The Last Flight by Julie Clark

Two women desperate to escape their lives exchange plane tickets just before one of the planes crashes.

Author

Diego Dunne
April 11, 2025

Hey, it’s Diego.

I finished reading The Last Flight by Julie Clark this week.

And it subverted my expectations.

Let me give you my spoiler-free, unbiased review.

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The Last Flight by Julie Clark Review

The Last Flight introduces us to Claire and Eva, two women whose lives intersect at an airport, leading them to switch plane tickets in a desperate bid to escape their dangerous lives.

Trigger Warnings: domestic abuse, drug abuse, and physical violence.

This book falls into the Domestic Thriller category.

Domestic thrillers: a subset of psychological thrillers that happen in a “domestic” location. This can be a family home or small town but can also be a hospital, prison, etc.

We follow Claire in the present, navigating her high-society life overshadowed by an abusive husband, and Eva through flashbacks, revealing the gritty and dangerous world she’s trying to leave behind.

Julie Clark’s writing is fast-paced and utilitarian, something I appreciate in thrillers. The dual perspectives and multiple timelines reveal details as the story progresses. Which always keeps me engaged. I was pleasantly surprised when the switch happened very early in the story, focusing on the aftermath of the change.

The Last Flight is a weird one for me because there were lots of opportunities to up the tension, but they were never really taken advantage of. As such, there were very few thrills throughout but plenty of drama, so I was able to binge-read this one in a couple of sittings.

The story is character-driven, which I thought was pretty well done. The characters advance the plot by being proactive, and they make very coherent and smart decisions given the circumstances.

There is no romance in this story, no sexual relationships, no foul language, and no violence. All in all, a very clean read.

So, what about the ending? (No spoilers, obviously)

I love my stories to wrap up nicely, with a neat little bow at the end. I like to read a cathartic scene where everything our characters have been through finally pays off physically and emotionally. Then a denouement in another chapter (or chapters) following the characters decompress where things are resolved and I’m left delighted at how well things played out at the end, every plot thread resolved.

The ending wraps things nicely. And we do get time with the characters during the denouement, which I appreciated. I was a bit disappointed to find a twist for the sake of a twist toward the end that kind of dampened the themes.

This is a very cozy thriller. I would recommend this to someone who doesn’t like violence or dark topics but still likes to feel the small thrills of what it’s like to step into someone else’s life for a while.

Similar Books to The Last Flight

  • Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

  • The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian

That’s all for this week.

See you next time.

— Diego Dunne

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