“Later, not a single person will recall seeing the lady board the flight at Hobart Airport. Nothing about her appearance or demeanor raises a red flag of even an eyebrow. She is not drunk or belligerent or famous.”
Those are the opening lines to Liane Moriarty’s novel Here One Moment. The lady’s name is Cherry, later labeled the Death Lady.
Forty-five minutes into the flight, Cherry slowly works her way down the aisle pointing to each passenger and pronouncing the impending age and cause of their death.
Some predicted deaths are way into the future, but six are not very far off at all. She says Leo, a 42-year-old civil engineer will die at a workplace accident; Sue, a young grandmother, of pancreatic cancer; Allegra the stewardess, of suicide; Paula’s baby, of drowning at age seven, 28-year-old Ethan, of an assault when he is 29. Most of the passengers laugh it off until two of Cherry’s pronouncements come true.
The chapters bounce around with different voices following the passengers as they struggle with Cherry’s predictions and make life changes hoping to prove her wrong. Many of the chapters delve into Cherry’s life: her psychic mother, her two marriages and her careers.
I love this author. She has a way of drawing you into the story but also making the reader ponder as the book jacket says, “If you were told you had only a certain amount of time left to live, would you do things differently? Would you try to dodge your destiny?”
If you’ve ever answered the question of whether you would want to know how and when you would die, then you must read Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty.
