The Last Flight by Julie Clark
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This twisty and addictive novel follows the lives of two women who desperately want to start over — and get the chance, when upon meeting at a New York airport on the flip side of security, agree to swap boarding passes and IDs and possessions, and continue on with the other’s itinerary.
From there, the novel both backtracks and treads forward: to what led Eva to this point of wanting to vanish, and what Claire does when given the chance.
Eva, we learn, was an aspiring chemist and student who got bogged down and trapped in illegal drug production and sales.
Claire is semi-famous, the wife of a soon-to-be-senator from a Kennedy-like clan, an untouchable philanthropist and statesman who ruthlessly beats Claire around in his spare time.
The novel tells the story of Eva’s harrowing unravelling and reckoning culminating in the airport meeting with Claire; and the desperate story of Claire’s own struggle to survive as she makes sense of Eva’s world she’s stumbled into and tries to stay hidden from her husband’s powerful gaze.
Super suspenseful, great characters, strong women, captivating writing! This will be a winner with anyone who loves the unreliable narrator trope.
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