Cassie Bowden, a flight attendant/party girl who boasts of her partying ways and many one-night stands.

A hotel room in Dubai.
A murder.
A memorable night for Cassie OR NOT..... she doesn't really remember much considering she was so drunk that she blacked out!

Told from Cassie and Miranda's POV we get to hear their thought processes as they ponder the details involved in the night of the murder and what went wrong! The author's skill in character building was perfect - creating unique characters with emotional depth. Each personality came alive giving me insight as I tried to predict their next moves. The author did an amazing job researching each aspect of the story making it both believable and authentic. The international setting was also exotic and enjoyable.


This novel is not fast-paced or edge of your seat, but chock full of mystery and intrigue with an intricate plot, boasting some HUGE surprises! Such a talented author , I will be reading more from him very soon! Highly recommend to fans of character driven mysteries with some unpredictable twists!

I was fortunate enough to receive a galley copy of this book from the publisher on behalf of the author. Chris Bohjalian is one of my all time favorite authors, however this book was not one of my favorites. It could be that I don't particularly care for international (Russian) spy thrillers. It was well written and the plot easy to follow; I particularly like Bohjalian's books that are set in Vermont. Again, if you like international spy thrillers this will be right up your alley!

Another great one by Chris Bohjalian! This man must know everything there is to know in this life...he writes so expertly on so many different topics. In this case, it's the life of a flight attendant. Oh but there's also Russian espionage, The FBI and CIA, and a self-destructive alcoholic who blacks out and has casual sex, like...all the time. It's a page turner, I tell you! The premise of the book is that Cassie, the flight attendant, flirts with and agrees to meet up with a hedge fund manager she meets on a flight. She gets drunk with him and falls asleep in his Dubai hotel room, but wakes up in the morning to find him dead with his throat slashed. The book follows Cassie as she tried to piece together what happened, all while trying to avoid getting arrested for murder. Definitely some twists and turns in this novel, and one big one for an ending. Some parts of it may be far-fetched and hard to believe, but it's worth it. Bohjalian is always worth it.

You know an author is a master storyteller when they can write effectively across many genres, and this personifies Chris Bohjalian. I was very excited to see that this latest by him is a mystery/suspnese, since that is my favorite type of book. It definitely met all of my expectations, which, based on his previous books, are very high.

This one begins with a flight attendant waking up in a hotel in Dubai with a dead man next to her. She panics over what to do, and this starts a chain of events that quickly spirals out of control.

I found this one totally intriguing. The storyline was a truly frightening one, thinking of a female waking in a foreign country to find herself with a dead man and not remembering what happened. I felt for the main character, flawed though she was, and I was really kept on the hook, wondering where the story would go. It kept me riveted from beginning to end. This was another mesmerizing one by the author, and I'll be waiting for his next book.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a copy of the book in return for an honest review.

My review will be published on Goodreads and the major retail outlets on release date.

The Flight Attendant was a good read. The story hooked me and kept my attention throughout. I liked the characters and the pacing.

Cassandra Bowden is the The Flight Attendant. On a route to Dubai, Cassie engages in what is typical behavior for her – flirting with a handsome passenger, getting dinner and drinks, going back to his hotel room, many more drinks and sex. When she wakes up the next morning in his bed, he is still there – dead, his throat has been slashed. Cassie, who has had frequent blackouts in the past, cannot recall what happened. How did this happen? Was she responsible? Cassie escapes the hotel but not before trying to erase any trace of her presence. On the way back to the airport with her flight companions she tries to hide her absence but is fearful of what she may have done.

Cassie is an unreliable narrator who makes poor choices. Her troubled childhood, her alcoholic binges and constant need to assert herself amps up the danger she places herself in. She feels most alive when she is most imperiled. Her problems are both self-inflicted and external. Who was the man she slept with? Why would anyone kill him? Is there a reason for her paranoia? Secondary characters – her lawyer, her sister, and other flight attendants both support and criticize her behavior. Cassie has a knack for taking good advice and ignoring it, while using bad advice to prove a point.

To reveal more would lessen the enjoyment of learning how Cassie attempts to navigate her life, as her “crime” becomes headline news. This is a slow-moving thriller that morphs into a crescendo of revelations. Stay with it even though Cassie may not be the most likeable character. Never read a Bohjalian novel before but will soon correct that! Highly recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this title.

Cassie Bowden is a single flight attendant who enjoys taking risks, and with flights all over the world there's always an adventure to be had. To sweeten her adventures, she enjoys a nice glass of wine most evenings, or a mixed drink, or really anything alcoholic and it rarely ends with one glass. So when she wakes up in Dubai next to the nice man who took her to bed the night before, it's understandable that she might not remember what happened--and she really needs to remember what happened because the man she slept with is dead. Murdered, and she can't remember a thing.

Well, this is not good. Not good at all. I have read most, not all, of Bohjalians books. I have loved most of them as well. Not this time. This book has a ridiculous main character that I was actually hoping would be taken out. Some one stop this woman from being so dumb, drunk and skanky.
Have you sold out to the masses? Did you even write this book? It certainly doesn't read as though any thought was put into it, or that you're writing for an audience with any intelligence. Is it really necessary to remind your readers with little cues about how Cassie is such a drunk? Over and over through out the whole book? This woman doesn't know if she killed a man, but can definitely recognize another woman she barely met the same night. Uh huh. And yes, Cassie is a flight attendant, but enough with the over use of landmarks. I could really go on, but will try to refrain, oh except the ending. Pfffffft.
I'm saddened to think his writing has turned into this. An absolute favorite author, one I have a selfie with even! Has let me down.
Although this was not a good reading experience, I am grateful for the opportunity to read this prepublication version from Netgalley and Doubleday, thank you.

This book takes us on a wild ride through the wild life of a middle age flight attendant with self destructive behaviors. With her drinking and promiscuity she lands herself with bloody hands in a hotel murder, that we and she know she did not commit. But her continuous bad behavior she makes her situation worse and worse, while we keep wanting her to get better. This story sounds cheesy and shallow but there is really a great well written story between the pages.

As always a great book from this author. It gives insight into the seamingly glamour life of a flight attendant.

I think that after having read The Guest Room and now this, this author just isn't for me. A very successful author, I'm sure his fans will be excited for this.

The Flight Attendant: A Novel by Chris Bohjalian

March 2018
Adult fiction

I received this digital ARC from Doubleday Books and NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

Another captivating novel of suspense and mystery. The author takes a seemingly “ordinary” person and shows how easily a bad decision can snowball into disaster. This story weaves the story of a reckless alcoholic flight attendant with the chaos of international spies and murder.

Cassandra “Cassie” Bowden lives alone in Manhattan and flies out of JFK airport as a flight attendant. Despite her poor life decisions and periodic blackouts from over indulgence of the wild life, she still manages to keep a dysfunctional relationship with her sister, Rosemary McCauley. Her brother in law is a Major in the Chemical Corps with extremely high security clearance due to his work with chemical weapons. She takes pride in his important work as it seems to be of interest to many people she meets.

Cassie has always known her lifestyle is dangerous and unbecoming for a woman of her age. Her drinking is out of control which makes it easy for her to fall into bed with strange men and not remember anything the next day. She likes to dull the pain of her past and deny any similarity to her drunk father who caused the family embarrassment over the years.

Reality starts to sink in when Cassie wakes up in a hotel room at the Royal Phoenician in Dubai next to a dead man. Of course, she was intoxicated and blacked out so she couldn’t recall the exact events of the evening. Alex Sokolov was an attractive hedge fund banker who also lived in New York she discovered when serving him in first class on the flight to Dubai.

It wasn’t the first time she separated from her flight crew to party with strangers. This time was definitely different. She never woke up in bed with blood pooling around her, wondering if she was capable of committing such a heinous crime. As much as she lived a life of debauchery, she never had so much to lose. She begins lying to cover up the blank spaces in her memory as well as for the random flashes that slowly come to her.

I hate spoilers so I will not provide any here. Sometimes people really need to hit rock bottom before they realize the desire to live.

This was my first novel by Chris Bohjalian and I have very mixed feelings about it.

You could definitely tell that Bohjalian did his research for this book. For the cities, the details, the flight attendants, the laws talked about, everything. I thought The Flight Attendant was incredibly detailed, and I really enjoyed the FBI reports throughout the book.

This was more of a slow-burning thriller to me, and I didn’t think the book was especially fast-paced. However, that didn’t seem to be a problem with this one even though I usually like faster paced books better.

I loved the multiple POVs. You got Elena and Cassie which was really nice to have those 2 viewpoints throughout the book. Multiple viewpoints always hook me. I just wish there would have been more Elena and Cassie’s wouldn’t have been so much because she drove me crazy.

This book definitely keeps you interested, and I didn’t see the ending coming AT. ALL. Like literally I was 92% done with my ARC and still had no idea what the ending was going to be. It totally blew me away.

Now some things I didn’t like. Cassie was one hot mess, and I didn’t feel like she learned a thing throughout the book (I really hate when that happens). She was idiotic, unstable, and usually in a drunken stupor even after she knew she was in trouble. Like get yourself together already woman… She just functioned on the mantra “we are who we are” and didn’t even TRY to change or grow in the slightest. And her habit of stealing from hotels began to irritate me as well. I found her extremely unlikeable as a character. I guess this just goes to show how well Bohjalian can portray his characters though. I saw another reviewer had pointed that out and it is so true. He really makes you dislike Cassie.

Honestly, I can’t think of one character I really liked all that much besides Ani (she cracked me up), I just didn’t feel like you got any real depth from them so it was hard for me to feel a connection. I wasn’t invested in any of the characters, and frankly couldn’t have cared less what happened to Cassie.

Two minor things: I felt like the book was a little repetitive at times, and caught myself thinking “haven’t I read this already?” a few times. Also, both Ani and especially Cassie, had a tendency to say “go on” when they wanted another character to continue speaking. Sometimes it seemed to be said in unnecessary areas as well and was a little odd. Apparently this must mean I’m weird, because I seem to be the only person that has noticed this, or at least chosen to point it out in a review. It drove me crazy for some unknown reason and I picked up on it.

Ok and this ending. The epilogue felt SOOOO unbelievable to me. Did anyone else feel like this, or just me? I just can’t comprehend it ending like that after everything else. I don’t know guys….

Final Thought: I definitely still want to read other books from Bohjalian. I didn’t hate this book by any means, but apparently it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. I definitely wouldn’t buy it, but I appreciate the opportunity to have read it. It’s got a lot of great reviews so I still recommend reading it for yourself to see what you think.

Cassie has been a flight attendant for a major airline for almost 20 years. She's also a functioning alcoholic which has given her a reputation among her co-workers and the few friends she has. When she works the first class section on a flight to Dubai she meets a handsome and charming American hedge fund manager who she agrees to meet later at his hotel. That decision, followed by a series of really bad decisions, sets her life on an unexpected course that is by turn intriguing and horrifying.

Told mostly from Cassie's (unreliable) perspective the novel made me feel anxious - and yet I couldn't stop turning the pages. I don't want to risk a spoiler but I can say that if an international, of-the-moment thriller is a genre you enjoy you will want to read The Flight Attendant.

This book was so much fun. Well drawn and fast-paced. I couldn’t put it down. Like many Bohjalian books, you just strap yourself in and enjoy the ride!

Review: Thankyou NetGalley, Chris Bojalian & DoubleDay Books for the ARC! The Flight Attendant is the second book I’ve read by Chris Bohjalian & it was definitely a good thriller read. The book was at times depressing & like horror movies in terms of when you’re screaming at the lead actress or the M.C in this case to stop making bad decisions 😂. The book switched between the POVs of: Cassandra (Cassie), Elena & case files from the FBI. I really enjoyed that Chris did his research about the laws in Dubai, I haven’t read many books that have a setting in Dubai so it was nice to read one.
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Rating: 💎💎💎.5

Love, love Chris Bohjalian's books! I raced through this book and couldn't wait to find out how it ended!

Thank you to NetGalley and DoubleDay for an advanced copy (ARC) in exchange for an honest review.

I was really torn on how to rate this book...it held my attention like a four star book but the main character (Cassie) was so infuriating and made decisions no one on earth (including an alcoholic) would ever make. A main character being so unlikable is a two star for me...so I averaged it it to three stars total.

I also did not understand the ending...Its not very clear and while I understand some books have ambiguous endings the level of ambiguity (and really no reason for it, given the context of what was being left out) was mildly infuriating.

This is the story of Cassie who is a flight attendant and goes to a hotel room drunk with a man. She wakes up next to his dead body with zero recollection of her evening. She goes on with her life like nothing happened. Through all the twists and turns through out the book you learn the entire story. I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Doubleday. All opinions are my own.

Cassie is a flight attendant living the high life. She’s drinking way too much, punctuated by emotionless nights in beds of total strangers during her layovers. She knows full well this behavior needs to stop....only she can’t. During a stop-over in Dubai and a long night of heavy partying, Cassie wakes up with the worst hangover ever. Trying to slip out of bed silently, she notices the man lying next to her. And he’s quite dead. Her memory is spotty at best of the previous night, right before she blacked out. Did someone come in during the night and kill him or worse... did she kill him? And now can’t recall the event? She needs to make up her mind, and fast. Call the police and risk prison in a foreign country, or just fly away and pretend she was never there.

I found Cassie’s character to be shallow and not very likable. Her drinking and behavior are out of control through most of the book. But I must admit, at times I really did feel for her and found myself rooting for her. Even hoping she would find a way out of the mess she’d made for herself. Unfortunately, she kept digging herself in deeper and deeper...

This is not a fast paced thriller. The suspense builds slowly as the story-line is laced out. Only to come to a jaw dropping moment. (Seriously, my jaw physically dropped I was so shocked!). Great Job Chris Bohjalian!! I love when an author can draw me in only to pull the rug out from under me!! This was my first read from this author, but I will now be going back to find some of CB’s previous books.


Thank you to NetGalley, Doubleday Books and Chris Bohjalian for an ARC to review in exchange for an honest review.