My Review with Spoilers for The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia discusses this buzzy new January 2025 suspense story. My Review of The Business Trip includes protected spoilers and the ending explained. It wasn’t really for me, but I think a lot of you will absolutely love it and I have a great tip from my fellow reviewers. Let’s discuss it all!
Jen’s Quick Take on The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia
- The Business Trip is like a cross between The Last Flight by Julie Clark plus a Freida McFadden book. If you’re a Freida fan, this book is for you!
- While The Business Trip is twisty and surprising, it is not a book you can think too hard about.
- The narrative structure repeated certain plot events several times, due to the fact the book includes at least eight narrators telling parts of the same story. The repetition didn’t bother me, but some readers disliked that aspect.
- Reviewers on Goodreads say they strongly preferred the audiobook, which makes a lot of sense, so if you are looking for a fun and fast-paced book to listen to, check it out.
- To be published on January 14, 2025 by St. Martin’s Press. 352 pages. Thanks to the publisher for providing an advance copy for review.
Review with Spoilers of The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia
The “two women on a plane” aspect of The Business Trip reminded me a lot of The Last Flight by Julie Clark, a book I recommend!
But The Business Trip takes the reader on a bit of a different journey as these two women’s paths cross as seat mates on a flight from the Midwest to Denver. Jasmine is escaping a bad relationship, while news director Stephanie is connecting in Denver for a flight to San Diego to attend a business conference.
Without spoilers I will say that things do NOT go as planned.
As I said in my quick take, The Business Trip WAS surprising and a fun ride.
But afterwards, I reflected that there were a lot of coincidences and that the character’s motivations and actions didn’t always make much sense, but were more there to drive the plot forward, as can be the case in other books you can read in one sitting.
What were my specific issues? Let’s get into that in my spoiler section!
The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia Ending Explained
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- Stephanie fantasized about ditching her post-divorce life and living in a beach shack in Mexico.
- Jasmine wants to escape her controlling boyfriend Glenn and start over.
Do they do a Parent Trap style switch? Not exactly.
- On the plane, Jasmine steals Stephanie’s ID. She then follows Steph to San Diego, uses the ID to access Steph’s hotel room, and strangles her.
- Because Steph conveniently left her laptop password on a post-it (seriously?) Jasmine is able to access all her accounts
- Jasmine sends reassuring texts to Stephanie’s friends and co-workers, but they eventually become suspicious
- Then Jasmine, who actually committed a murder as a teenager, decides to frame a guy she met at the conference for Steph’s death, and also her own (so she can disappear)
- Jasmine contacts an old friend, Raven, who drugs Trent (the fall guy) and plants evidence in his apartment. He has conveniently left his… ahem.. DNA on a towel so she can plant it.
- Then Jasmine sends alarming texts to Steph’s cat sitter so that he calls the police to Trent’s house.
- Raven helps her get a fake passport and she dumps Steph’s body and heads to Mexico.
Okay, so my takeaway here is: never leave your wallet unattended on a flight if you are sitting next to anyone who looks anything like you AND never leave your password on a post-it.
But The Business Trip has another twist right at the end
Here’s where things get even wilder: Stephanie is actually alive.
- Steph’s been a busy bee herself. She went on a site called Find My Doppelgänger and hired a woman named Diana to impersonate her at the conference.
- After Steph got off the plane (but before Jasmine did the strangling) Steph gave Diana her phone, wallet and clothes. Poor Diana went to sleep in Stephanie’s hotel room … and never woke up.
- Then Steph headed off to Mexico, blissfully unaware of the chaos she caused
- But when Diana doesn’t show up for their meeting to switch identities back .. uh oh.
My takeaway here is … what???? This is insane behavior.
Stephanie is basically Jasmine but without the murder part. Stephanie introduced me to something called ASMR (videos of soothing sounds that put your brain in a relaxed state) and I am going to need it to regroup after this book.
At least Jasmine gets caught:
- Lucy, Stephanie’s colleague, realizes that “Stephanie” at the conference was not really Stephanie.
- She contacts the police, who start to put the pieces together.
- Jasmine’s bitter ex-boyfriend, Glenn, tells the police to look for Raven, Jasmine’s old high school friend
- Raven spills everything to the police and Jasmine gets caught
- Stephanie gets fired (shocker!) and ends up running a PR firm.
What did you think of The Business Trip? Do you agree that it has a Freida McFadden vibe? Please tell me in comments. If you listened to the audiobook, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Check out all the other New January 2025 Thrillers and Mysteries!
I liked this one but you’re right that the book has some credibility issues! Jasmine happens to know someone that can get her a fake passport? Glenn doesn’t seem like the type to figure out anything that would help the police. I even think that it was weird that she was sneaking out while he was asleep and she had to be so careful not to wake him that she couldn’t open a drawer. Why didn’t she leave when he was at work? Stephanie’s behavior makes no sense. She can easily take time off of work to go on a trip. There’s no need to take such a dumb rosk.
But it was definitely a pages turner which is exactly what I was looking for. I enjoyed reading it.
Agree 100%. Often thrillers like this are books you can’t think too hard about. You have to just sit back and enjoy!