By Aarron Fleming
On July 1, the Collierville Burch Library hosted New York Times bestselling author, Julie Clark, in a virtual Meet the Author event in partnership with Humanities Tennessee.
During the event, Clark answered questions from librarians, Emily Baker and Meredith Campbell, about her new book, “The Last Flight.”
She touched on the novel’s influences and dove deeper into the stories of the book’s two main characters, Eva and Claire.
Clark also teased her an upcoming book that’s slated to come out June 2022 and the current movie deal that she has with Lionsgate for an adaption of her last book, “The Ones We Choose,” for the big screen.
Clark’s new book, “The Last Flight,” is a thrilling tale of two different women from very different backgrounds that are both trying to escape from two very dire situations.
Claire, the wife of a senator-to-be, is fleeing from her husband’s secret, abusive clutches. Eva, a younger woman in her twenties who made a name herself in the Bay area’s drug underworld, now has to flee from her criminal past if she wants to stay alive.
Both women decide to hop on planes and fly away from their troubles. While at the airport, the two women happen to meet at a bar and hatch a plan to switch tickets and take each other’s place on the plane for the best chance at not getting caught.
Upon landing, however, Claire discovers that Eva’s plane crashed into the ocean, and now must take on her identity, all while grappling with Eva’s possible demise and the fallout from faking her own death.
Clark wrote the book on the heels of the #MeToo movement, a social movement birthed on Twitter that encouraged women victims of sexual abuse and harassment to come forward against their abusers.
She said that she was revising the book when Christine Blasey Ford came forward with accusations of sexual abuse by Justice Brett Kanvanaugh, which complicated his nomination to the Supreme Court.
“I wanted to write a book where the women were strong and they were not victims,” Clark said.
She that said that both women in the book are strong because they own the mistakes that they’ve made and actively work throughout the book to fix them.
Clark also said that the idea for the novel came from a desire to explore whether a person could truly escape their life and not be found out in today’s tech saturated world.
She wanted, however, a method outside of normal means like federal witness protection programs.
She talked to friends in law enforcement and even toyed with the idea of Claire using 9/11 as a way to run away and not get caught.
“What I really was looking for was a way for everyone to believe her to be dead without her actually being dead,” she said. “And without any evidence, like no body.”
Even though Clark is new to the writing game, she has already found mainstream success.
She only has two books out currently, yet one has hit the New York Times Bestsellers list and the other has a movie in the works.
Clark struck a deal with Lionsgate for a movie adaption of her last book, “The Ones We Choose.”
Similar to the “The Last Flight,” “The Ones We Choose” features another strong woman as the central character in the form of geneticist Paige Robson who has to come to terms with her past while trying to help her son fit in at his new school and answer the questions he has about who his real father is.
Before closing out, Clark also dropped hints about an upcoming book called, “The Lies I Tell,” which is slated to come out in June 2022 and draws on some of the same themes as the “The Last Flight.”
“There’s not abuse in this particular book,” she said, “but it is a woman who sees men, powerful men, taking advantage of situations and doing something about it.”
Readers can find “The Last Flight” at most major book retailers.More information about Clark and her upcoming books can be found at julieclarkauthor.com
