Liane Moriarty has sold a staggering 20 million copies of her novels internationally, and many people will have seen the TV adaptation of Big Little Lies. Her latest novel, Here One Moment, is a high-concept novel that asks the question, if you knew when you were going to die, what would you do differently?
The story opens when a non-descript lady with grey hair boards a plane from Hobart to Sydney. She seems perfectly unremarkable and harmless, but after the flight has landed, there will be a lot of upset people on the plane. Although no one can remember what she looked like until footage of the event goes viral, she walks up the aisle of the plane and, one by one, predicts what each person will die from and the age at which they will die.
No one can be sure if this was a prank, if she is a physic, or if she was having some sort of medical event. Many on the plane shrug off her predictions, but some are extremely upset. The plane lands without any problems, but many of the passengers' lives are affected, and many begin to panic when people start dying, as she has predicted. Media dub her the ‘Death Lady’, and the lady herself can’t remember her actions, but when she sees the footage, she begins to tell her story to the readers in an attempt to make sense of what she has done.
Meanwhile, the reader follows a score of passengers who are altered by the flight, some making changes in their lives to hopefully ward off their predicted demise. For some, their death is predicted in many decades, but for others, death is imminent…
Here One Moment is a thought-provoking read and mystery that will keep you turning to the end and contemplating the themes of the book long after you finish this expertly constructed novel.
Reviewer: Karen McMillan
Pan Macmillan
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