The Book:
Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty
Published September 10, 2024 by Crown
Date read: September 6, 2024
Find more September 2024 new releases here.
Here One Moment spoilers can be found below, but they’re hidden under a spoiler tag so you’re safe to keep scrolling if you’d just like to read my review.
The Characters:
Cherry
Leo
Sue and Max
Allegra
Eve and Dom
Timmy
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The Plot (from Goodreads):
Nina, still grieving from the loss of her father, discovers that she has inherited property in the British Virgin Islands—a vacation home she had no idea existed, until now. The house is extraordinary: state-of-the-art, all glass and marble. How did her sensible father come into enough money for this? Why did he keep it from her? And what else was he hiding?
Maria, once an ambitious medical student, is a nanny for the super-rich. The money’s better, and so are the destinations where her work takes her. Just one more gig, and she’ll be set. Finally, she’ll be secure. But when her wards never show, Maria begins to make herself at home, spending her days luxuriating by the pool and in the sauna.
There’s just one rule: Don’t go in the basement. That room is off-limits. But her curiosity might just get the better of her.
And soon, she’ll wish her only worry was not getting paid.
Here One Moment Spoilers
The Reveal:
Cherry wasn’t a psychic. She had an actuary, working for a life insurance company, using data to predict when groups of people were likely to die.
Shortly before the flight, her husband and two best friends died on the same day. She was grieving deeply, dehydrated, delirious, and had no recollection of what she did.
Kayla Halfpenny did die in a car accident at 19, and the elderly couple did die within a day of each other of old age. These were both coincidence. The fourth “true” death was a stunt by an influencer who wasn’t even on the plane.
Sue did not get pancreatic cancer, but the prediction helped her and Max have some important discussions about death.
Allegra did not die by suicide, although she did struggle with chronic pain from her back injury for a year and did understand why someone would end their life. She did a lot of research about depression and suicidal ideation and was able to recognize smiling depression in her brother, presumably in time to get him the help he needed.
Nothing happened to Eve and Dom, they were fine and eventually moved in with Dom’s father to help get a handle on their finances.
Leo quit his job and moved his family to Tasmania. It turns out his mother had befriended Cherry. He narrowly avoided an excavator falling on him.
Cherry’s mother’s predictions all came true. Cherry had 34 years of happiness with her second husband Ned before he died. At the end of the book, she became a math tutor to Leo’s daughter Bridie (her mother had predicted that a girl with a B name would arrive in Cherry’s life just when Cherry needed her most) and they became great friends. Cherry also went looking through Ned’s notebooks to find ideas for how to help Bridie (another prediction) and found that Ned had been writing down One Good Thing per day for years, which gave Cherry a lot of happy memories.
The Ending:
Timmy, predicted to drown at 7, won gold in the Olympics for swimming when he was 17. He did fall into the ocean at 7 and would have drowned if he wasn’t such a strong swimmer, so his mother’s preparations worked.
I hope these Here One Moment spoilers were helpful.
The Review:
Thank you to @booksparks and @lianemoriarty_official for this gifted copy as part of #FRC2024, and to @prhaudio for the gifted ALC!
Liane Moriarty is one of the authors whose entire backlist I binged while I was getting back into reading. I love her work, and Here One Moment was no exception. I wouldn’t call this a thriller, but there’s SO much suspense as the reader is anxious to find out whether Cherry’s predictions will come true.
After the flight scene, the book is written as an ensemble, flashing to each main character’s life. I enjoyed every POV, but Cherry, Leo, and Timmy’s mom were my favorites. The stories were woven together beautifully, and I loved when the characters’ lives crossed paths whether they knew it or not.
Although on the longer side, this book flew by. I listened to the audiobook before I received my copy, and this did not feel like 500+ pages! I’m so glad I got the chance to read an early copy of Here One Moment, and definitely recommend adding it to your fall TBR.
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