Crown Archives - The Litertarian

A novel to move you. Sybil’s life is as complex and nuanced as the next, and as someone who corresponds best through the written word, we get glimpses into her past, her present, her constancy, and her deepest secrets. The Correspondent is a novel that will make you laugh, cry, smile, and wince as Sybil Van Antwerp bares her soul into the pages.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans Book Cover, woman at a desk

An epistolary novel is one told entirely through correspondence. There is no narrator or outside voice – we are presented with letters and emails that cross Sybil’s desk, both incoming and outgoing, and from these we discern her life.

What do we know? She has a complicated relationship with her family, her previous career, a young acquaintance, a new medical diagnosis, and secrets from her past she is both keeping and some she is too afraid to discover. She is older, her children are grown, and she is coming to terms with her life, such as she has lived it to this point.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans Book Cover, two birds

This is a beautiful novel. It unfolds so elegantly with each new letter. Sybil is at times laughable stodgy in her set ways, but also touching and vulnerable in others. Her story teaches us that it’s never too late to put yourself out there, to right previous wrongs, or to learn something new about yourself.

I love Sybil, and by the end of her story, I had tears streaming down my face. This is a story I won’t soon forget, and I hope you read it too.

Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Details

Title:: The Correspondent
Author:: Virginia Evans
Genre:: Epistolary Fiction
Publisher:: Crown
Length:: 304 pages
Audio Length:: 10h
Audiobook Narrator:: TBA
Published:: April 29th, 2025
The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars

If you liked this book, check out…

The Most Fun We Ever Had | Claire Lombardo
The Last Love Note | Emma Grey
Counting Miracles | Nicholas Sparks
I’ll Come to You | Rebecca Kaufmann

Cause of death, age of death. Would you want to know?

For some on one fateful domestic flight between Hobart and Sydney the prediction from one of the other passengers was a comfort. Long, healthy, full lives. For others, their predictions were not as lucky.

Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty Book Cover

“I expect intimate partner homicide. Age twenty-five,” she tells a newlywed. “I expect drowning. Age seven.” “I expect self-harm.” “Assault.” How might you react hearing someone say this to you completely unprompted? A woman walked down the aisle of the airplane, pointing one at a time, cursing each person as she went with the knowledge of their manor and age of inevitable death.

Then again, how seriously could they take it? No one there knew about her mother’s past as a psychic. They didn’t know her from Eve. Just an eccentric older lady having some kind of episode, so far as they knew.

Until the first death happened, exactly how she predicted.

I am a great fan of Liane Moriarty. Her novels explore topics that are often uncomfortable, and always intriguing. This novel explored a great many avenues of thought to consider and leaves quite a bit of room for interpretation.

In her typical form, the points of view are plentiful. Between chapters of how ‘the death lady‘ arrived at that fateful moment are sprinkled narratives of various passengers from the flight in the months afterward. Some of them brush it off. Some of them can’t do much but wait for something they cannot control like an accident or a scary diagnosis. Still others are as proactive as they can be. The mother of the son destined to drown gets him into more swimming lessons than is probably healthy. Loved ones rally, social media pages are created, and time passes…more predictions come true.

If the topic of psychics, mediums, and the everyday supernatural appeal to you in any way, and even if they don’t particularly, this novel is a wonderful read. A lot is left up to your own interpretation of what may have happened that day on the plane. For that reason alone, this would make an excellent book club read. I also found the real human stories to be engrossing and sometimes quite powerful. Another hit from Down Under!

I have more to say about this book, but it contains spoilers. Click at your own risk 🙂

Spoilers/Discussion

My favorite part of the novel is how, even when all is said and done, we still don’t have any incontrovertible truth that what Cherry experiences on that plane isn’t a divine intervention or prediction. A true supernatural gift.

It was not lost on me that Cherry’s mother’s gifts were not developed until after she lost the love of her life. And now that Cherry has lost hers, this happens. It makes you wonder…and I love that.

Either way, it is hard to deny her mother’s own predictions for her. The little girl, the castle, the notebooks? Those are not random things that would apply to just anyone, as Cherry commonly believes about her mother’s readings. I believe she had the gift. Some kind of gift (maybe not all the time). But it is clear that Cherry (and her mathematical brain) is a die-hard skeptic to the point she denies her own possible inclination toward it.

Details

Title:: Here One Moment
Author:: Liane Moriarty
Genre:: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher:: Crown
Length:: 512 pages
Audio Length:: 15h 53m
Audiobook Narrator:: Caroline Lee & Geraldine Hakewill
Audiobook Publisher:: Random House Audio
Published:: September 10th, 2025
The Litertarian Rating:: 4-Stars