle dragged, and the ending was great.

Personally, Cherry’s chapters could have been cut significantly. I found myself skimming her chapters. I did enjoy the chapters with her mom and I think it gave us more insight into Cherry than the others.

I did enjoy following the other characters and seeing how they handled these predictions after they got back to their lives. It begs the question, can fate really be fought? Is our life predetermined or can you control the outcome with choices you make?

I understand the message was to just live in the moment and stop worrying about the things you can’t control. This is especially relevant in our world currently and we got there in the end. The last half of this book saved this from being a two star read for me. I’m going to round up to 3.5 stars.

I’ve read books with similar plots, so I wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy this story. There were so many characters and each storyline was hard to keep straight, but I really enjoyed the book and learning about the life of the main character. It’s a story that makes you think deeply about life and death.

What a great book! Liane Moriarty always writes such great characters and plot. The switching of characters per chapter keep you intrigued and want to keep reading. I laughed, I cried, I learned things. I even left to book a few time to look things up—-is that really true? Such a great premise of a book. Can’t wait to recommend it to everyone!

I can usually rely on Moriarty for a good twist or a good ending that makes me think, but I was disappointed with this read. I wasn’t invested in Cherry. I found her irritating from the beginning and learning her backstory didn’t ingratiate me to her. I wasn’t all that invested in the other characters’ stories, either. I had a hard time keeping them straight. This just wasn’t my favorite Moriarty book.

The way the author weaves together the characters' lives from an encounter on an airplane and then following them through the time of the prediction from the death lady creates a fascinating narrative. And turning unlikeable characters into ones you cheer for is a mark of exceptional storytelling.