This was a very good crime novel—though I wouldn’t quite call it a thriller. It’s not a high-speed roller coaster ride, but more like peeling back the layers of an onion. Gabriel and Frida’s story is rich, complex, and emotionally raw. What really stood out to me was the author’s subtle writing style. Instead of relying on twists and dramatic turns, the story unfolds naturally, guided by the depth of human emotion and the complexity of our nature.

I found myself deeply connected to the characters, even when they made questionable choices. The way the author breathes life into them—flaws and all—makes it impossible not to stand by them. There’s something haunting and beautiful in the honesty of it all, and I absolutely loved that.

I’m incredibly grateful to Elliott & Thompson and NetGalley for allowing me to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Nah I'm very disappointed with this book so I dnf it at 63%. First of all I thought it would be a thriller, but I will say that it's more a murder mystery... It took a while to come into the book and when I did I thought it was very slow... Nothing exciting happened at all. I kept reading with a lot of patience but unfortunately I couldn't get through this book.... To boring and to disappointing for me...

I was a big fan of the authors debut, The quiet tenant. That captivated me, I loved the multiple POVs and the writing style. So going into this book I was excited to see what the author was going to do next.

For me, this just didn’t hit the right way. The past vs present timeline was at times confusing and almost like I was reading two different stories. Yes, the cult felt intriguing and interesting to begin with, but I don’t think it was explored enough and therefore, didn’t have the impact I thought it would on the present timeline.

The characters also just weren’t at all likeable for me. Again, the past timeline does help you to understand them and their weird behaviour at times. However, I don’t think it really gave us much more than that.

The overall, murder mystery was okay but again it wasn’t anything mind-blowing and I honestly at points felt quite bored reading this.
I think some people will love this, but it wasn’t for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for a review.

What a wild ride! This thriller had me itching to keep reading. The present day story was fine but the cult flashbacks and all the time leading up to current day really did it for me. While some of it wasn’t hard to guess what was going to happen, it didn’t detract from me wanting to actually find out the truth. I didn’t love The Quiet Tenant but am so glad I gave this a shot! Definitely recommend

Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher Elliott & Thompson for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

The story revolves around Gabriel and Frida, who, after growing up in a cult, share a childhood trauma that unites them like siblings. Hoping for a relaxing getaway at a desert resort, they unexpectedly find themselves embroiled in a murder investigation.

As a mystery lover, I thoroughly enjoyed this story, particularly the dual timeline that alternates between their time at the resort and their shared past escaping the cult. The narrative captivated me, compelling me to keep reading. Despite a predictable ending, it offered a powerful emotional insight into their complex relationship.

This book fell so flat for me. After loving The Tenant so much I had high hopes. This book is a shockingly quick read but the plot is slow and boring and "twist" had zero shock value.

DNF at 50 pages. Unfortunately Our Last Resort did not work for me. After enjoying this author’s previous work a lot, I was looking forward to reading Our Last Resort. I found it really quite boring and slow. Additionally, I was expecting a thriller, and this turned out to be more of a mystery. I just found myself dragging through the pages, forcing myself to read without enjoying it. Overall, after how exciting and fast paced The Quiet Tenant was, Our Last Resort really let me down.

Thank you to Netgalley and Elliot & Thompson Publishing for the ARC of this book.

Frida and Gabriel grew up as siblings in a cult they eventually escaped from. They’ve been tightly bonded and fiercely loyal ever since, although they’ve grown apart in recent years. When they meet up at the Ara Hotel in Escalante, Utah, they’re hoping to reconnect and renew their relationship. But the desert paradise turns into a nightmare when the wife of a powerful media magnate is found dead. Suspicion quickly falls on Gabriel… because this isn’t the first unusual death that’s happened close to him.

After loving the author’s masterful debut “The Quiet Tenant”, this was a highly anticipated read for me. This book is beautifully written, with a vibe that feels almost literary but still very accessible. If you approach this book as a thriller, you may be disappointed, but if you come at it knowing it’s a slow burn mystery with a lot of backstory about trauma bonded “siblings”, I think it’s more likely to work for you. From that standpoint, I think a lot of readers are going to love this book.

Unfortunately, I am not one of those readers. The dual timelines are well crafted, but neither of them felt fully satisfying to me. The cult timeline doesn’t feel original or delve far enough into the cult’s behaviors and manipulations. The cult leader is very David Koresh coded and the narrative even references Waco specifically. The present timeline at the Ara Hotel isn’t suspenseful enough to be compelling, given that there aren’t many characters and therefore very few potential murder suspects.

Thank you to NetGalley and Elliott & Thompson for providing me an advance copy of this book.

I was captivated by this book and stayed up well beyond my bedtime until I finished it. A read in a day book if you are intrigued as I was by the characters, the peculiar cult setting and the enormous friendship which is the main focus of the book. Through all of the twists and turns, it kept me guessing until the last quarter. It was not at all, what I was expecting. The reader did a terrific job at character description and I felt that I knew the characters thoroughly, and was heartened by the eventual ending. I would highly recommend this read.

I love a good cult story, and this one had all the makings of a gripping, layered read. With eerie parallels to David Koresh and a few direct nods to Waco, Michallon leans into the unsettling familiarity of a charismatic, manipulative leader—and in that regard, Emile was crafted so well. The cult elements were strong and grounded in disturbing realism, which is exactly what I was hoping for.

That said, I’m still on the fence about Michallon’s writing style. I had similar feelings when I read The Quiet Tenant—technically solid, but something about the flow doesn’t fully click for me. The prose veers into ethereal and almost frantic territory, especially as the tension rises. While that might work for some readers as a stylistic choice that mimics trauma and confusion, I found it occasionally pulled me out of the story.

The dual timeline structure combined with a narrator who seems unreliable by design adds a sense of disorientation. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it just feels a bit too all over the place. I did appreciate the emotional nuance in how survivors of cults were portrayed—the fear, the second-guessing, the ache of trying to rebuild a self after years of manipulation. That part felt raw and real.

Unfortunately, the twist didn’t really land for me. It wasn’t shocking, and while the resolution was fine, I didn’t walk away feeling particularly impacted. Still, I respect the narrator’s tenacity and the way Michallon explored survival, identity, and grief.

Overall, Our Last Resort had a strong concept, but the execution wasn’t quite what I hoped. I gave this one a shot after The Quiet Tenant didn’t fully hit for me—and while it offered some compelling elements, it still fell a bit short of leaving a lasting impression.

Our Last Resort is an absolutely riveting blend of psychological suspense and emotional depth. Clémence Michallon has crafted a thriller that is as much about murder and mystery as it is about memory, trauma, and the bonds that hold us together—or pull us apart.

The novel centers on Frida and Gabriel, once inseparable, now tentative strangers reunited at a luxurious desert retreat in Escalante, Utah. They’ve come to the Ara Hotel looking for healing after years of silence and shared tragedy. But when a young woman—Sabrina, the glamorous wife of a powerful older man—is found dead, paradise quickly unravels into a nightmare.

What makes this story so compelling is how it moves seamlessly between timelines: the eerie, insulated world of a cult where Frida and Gabriel grew up as pseudo-siblings, their harrowing escape and the tabloid scandal that followed, and the chilling present, where Gabriel finds himself the prime suspect in Sabrina’s murder. As the past resurfaces, long-buried secrets start to crack open—and Frida is forced to ask herself whether she ever truly knew the person she’s always defended.

This is a masterclass in slow-burning suspense. The pacing is taut, the character work is rich and believable, and the unraveling of three connected mysteries is handled with impressive finesse. Each revelation is more shocking than the last, and yet it all fits together in a way that feels both inevitable and devastating.

The final chapters had me completely breathless. And the ending—bittersweet, haunting, and deeply human—lingered long after I turned the last page.

A must-read for fans of layered thrillers with heart, Our Last Resort proves Michallon is a rising star in the genre.

The author of The Quiet Tenant strikes again with another gripping mystery. Throw in a cult and a resort out in the middle of a desert, and you have set the scene for some suspense.

Frida and Gabriel are forever bonded by their joint experiences. This dual timeline story gives you the insight into both their childhood and their adult lives. One timeline depicts their early years and coming-of-age traumas in the cult. The second timeline follows their adult journeys that are forever impacted by their past. In this case, it involves murder. At first I found myself questioning the amount of drama that can happen to two people. However, that level of brainwashing and abuse in your early years does make everything plausible. I was invested and eager to see how this all played out.

One thing to note, this story does contain some sexual abuse.

Thank you to Elliott & Thompson for providing an advanced digital copy via NetGalley. These opinions are entirely my own. I'm here for whatever Michallon writes in the future.

(3.5 stars)

This mystery follows two siblings who witness a murder on the resort that they are staying at to reconnect. Their past is mysterious too and we get alternating chapters to their past life and their present. The book was pretty slow moving and I was less intersted in their past stories than their present which was an ongoing investigation. I liked the setting of the resort which was very calming and aesthetic. The book was a slow mystery and not a thriller so expectations should be for a mystery while reading this one.

This one was better than expected.

I'll admit the writing style was a little twee - I really wasn't sure I was going to stick with it at first.

But the cult bits drew me in and the oddness of our MC started to appeal to me.

And while, at first, it didn't seem like there was a whole lot going on plot wise, the author began to pull various strings together and gave us one extremely satisfying secret. I was very, very pleased with that one. I didn't see it coming, but I should have.

I ended the book feeling very satisfied.

* ARC via Publisher

3.5 stars

Siblings Gabriel & Frida grew up in a cult but managed to escape and make their way on their own. Fifteen years later, they’re meeting up at the exclusive Ada resort in Utah. When a young woman dies, Gabriel is immediately suspected to be the perpetrator of the crime. Frida knows Gabriel is not guilty, but now she has to prove it. The story has dual timelines between present day, and the siblings’ upbringing in the cult.

Took me a little bit to get into this novel. There are a lot of little nuances between Frida and Gabriel, and overall, I enjoyed the present day storyline more than the cult storyline. Something about the cult storyline just reminded me of another book. I did like the ending and there was Revolution to a few differe situations.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for a copy of this book

I received a DIGITAL Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book but I didn't love it. The book felt slow to me but it kept my interest. I was a little more interested in the past timeline then the present timeline. Reading about the cult and their life afterwards was interesting to me and to see how Frida and Gabriel became the people they are.

I also was not expecting the twist towards the end even though I probably should have. It was a fun twist for me.

3.5 stars rounded up

Our Last Resort by Clémence Michallon is a nuanced, emotionally layered psychological thriller that leans more into character study than page-turning suspense—but still lands with quiet devastation. Thank you to the author, Knopf, and NetGalley for the gifted ARC.

This is not your average whodunit. The premise—siblings escaping a cult, only to be entangled in a new murder years later—is compelling, but the real story here is emotional rather than procedural. Frida and Gabriel, who fled a cloistered cult in upstate New York as teenagers, reunite at a remote luxury resort in Escalante, Utah. The setting is serene, but their history is anything but. Their plan is to reconnect and contribute to a documentary about their traumatic past. But when a fellow guest—a young woman married to a powerful older man—is found dead, old wounds tear open fast. Gabriel becomes the prime suspect, and Frida is left to wrestle with a mounting dread that maybe, just maybe, she doesn’t know her brother at all.

Michallon’s strength is in her restraint. She doesn’t rush the story. The novel unfolds in a dual timeline: the present-day investigation at the Ara Hotel and flashbacks to Frida and Gabriel’s childhood in the cult and the harrowing days after their escape. The transitions are smooth, and the juxtaposition between past and present creates a rhythm that pulls you in. Still, this is a slow burn. Readers expecting a fast-paced thriller filled with high-stakes twists might feel impatient—but those who appreciate a creeping sense of dread and moral ambiguity will find a lot to admire.

What really works is the portrayal of trauma and its ripple effects. Frida and Gabriel’s bond is intense but fractured, shaped by the abuse, neglect, and manipulation they endured as children. They weren’t just siblings—they were each other’s lifeline. Now, years later, with secrets layered over silence, that bond is being tested to its limit. Michallon captures the claustrophobic dynamic between them with subtlety. Frida is fiercely loyal but quietly suspicious. Gabriel, charming and enigmatic, carries the weight of past accusations—specifically, the unresolved death of his wife, Anne.

It’s here that the novel leans into its strongest themes: how far we’ll go to protect the ones we love, and what we’re willing to ignore or justify in the name of that love. Frida’s internal conflict is the engine of the story. As evidence against Gabriel mounts, she spirals between doubt and denial. Is she remembering things wrong? Did Gabriel lie to her? Did she lie to herself?

That said, the murder mystery plot in the present day isn’t as compelling as it could have been. The investigation unfolds somewhat predictably, and the cast of secondary characters at the resort—though interesting—feels underdeveloped. The setting, too, while atmospheric, isn’t used to its full potential. The Utah desert offers space for isolation, metaphor, and danger, but the story largely stays indoors, emotionally rather than physically.

Where the novel shines is in its exploration of the past. The cult scenes are disturbing, yes, but more than that, they’re revealing. Michallon doesn’t just show what happened—she shows how it seeped into Frida and Gabriel’s sense of self. She’s not interested in shock value; she’s interested in what happens after the escape. How do you build a life when you’ve never known freedom? How do you form relationships when everything you were taught was a lie? These questions haunt the characters and make even the slow moments feel charged.

The reveal—when it comes—isn’t a bombshell twist, but it is emotionally impactful. Without spoiling anything, I’ll say this: the question isn’t just “who did it?” It’s “what are you willing to live with?” And that, to me, is a far more compelling question. The final chapters hit hard because they feel earned, not manufactured. The tension isn’t just in the plot—it’s in Frida’s conscience.

This isn’t a flawless novel. At times the pacing lags, and I found myself wishing for a deeper dive into the cult’s inner workings—its leader, its doctrine, its mechanisms of control. The trauma is shown, but the system that caused it remains somewhat vague. I also think the story could have benefited from either expanding the resort cast or tightening the focus to make the stakes of the murder investigation sharper. But the emotional core of the book more than compensates.

Ultimately, Our Last Resort isn’t about solving a murder—it’s about surviving what happens after. It’s about the weight of memory, the price of loyalty, and the blurry lines between truth and love. Clémence Michallon writes with precision, empathy, and a kind of quiet fearlessness. If you’re here for something emotionally resonant and morally complex, this one’s for you.

Having read and loved Clémence‘s debit “The Quiet Tenant” I jumped at the chance to read her follow up thriller

Brother and sister, Frida and Gabriel have already lived a harrowing life. Having escaped a cult fifteen years ago together they form an unbreakable bond. However as they join modern society make lives for themselves they drift apart

When a trip to an expensive resort promises a reconnection and relaxation, Frida and Gabriel seem to have picked up where they left off

But when another guest is found dead, Gabriel becomes the prime suspect, old memories resurface and as much a Frida and Gabriel always have had each others backs, on this occasion even Frida is questioning who Gabriel is

Our Last Resort is a gripping, page turning thriller. Told from Frida’s point of view in key past and present time frames. The cult aspect was dark and you really learn the harrowing life story of Frida and her brother.

Thank you Netgalley and Elliot & Thompson for my arc of this upcoming release

Totally gripping thriller. I could not put this down. The trauma bond between the two main characters will rip your heart out. The twist in this was so unexpected. Will definitely be thinking out this one for awhile.

Thank you to NetGalley and Elliott & Thompson for the ARC!

Our Last Resort by Clemence Michallon blends drama and mystery in a story about survival, loyalty, and hidden truths. The novel follows Frida and Gabriel, two individuals who escaped a cult as young adults. Years later, while vacationing at a resort to provide interviews for a documentary, a young woman is found dead. Alongside the murder investigation, the book unravels layers of mystery surrounding their escape from the cult and Gabriel's wife’s death years earlier, a case in which he was a suspect but never charged.

Michallon's writing style is accessible, with simple prose and dual timelines that are easy to follow. This straightforward approach keeps the story moving, though it occasionally sacrifices emotional resonance and narrative complexity.

The narrative alternates between the present and the past, offering glimpses into Frida and Gabriel's lives within the cult and their experiences in its aftermath. While the past timeline held incredible potential, it only scratched the surface of their backstory. This was, by far, the more compelling aspect of the book, and I couldn’t help but wish it had provided more insight into the cult’s inner workings - its leader, Emile, their beliefs, and the traumatic events that shaped their lives. Adding more depth to this part of the narrative would have allowed for a richer exploration of family, loyalty, and the bonds formed in shared adversity.

The present-day murder investigation felt less impactful. The suspense was mild, and the drama often lacked the emotional depth needed to fully engage me as a reader.

Our Last Resort has an intriguing premise; unfortunately, it left me wanting more, especially when it came to the cult storyline. As a drama with a touch of suspense, it had moments of potential but ultimately fell short of delivering the depth and emotion I had hoped for. For me, it was an okay read, but not one that will linger long after the final page.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Knopf Publishing, and Clemence Michallon for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.