THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY BESTSELLER, & INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER!
“The Last Flight is thoroughly absorbing—not only because of its tantalizing plot and deft pacing, but also because of its unexpected poignancy and its satisfying, if bittersweet, resolution. The characters get under your skin.”—The New York Times Book Review
Two women. Two flights. One last chance to disappear.
… Book Review
Two women. Two flights. One last chance to disappear.
Claire Cook has a perfect life. Married to the scion of a political dynasty, with a Manhattan townhouse and a staff of ten, her surroundings are elegant, her days flawlessly choreographed, and her future auspicious. But behind closed doors, nothing is quite as it seems. That perfect husband has a temper that burns bright and he’s not above using his staff to track Claire’s every move.
What he doesn’t know is that Claire has worked for months on a plan to vanish. A plan that takes her to the airport, poised to run from it all. But a chance meeting in the airport bar brings her together with a woman whose circumstances seem equally dire. Together they make a last-minute decision.
The two women switch tickets, with Claire taking Eva’s flight to Oakland, and Eva traveling to Puerto Rico as Claire. They believe the swap will give each of them the head start they need to begin again somewhere far away. But when the flight to Puerto Rico crashes, Claire realizes it’s no longer a head start but a new life. Cut off, out of options, with the news of her death about to explode in the media, Claire will assume Eva’s identity, and along with it, the secrets Eva fought so hard to keep hidden.
For fans of Lisa Jewell and Liv Constantine, The Last Flight is the story of two women—both alone, both scared—and one agonizing decision that will change the trajectory of both of their lives.
Praise for The Last Flight:
“The Last Flight is a wild ride: One part Strangers on a Train, one part Breaking Bad, with more twists than an amusement park roller coaster! Julie Clark is a devilishly inventive storyteller.”
—Janelle Brown, New York Times bestselling author of Watch Me Disappear and Pretty Things
“The Last Flight is everything you want in a book: a gripping story of suspense; haunting, vulnerable characters; and a chilling and surprising ending that stays with you long after the last page.”
—Aimee Molloy, New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Mother
“The perfect combination of beautiful prose and high suspense, and an ending that I guarantee will catch you off guard.”
—Kimberly Belle, internationally bestselling author of Dear Wife and The Marriage Lie
“The Last Flight sweeps you into a thrilling story of two desperate women who will do anything to escape their lives. Both poignant and addictive, you’ll race through the pages to the novel’s chilling end. A must read of the summer!”
—Kaira Rouda, internationally bestselling author of Best Day Ever and The Favorite
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This is the first book I have ever read from this author. This was one of my BOTM picks for June. I love this bright red cover. Seeing this cover honestly gave me the chills.
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: I absolutely loved reading this book. We follow Claire and Eva who end up swapping plane tickets before their flights take off. One flight from JFK is going to Oakland, and the other is going to Puerto Rico. One of the planes land safely, while the other crashes killing everyone on board. I love how the author wrote this book using dual timelines. There were definitely some thrilling aspects, including one reveal towards the end that I didn’t see coming which helped to solidify the ending. My heart broke reading the ending because to me it was very emotional. I highly recommend this thriller to anyone that loves dual timelines. I definitely enjoyed Julie’s writing, and will pick up anything else she writes.
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: ℎ ℎ gave 5 ?
Keeps you guessing! Great read
Fantastic book! There is no “one more page” with this heart pounder. It will be your nighttime binge. Two female main characters are strong in every way, leaving behind a past, and looking forward to the future. The chapters go back and forth with great titles to know the dates and character. I really like that to stay focused and on point. The cliffhanger on each chapter was methodically crafted to keep readers engaged and excited to keep reading. Excellent!
The Last Flight is a story about two women, both of whom have been victimized by men under different circumstances and in different settings. But they have ended up in the same place. Each is seeking to run away from her past and start over.
Claire Cooke and Eva James connect in the bar at JFK airport. It is ostensibly a random meeting. Claire has planned and plotted for some time to escape her powerful, abusive husband, Rory. She was supposed to fly to Detroit to make an appearance, but Rory is posed to announce his candidacy for the Senate in one week and, at the last minute, it is decided that he will go to Detroit and Claire is dispatched to Puerto Rice. Because of his money and influence, and past experience, Claire has concluded that disappearing without a trace is truly the only way she can escape Rory’s reach. When Eva approaches Claire in the airport bar, Claire is panicked because the plan she has meticulously devised has been foiled and she doesn’t know what to do.
Eva was raised in foster homes and a San Francisco orphanage before enrolling at the University of California, Berkeley. She loved the school and her studies, but due to events that transpired while she was a student, she did not graduate. She has continued residing in Berkeley, working as a waitress, but is on the run from persons and events that, like Claire, she knows she cannot escape without disappearing in a manner that ensures she can never be found.
The premise of The Last Flight hinges upon Claire and Eva agreeing to trade boarding passes, clothing, handbags, wallets, and telephones after getting through security. And then boarding each other’s flights. Claire follows through, but finds herself in Berkeley without money, new identification, or other resources. She proceeds to Eva’s apartment, planning to hunker down there until she figures out her next move. She adopts Eva’s identity but is stunned when she sees news reports and learns that the plane she was supposed to board crashed into the sea. Early reports indicate there are no survivors so Rory believes, like everyone else, that she is dead. Claire quickly realizes that, for her, the crash offers “not just a head start,” but “a new start” even though Claire is not sure that Eva actually boarded the plane, suspects she may still be alive, and wonders about her whereabouts.
The Last Flight is a thoroughly engrossing story about two women who, at first glance, appear to have nothing at all in common. But author Julie Clark reveals that they are actually very much alike. Each is strong, resilient, and determined to escape a dangerous, desperate predicament in order to start a new life over. Each woman has been oppressed by different forces and events, but the result is the same. Both are driven to risk everything for a second chance. In Claire’s case, the #MeToo movement has done nothing to make her circumstances less fraught with danger.
Eva has made very bad choices and done abhorrent things in order to survive. But she wants to put that behind her, and get away from the people who are fully invested in seeing to it that she furthers the enterprise and keeps her mouth shut. If she fails to cooperate, they will silence her. And they begin bearing down on Claire once they realize that she is residing in Eva’s home. Claire begins to piece together clues Eva left behind about her life, activities, and associates. She realizes that Eva was involved with people who will use any means to continue their endeavor and by stepping into Eva’s life and using her identity, she has placed herself in a new kind of danger. In the chapters devoted to Eva, Clark gradually reveals the forces that derailed her dreams and the things Eva did to survive, as well as why she ultimately concluded that it was time to disappear.
Clark employs alternating narratives. Claire relates her experiences and feelings in a first-person narrative. Eva’s tale is told in the third-person. Both techniques are extremely effective. Clark pulls her readers into the women’s lives at the outset and their tension-filled adventures unfold at an absorbing and unrelenting pace.
Each woman is flawed, but likable and empathetic. Some readers will find Claire exasperating, lamenting that she has been weak for too long and should have left Rory sooner. However, as Clark injects details about the past, including the way the loss of her mother and sister in a horrific accident effected her, Claire’s beliefs and reasoning become apparent and plausible. Likewise, Eva, as noted, has made terrible choices but she felt that she had no other options after she was repeatedly abandoned and sold out. She gradually comes to believe in her own self-worth and develops the strength to extricate herself from her situation, in part because of her friendship with her next-door neighbor, a visiting professor who refuses to judge her, and unconditionally accepts and supports her.
The book’s pace accelerates with shocking revelations and plot developments. The resolutions Clark gives her characters’ stories are quite different. One is credible and satisfying, the other shocking and controversial. For that reason, along with the thought-provoking themes Clark explores, The Last Flight is an excellent choice for book clubs, providing plenty of topics for discussion.
Despite the surprising ending, The Last Flight is one of 2020’s best thrillers. It is both entertaining and touching, featuring characters whose stories resonate long after the contentious ending is revealed.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader’s Copy of the book.
GREAT psychological thriller!
I loved the way this book was written, characters worked well and oh boy the twists and turns.
I couldn’t read it fast enough.
Tricky and surprising.
My first read from this Author and won’t be my last.
THE FINAL FLIGHT is a riveting read about two desperate strangers switching boarding tickets to escape extremely difficult but totally different situations. All they each sees is escape, and neither is prepared for the unknown. While one of these women starts out more likeable, and the other extremely suspect, the story unspools in such a way that the seemingly less likeable woman is the one for which the reader is most desperate to find a happy ending. Lots of twists leading up to the final unexpected event on the last page.
3.5
Great concept, great execution. A real page turner. I expect to see this as an Amazon or Netflix Original series within the next year or so. 🙂
“Everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear.”
The Last Flight starts off nearly right as the blurb describes, and when two women swap plane tickets by 5% in you’re sort of left thinking, “ok where is this headed now?” Well let me tell you, you’re in for a bit of a ride. While the start and the ending are exciting, emotional, and thrilling, the middle does have a slow pace. That being said I think it’s completely necessary because you dive deeper into both Eva and Claire’s stories and understand their motivations for the ticket swap, and why such desperate measures were worth it. How these women are so similar even though they are insanely different. How even though you feel so alone in things maybe you’re not. How life comes at you hard and sometimes you make choices that you get sucked into, and can’t find your way out of until you leap.
It’s just a great read about fighting and gaining the strength and bravery to come out on the other side, no matter what may be there. The ending was unexpected, but also perfect in its own full circle way.
– Definite trigger warnings for violence and abuse themes. Not too explicit, but it’s there and I want to be sure people are aware.
“The world didn’t need to hear my story, but I needed to tell it.”
Julie Clark’s The Last Flight is a stunner: both a compelling, intricately woven tale of suspense and a thoughtful, nuanced portrayal of two very different women, each at a dangerous crossroads in her life. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough!
Get ready to hold onto the edge of your seat. This is a fantastic thriller about real people facing tremendous challenges. Exciting, touching, haunting, The Last Flight will stay with you long after you turn the final page. Julie Clark has written a bang of a novel.
The Last Flight will propel you headfirst into the frantic lives of two women, both determined to escape their current reality. Julie Clark weaves their stories effortlessly, delivering a pitch-perfect suspense novel that absolutely lives up to its hype. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up!
The Last Flight is everything you want in a book: a gripping story of suspense; haunting, vulnerable characters; and a chilling and surprising ending that stays with you long after the last page.
Nail-biting plot, well-developed characters, twists and turns galore…
First of all, this book took me entirely too long to read. It didn’t hold my interest until the last 100 pages. This is the story of a woman, Claire, trying to escape her abusive husband, and Eva, a woman trying to run from her life. Claire and Eva meet at the airport and trade plane tickets. Eva, heading to Puerto Rico and Claire to California. When Claire lands, she learns that Eva’s plane has crashed. Claire has to try to hide from everyone, and starts gathering bits and pieces of Eva’s life. The premise is good. I just didn’t really care for Eva’s story. She has become a drug maker and a drug dealer and is trying to get out. The only good thing in Eva’s life was her next door neighbor, Liz. Through the whole of the book, you wonder if Eva get off the plane. You find out in the last paragraph of the book. Again, the last 100 pages of this book I couldn’t put down. Claire’s husband finds out where she is, and she is trying to run from him, yet again.
This novel was a page turner, I could not put it down. Two ladies meet at the airport as strangers, switch their airline tickets due to extend circumstances they each are dealing with. The airplane crashes and is one of the ladies a victim? So exciting!!!
“If we don’t tell our own stories, we’ll never take control of the narrative.”
Two women on the run from their previous lives happen to meet in the airport and decide to exchange tickets and IDs so they can disappear completely.
One woman has a politically aspiring abusive husband that expects
l her to be perfect at all times.
The other woman got caught up in an illegal lifestyle years ago and wants to break free.
Then one of the airplanes crashes with no survivors.
The story is told in alternating chapters by both women and also goes into the past history of both.
I enjoyed this story very much and highly recommend it to those that enjoy psychological thrillers.
It has a great twist tying things together at the end.
I received this book from Sourcebooks Landmark through both Net Galley and Edelweiss in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.
This book kept me on the edge of my seat the whole read! I never knew what was coming next – so many twists and surprises around every corner. I loved Claire’s tenacity and courage in the face of not having a set place or people to go to. Her story is an age old one of a man controlling her with deep pockets and incredible ambition and power. It’s taken Claire months to formulate a way to leave only to have it call apart within seconds of it beginning. Eve, a character I grew to love as we are her history, is on the run too from a man who thinks her expendable and lies just has just learned about him.
The two have a chance meeting in the airport and switch plane tickets. From there the pace of the story is fast as we are thrown into the secrets and lies that keep pouring forth.
I found it sad that both of these women lived much of their lives alone without feeling like they had anyone to trust until it was almost too late.
I loved this book. It has been awhile since I was so engrossed with a book that I wanted to get home from work to continue reading this, and better just tempted to just stay home and finish this book. It’s absolutely tantalizing read and had my pulses palpitating for what is to happen next. Julie Clark’s writing was brilliant with perfect pacing. The ending was completely satisfying and just left me stunned. Pick this up for a wonderful thriller/suspense women centric read I highly recommend.
I stayed up all night reading this book. So good. I highly recommend.
The Last Flight sweeps you into a thrilling story of two desperate women who will do anything to escape their lives. Both poignant and addictive, you’ll race through the pages to the novel’s chilling end. A must read of the summer!