Book list
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"Cause of death. Age of death." She comes to be known as "the Death Lady" as she walks down the aisle of the flight from Hobart to Sydney, predicting passengers' demises. Civil engineer Leo will die of a workplace accident at age 43. Ethan, on his way home from a friend's funeral, will die of an assault at age 30 (he's 29). Sue Sullivan will die of pancreatic cancer; baby Timmy Binici will drown at age seven. Though rattled, most passengers ignore her words as the ramblings of an unwell old woman, until her predictions start coming true. Moriarty (Apples Never Fall, 2021) interweaves stories of the lives of the passengers post-flight as they contend with what they believe to be their destinies with the life of Cherry, the Death Lady, whose mother worked as a psychic, but whose relationship with fate becomes much more complicated as her story is slowly revealed. Questions of determinism versus free will and chance versus fate are interspersed with tales of love—familial, romantic, and platonic—in this wonderful novel where every detail matters. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Moriarty's novels are always a big deal, bolstered by popular adaptations of her work (see this spring's streaming series Apples Never Fall).

Publishers Weekly
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A woman upends strangers’ lives by predicting their deaths in the powerful latest from bestseller Moriarty (Apples Never Fall). Travelers aboard a delayed flight from Hobart, Australia, to Sydney are already on edge when a woman stands, points at a fellow passenger, and pronounces, “I expect catastrophic stroke. Age seventy-two.” She moves down the aisle, foretelling the causes and ages of death of several more passengers before the cabin crew intervenes. She then sleeps until landing and disembarks as though nothing had happened. Most assume the “soothsayer” has mental health problems—until one of her prognostications comes true three months later. Everyone is rattled, but none more than the other passengers she hit with premonitions: a nurse apparently slated to get terminal cancer, a young mother and swim instructor whose child will supposedly drown, and starry-eyed newlyweds whose marriage (which their families look down upon) will purportedly end in “intimate partner homicide.” Moriarty’s meticulously plotted tale—which follows each of the doomed passengers as they reckon with their alleged fate—rivets even as it thoughtfully contemplates free will, determinism, and the value of living passionately. The exquisitely rendered characters earn readers’ full investment as they contemplate how much credence to give the Damoclean sword hanging over their heads, and the pinwheeling narrative maintains near-constant tension. Moriarty has outdone herself. Agent: Faye Bender, the Book Group. (Sept.)