🏝️Our Last Resort by Clèmence Michallon

I’m so glad I gave this author another chance. I found The Quiet Tenant so slow and frustrating but decided to try her latest book anyway.

Our Last Resort is told in alternating timelines, going between a traumatic childhood spent in and escaping from a cult commune and current day as the brother and sister find themselves embroiled in a murder mystery at their vacation resort.

This one was still a bit of a slow burn, but it really worked for me. I loved how each alternating piece of the timeline unraveled the story of what happened in the cult, and the shocking revelations of two different murders. Michellon has really hit her stride with this book.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Elliot & Thompson for this free ARC in exchange for my honest review.

LOVED IT!

I loved the dual POV from the past of the sibling's with the cult setting ambiance, and the murder suspision in the NOW.

Clémence is a wonderful authors, this was very well writing and captivating from the start.

I really loved The Quiet Tenant last year, so I was super thrilled to read this early. Now, I won’t say this is a bad book per say. It just was NOTHING compared to Michallon’s previous work.

The cult aspect was done well, and I found it extremely interesting. I wish we had gotten a book JUST about that. Everything else was painfully slow, boring and obvious. I thought the MC’s to be flat and lacking depth. It was also wildly unbelievable. Normally that doesn’t bother me, but the cult aspect was done so well that it really highlighted the rest of its “meh” factors if that makes sense?! I will pick up her next work as I do think she has talent.

thank you @netgalley for my advance copy***

👀 T H R I L L E R T H U R S D A Y review 👀 featuring “Our Last Resort” by Clemence Michallon!

15 years ago, Frida and Gabriel escaped from the cult that they grew up in and are bonded by trauma. After their escape to the “outside”, they lived through homelessness and barely scraping by due to having no proper identification and finding under the table jobs.

Now in present days, they have met at a luxury resort in Utah to catch up and rekindle their relationship that has been strained for the last couple of years after something horrible happened.

The vacation doesn’t last for long after one of the resort’s guests winds up dead and Gabriel quickly becomes a suspect. This isn’t the first time that he’s been involved in the unusual death of a woman!

💭 I am fascinated by cult themes in thrillers and enjoyed the dual timelines between what happened to them growing up in the cult and what is happening right now at the hotel. As the past and present blend together, so do the secrets and darkness that the siblings have tried to keep buried!

“I didn’t realize until years later that this is how the story always ends. For people like me, who grew up in this kind of world. A world with a man at its Center, a universe shaped by his presence, his ideas, his wants”.

Thank you kindly to @clemencemichallon @knopfca @penguinrandomca @netgalley for my advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest review. This book releases on July 8, 2025!

This gripping page-turner the author masterfully intertwines two timelines: the past, exploring the lives of Frida and Gabriel, two self-declared siblings at a cult, and the present, where they reunite at a hotel in Escalante, Utah, only to find themselves entangled in a murder investigation. Both the characters had depth and their loyalty towards each other, trauma, grief, guilt was showcased very well. This is my first read by Clemence Michallon, and I am looking forward to read her other books.I was in a reading slump for a week this book got me out of it. I would suggest this for all thriller fans. I thank netgalley and elliottandthompson for the eARC copy.

Siblings Frida and Gabriel are staying at a posh resort filled with wealthy people and influencers. Frida witnesses an altercation between 2 of the guests and the next day one of them is dead and the other arrested for the crime. Frida starts to question her brother when the victims belongings start to turn up in the most inconvenient places.

There were flashback chapters that told us the backstory between Gabriel and Frida and how they escaped the cult they were in as children.

This started with a bang and kept me on the edge of my seat the beginning of the book. I did find that some of the flashback chapters were a bit slow or full of information that wasn't really needed. The last 20% of the book really picks up again. That being said, I wouldn't label this a fast paced thriller but I did enjoy it.

You know it’s going to be fantastic when Lisa Jewell says it’s good! I could not put this book down. It was so intense! I loved the characters, the setting, and how it kept me on the edge of my seat.

Our Last Resort leans more toward a mystery driven story, though it didn’t quite deliver the suspense I was hoping for. At the beginning, I struggled a bit with the author’s writing style and found the narrative somewhat confusing. Over time, the plot began to make more sense, but I never really connected with the characters, they came across as flat and underdeveloped.

I was able to predict the twists, which made the story feel less mysterious and not particularly thrilling. That said, it wasn’t a bad book; it had potential and a solid premise. I picked this one up because the author’s previous novel, The Quiet Tenant, received a lot of praise and came recommended by a fellow book lover. I haven’t read that one yet, but I still plan to.

Had I not received that recommendation, I’m not sure I would seek out another book by this author based on Our Last Resort alone. Still, I can see how others might enjoy it more than I did. I just can’t quite put my finger on why it didn’t fully land for me.

Another great one from Michallon. Really enjoyed this and read it quickly. The brother-sister dynamic is interesting and was genuinely shocked by the twist. Will read anything new by her!

Having absolutely adored The Quiet Tenant, I was positively delighted to receive an ARC of Clemence Michallon's latest thriller, Our Last Resort, and it most certainly did not disappoint. Our Last Resort is a gritty psychological thriller, that makes fabulous use of a dual timeline narrative. I loved the gradual unfurling of events from Freida and Gabriel's past, notably the flashbacks to their time in a cult, as there's something so insidiously creepy about cults and their charismatic, narcissistic leaders. Emile, the cult leader, was such a fabulously well drawn character. He's a character you love to hate. In fact, every character in this novel was flawed in some way, which made them all the more relatable and human. As with The Quiet Tenant, Clemence Michallon has done wonderfully well to give us such a gritty, atmospheric thriller. The language is so evocative I felt as though I was at the resort with them, and there was a real omnipresent sense of danger and foreboding throughout the novel. I truly devoured this book, which I found to be such a captivating, fast-paced, page-turner, and can't wait to read more from this author

This book had the makings of a really compelling thriller, but it fell short for me. I did like the dual timelines of the story but it moved too slowly and while there was a twist, it wasn’t a surprise at all. I loved the author’s previous book and I really wanted to live this one just as much but no such luck. It does have cult themes and murder which are always intriguing in a thriller, so just because this wasn’t for me doesn’t mean it won’t be for you!

This book has one of the most eye catching covers I've seen in a while, so that was definitely the first thing that drew me to this. Unfortunately that was literally the only thing I liked about the book.
This one was a massive struggle to get through right from the start.
I just couldn't get invested or connect to the characters and the plot and this was the biggest challenge for me for the entire book.
The whole thing felt so dull and boring. It certainly didn't have any spark.
The writing seemed to me to be very surface level and flat. The characters also lacked any depth and I just couldn't connect to them. I never once cared about them or the story.
One thing that really made the plot drag for me was the flashback chapters. I know why they were written and it is a big part of the plot, but I really didn't like them. I much preferred the current timeline chapters and I would have liked the book to just have that timeline.
This book came across as more of a contemporary or literary fiction, even though it seems to being publicised as a mystery/thriller.
I skim read the last 30% as by that point I truly didn't care in the slightest and I just wanted the whole thing to be over.
So, unfortunately this was a massive miss for me.

Oh, I loved this! After reading The Quiet Tenant I was excited to pick up the next book from this author. and it did not disappoint.
Frieda and her brother are having a vacation together after having drifted apart over the past few years. While on their holiday a dead body shows up at the resort.
A back and forth between the present and the past, Our Last Resort kept me engaged from beginning to end while making me feel a looming sense of dread the entire time which i love so much.
For a more indepth, yet still spoiler free review, please check out my youtube review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvFnc_Qpwy8

Frida and Gabriel became siblings in a commune and stayed close after running away from the commune, holding each other's secrets close. Decades later, taking a vacation together at a luxury spa, tragedy finds them again. The big question: are they involved and will this pull them apart or strengthen their bonds? I was never really sure where this story was going and kept turning pages despite needing to do other things. However, I did not feel that this story had the depth of intrigue and suspense that I was expecting. Not sure why, because it was a very solid plot, but maybe I was expecting too much from it? Needless to say, the character development and story were excellent. A worthy read!

3.5 stars
A suspenseful murder mystery centered around Frida and Gabriel (brother & sister) who escaped a cult as young adults. After spending several years apart after Gabriel was accused of murdering his wife, they come together at a resort to reconnect. Bonder by childhood trauma of growing up in a cult, Frida questions how much she truly knows her brother when a woman is found murdered at the resort.
This was a bit slow for me. I didn’t find many of the twist very shocking. I was hoping to enjoy this more than The Quiet Tennant but I didn’t find that to be the case. Thank you NetGalley & Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for this ARC.

Thanks to Net Galley and Pantheon for an early ARC of this novel from Clemence Michallon. This is my second read from this author and I enjoyed it even more than the first.

Two siblings who were raised in a cult in the Utah desert find themselves - now grown adults - at the center of a murder at a luxury hotel. The dual timelines and cliffhanger chapter endings were so well done that I couldn’t wait to see what happened next. I did figure out the twist, but only about 10 pages before the book revealed it so I’d consider that a good surprise still. I really loved how this book played on the aspect that we are all flawed humans, and none of us are purely “good” or “bad.”

This is a great summer thriller to read poolside on vacation - though you won’t look at your fellow travelers the same way after!

“Our Last Resort” by Clémence Michallon is about two “siblings”, Gabriel and Frida, who escaped from a cult as teenagers and have spent the rest of their lives trying to deal with what happened to them there. What they did there. The story jumps back and forth between present day when Gabriel and Frida are on vacation at a resort together, and their time growing up as a cult and the years right after they left. While they’re at the resort a woman is killed. And it’s not the first time a woman in Gabriel’s orbit was killed. But did he do it? Did Frida? Did someone else?

The way the story is written is very strange and hazy. It has an almost dreamlike quality to it. Nothing feels totally real. I’m not sure if that was intentional, done to describe the surreal turns that their lives have taken over the years, or if perhaps it’s the writer’s style because she is French? I don’t know, but it didn’t work for me. Because of the writing style I found it hard to connect with the characters or picture any of the settings.

While I did not enjoy this book, fans of more literary mysteries might enjoy it.

This book had me hooked from the start. While I’m not always the biggest fan of cult themes, this one was done really well. Very believable and just the right amount of creepy atmosphere to leave you feeling slightly unsettled. I definitely found myself completely invested in the unraveling of secrets and the slow-burn suspense.

The only thing holding me back from giving 5 stars was that after such a compelling buildup, I was hoping for something with more punch or at least one last jolt of surprise. The ending kind of just quietly melted away. Still, the journey there was absolutely worth it. If you enjoy character-drive thrillers, this one is certainly worth adding to the list.

I was very excited for this one. I loved this author’s previous book The Quiet Tenant, so I had high hopes for this one, but unfortunately it didn’t quite hit the same mark for me. I went in expecting a thriller but I definitely felt this was more of a mystery—which was fine, just not what I anticipated. I did enjoy the dual timelines, and while the story started off a bit slow, it did eventually pick up. The ending was intense, and the twist was definitely surprising!!

This was an enjoyable enough read, but nowhere close to the authors debut. This felt like more a standard mystery thriller and I feel like I will sadly be forgetting a lot of the plot points.