Innocence doesn’t bail you out; it just makes you easier to trap.

Frida and Gabriel arrive seeking a fresh start at the stunning Ara Hotel in the secluded desert of Escalante, Utah. Once so close they were able to finish each other’s sentences, they’ve grown apart in recent years after a sudden, unspeakable tragedy. Now, at the luxe resort, they are ready to reconnect between dips in the pool and hikes on spectacular desert trails. It all feels like paradise—until the dead body of a beautiful young woman who was vacationing at the Ara with her powerful, much older husband is discovered.

When the local police arrive and suspicion quickly falls on Gabriel, Frida is forced to revisit memories from their upbringing in a cloistered cult in upstate New York, their dramatic escape, and the scandal that followed. Frida’s belief in Gabriel’s innocence never wavered at the time, but now even she can’t ignore the evidence mounting against him.

Alternating between past and present timelines, Our Last Resort builds toward a shattering climax that uncovers the fate of the murdered Ara guest and poses the question: how well do we ever really know those we love? Multi-layered, gripping, and intense, Clémence Michallon’s latest suspense novel is a nail-biter until the last page, cementing her status as a major new talent in the genre.

This was the second book I’ve read by this author, and unfortunately, I was really disappointed. I enjoyed The Quiet Tenant so much more than I expected to, so I went into this one with pretty high hopes. Unfortunately, it turned out to be nothing like what I was expecting.

I listened to the audiobook, and as always, Saskia Maarleveld did an amazing job. She’s one of my favorite narrators, but even her performance couldn’t save this train wreck for me. There was also way too much language for my liking, including many f-bombs. The main character is bisexual, but there is no spice.

The story is told through past and present timelines, and I don’t think they were handled very well. Instead of feeling like two pieces of the same story, they felt like two completely separate books. Every time I became invested in one timeline, the story would switch to the other, forcing me to completely shift my attention. It pulled me out of the story over and over again and made the entire structure feel clunky and disjointed.

I also don’t think the past timeline was really necessary. It gave us some backstory about the main characters and their relationships, but I never felt like it added enough to justify how much time we spent there. It felt lackluster and didn’t do much to move the present-day murder mystery forward.

The past storyline revolves around a cult and includes a man who sleeps with young girls. A lot of this darker content just gave me the ick and isn’t something I enjoy reading about. We learn how the “siblings” grew up together and trauma-bonded, but I never felt like any of it made enough of a difference to the main murder mystery happening in the present. Even the cult storyline wasn’t particularly exciting or thrilling, especially since we already know that the characters eventually escaped.

Unfortunately, I never really connected with any of the characters either. They felt underdeveloped, and I didn’t become emotionally invested in them or particularly care what happened. That made an already slow mystery even harder for me to stay interested in.

Overall, this was a pretty boring murder mystery that felt formulaic and barely held my attention. It almost felt like the author had two different story ideas that weren’t fully developed, so she mashed them together and gave us this messy, disjointed story instead. There were pieces that could have been interesting, but they never came together in a satisfying way.

I enjoyed The Quiet Tenant enough that I’m still willing to read more from this author, but unfortunately, this one was a big miss for me. I wouldn’t recommend it.