HERE ONE MOMENT by Liane Moriarty

What if you knew how and when you would die? Would you change your life in any way? Such is the premise of Moriarty’s latest, Here One Moment. Cherry comes from a line of fortune tellers. During a flight to Sydney, Cherry walks the aisle, giving passengers the news of when and how they will die. Some think she’s a crazy lady, but when a few of her predictions come true, the others on the plane, given their expiration dates, grow fearful, some stubborn. How much does fate play into it? Destiny? Told from multiple points of view, the reader feels the tension as the death dates get closer.  

Favorite line(s): It’s a very particular time in your life, when someone you love is dying. The world doesn’t stop for you. We know this, but in our hearts we are shocked. We are like famous people who say: But don’t you know who I am? Except we want to say, But don’t you know what I am going through? How can you speak to me like that when my mother is dying? There are still red lights, rude people, long lines, and lost keys. You can still stub your toe, and it will still hurt like the devil. The difference is that your reaction may be gargantuan. You may react with a rage-filled stream of profanity, the likes of which your aunt hasn’t heard since the war. You may scream in your car at a red light and scare small children. 

THE WOMAN UPSTAIRS by Claire Messud

Nora Eldridge is a 42-year-old third-grade teacher. She planned to become, if not famous, at least a respected artist, and time is ticking, and she’s made nothing of her life, so she thinks. Through a student in her classroom, she meets a “real” artist, Sirena, the student’s mother, and the father, Skander, a Lebanese academic teaching at Harvard. Nora falls in love with all three and imagines her life as better when around them. Nora and Sirena share an artist's loft. Sirena is working on an exhibition for a show in Paris, and Nora is building tiny dioramas of famous artist spaces. She befriends all three Shahids, and life for Nora goes along with joy and purpose until one betrayal after another brings the friendships into focus, and Nora must wrestle with her life choices.  

Favorite line(s): I stood with my arms crossed against the Rockport wind, trying to accept the loss of my newest and most necessary fantasy. I’d realized too late that Skandar was my Black Monk, my Chekhovian familiar. Even more than Sirena, Skandar was the one who could convince me of my substance, of my genius, of the significance of my thoughts and efforts. If you took away my Black Monk, what was I? If nobody at all could or would read in me the signs of worthiness—of artistic worth—then how could I be said to possess them? How could I convince myself, against the whole world’s determination? It wasn’t that I’d felt he had to choose me over her—you wouldn’t ask that someone abandon his family—but I’d thought—I’d hoped—to find his choice harder to make. I’d hoped to get the sense that there was even a choice at all. When you’re the Woman Upstairs, nobody thinks of you first. Nobody calls you before anyone else, or sends you the first postcard. Once your mother dies, nobody loves you best of all. 

MADWOMAN by Chelsea Bieker

Clove has lived a life of secrets. When a letter shows up from her mother in prison Clove has to decide to divulge the lies and risk losing her marriage and two children. She has made up for a terror-stricken childhood by living a healthy life full of meditation and the perfect supplements. Her mother wants Clove to tell the truth about that fateful day when her abusive father was murdered. Clove intends to continue to run from the past. Will the truth set her free? An astonishing rendering of domestic abuse as told from a daughter’s perspective of what her and her mother endured and the residue of generational trauma.  

Favorite line(s): I almost settled into this idea. I imagined us all leaping off the lanai, holding hands in the sky. But in life I do think we’re offered a few moments that stun us into something new. And there, standing in our hallway, my finger tracing an old rust-colored stain, I thought, I’m done living in a place with my mother’s blood on the walls.