This book grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go – this is a definite must read if you love thrillers. The book follows multiple POVs, starting with the back stories of Jasmine and Stephanie two strangers who meet on an airplane. Their friends start receiving odd messages from them and feel like something terrible has happened. My mind is still processing everything I just read (in a day because I couldn’t put it down). The book is divided into three parts – each will have you wishing you could read faster to find out what happens. Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC.

“The Business Trip” by Jessie Garcia is a psychological thriller that is presented with a lot of points of view from several interesting characters. The story is about two women, one who is divorced and travels a lot for her job, and the other is starting a new life after being abused. They wind up sitting together on a plane and will cross paths in an unusual way. When both vanish the twists and turns of this mystery will keep you reading until you finish the book.

For me the story was a bit of a stretch, and started out very slowly. Because of that I am giving a 3 star review. I do believe this author will have many more hit novels and I am looking forward to reading them!

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for The ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia was a fun, quick read. There was a twist at the end that I didn't see coming which made it all the more enjoyable. Engaging and an easy read, great for the post holiday season and cold winter nights!

Four stars.

Thank for to the Publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of The Business Trip in exchange for an honest review.

At this stage of my life, I really should have learned not to start reading a new book so close to bedtime.... Good thing I'm retired and didn't have to get up early the next morning.

Other reviewers have posted synopses of the book and I will not repeat their efforts here. I agree with others that the book is very fast-paced, no dragging, not a lot of breathing room for the reader. It wasn't hard to guess fairly early on that one character was, shall we say, not a person of character... but I didn't guess how it would turn out. I rode alongside the characters who began to notice that there was something very, very wrong in the text messages. But I didn't guess just what level the "wrong" would reach before it was over, and that any sympathy for that one character was step by step eaten away.

I really can't say more because that would involve spoilers. Suffice it to say, if you enjoy a quick read with multiple twists you probably didn't see coming, read this book.

This is my first time reading by this author and I really enjoyed her writing! This is one of those thrillers that I thought I had it figured out at least two times just to realize I was completely wrong and the twist was perfect!

Our two main female characters, Stephanie and Jasmine, come from very different lifestyles. They meet on a plane while Jasmine is running away from an abusive relationship and Stephanie is attending an out of town business trip. Their lives intertwine in the most unlikely and destructive ways.

This was a fast-paced, page turner that you will not want to put down. Read from multiple perspectives and filled with unexpected twists!

Thank you St. Martin’s Press and Jessie Garcia for the opportunity to read this advanced digital copy in return for my honest opinion!

This book is BANANAS with a calital B! You will NOT be able to put this one down. I was captivated from the very beginning and the twists were unexpected throughout the story. A fantastic read!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced reader copy of The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia!

I really enjoyed this book and never would have predicted the ended!

Jasmine has had enough. Enough of her abusive boyfriend and enough of her life. She’s been saving her tips and is ready to disappear.

Steph is a news director who travels far too much for work and is getting ready for another work trip to a conference. Steph doesn’t see her son as much as she’d like since her divorce, and has sometimes daydreamed about starting over somewhere else.

Jasmine and Steph both long for big life changes, but neither expects what happens when they get on the same plane to Colorado.

Thank you to @netgalley for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.

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The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia is a psychological thriller. This was told from multiple POVs and it made the story work. There were so many twists that kept me guessing and the ending I didn’t see coming. I highly recommend this book. Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for this arc.

THE BUSINESS TRIP is a debut, but you would never guess it.

Garcia has taken two strongly written characters, Stephanie and Jasmine and created a twisty maze of a story. Hitchcock adjacent, the two women disappear in similar fashion. There are texts, there are last messages, but the friends and colleagues of the women cannot locate them.

Working backwards, it's clear that nothing is what it seems and Garcia will have the last laugh! A super fun story that truly will keep you guessing!
#stmartins #thebusinesstrip #jessiegarcia

Fast read book. Half way through the book you think you have it all figured out. But the twist and turns keep coming. Might be a little unbelievable at times , but I just went with it!

Thanks NetGalley for advance copy.

What a wild ride! I thoroughly enjoyed this book, couldn’t put it down from the second I picked it up!

This was a great book. I was pulled in from page one. The 4th section is a little wordy and goes on a little too long to close out the story but overall I’m impressed by the story. This is a NetGalley copy.

The book The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia was a very enjoyable read. The author kept the reader engaged throughout the book. The main event of the story took place at the beginning of the book. The middle 50% or so developed the main characters and was very engaging with a creative plot. The short chapters kept the reader interested as the author changed characters with each chapter. I really enjoyed the majority of the book, however, I was a little disappointed with the ending which I felt was not realistic. This was unexpected since the majority of the early chapters were excellent. Overall , I would still recommend this book as a worthwhile read. It was very enjoyable and a real page-turner. Thank you to the author, NetGalley, and St. Martin’s Press for giving me an advance reader’s copy of this novel.

This one was sadly a stretch for me to finish, and I wanted to DNF a few times. The writing itself was not bad, and the story was definitely intriguing, however everything just seemed to work out *too* perfectly and so to me the shock factor wasn’t there. There was a twist at the end but to me, again, it was too perfect and wasn’t satisfying to me. I didn’t really enjoy Jasmine as the main character after her spur of the moment decision on the plane, but up until then I was rooting for her getting away from Glenn. Just not my style of thriller sadly.

The Business Trip follows our two main characters, Stephanie and Jasmine, who both are looking for changes in their lives. We follow Jasmine's journey as she attempts to escape a terrible childhood followed by an abusive relationship. Stephanie is a successful news room manager whose two best friends are her neighbor and her cat, Fred. These two strangers end up on the same flight. The rest is a story worth reading.

I went into this novel without any expectations. I never read synopses before reading books. I find that it really adds to the "unknown".
Garcia's novel was written in a fashion that left me on edge. I stayed up way too late reading because I simply could not put this book down. I loved the writing style, I loved the characters, and I loved the suspense. This is one of the most suspenseful books I've read in a while.

Not only did I enjoy the main characters, but the supporting characters were wonderful as well. I found that this book really had everything for me: wonderful writing, lots of suspense, enjoyable reading, excellent characters, and a good plot. Although I do wish the ending was a bit different, it's really just my personal preference that influences that. I give this book 4 bright and shiny stars!

Special thank you to Jessie Garcia, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

My Thoughts
The oldest advice “Don’t talk to strangers”that all parents should give their children is ignored by these characters and it created a storyline that proved we should heed its warning.

There is a reason why we have personal boundaries, why we don’t tell others our secrets, why we should be careful when sharing information even with our closest friends, and why this story setup worked from page one.

The Business Trip has multiple points of view but boils down to how easily one person can use existing technology to help them commit crimes while simultaneously remaining anonymous.

A page turning work with many twists and turns that ultimately lead you to an entirely different conclusion than you previously imagined when you started reading this book.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
[EArc from Netgalley]
On every book read as soon as it is done and written up for review it is posted on Goodreads and Netgalley, once released then posted on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles as well.

Jasmine is a waitress escaping an abusive relationship and heading to Denver and will figure out what to do from there.
Stephanie is a news director and her station is sending her to San Diego for a conference with other news directors.
The two will cross paths on an airplane and what unfolds is a mystery.
Jasmine and Stephanie are texting their friends that they met a guy, Trent, and are heading to Atlanta with him, The plot twists and turns revealing the depths of a mastermind manipulator.
I think the author did a good job with switching the between the characters as the different POV's.
A good psychological thriller that keeps touching guessing.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the invite to read this ARC in exchange for my review.

Release date January 14, 2025

The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia is a tightly wound coil that keeps tightening until it finally snaps. The question seems to be whether the snap was warranted.

Most of this novel will keep readers guessing and wondering about who is doing what, or has done what, to whom. When everything starts to resolve is where some readers will jump ship while others will enjoy the thrill ride. I don't want to get into any details simply because it would be too easy for me to slip up and give something away. The book blurb is sufficient. What I will discuss is what we, as readers, often expect from our thrillers and where we draw the line.

As any reader knows, everyone has their own point at which they feel a story rewarded them for reading. A large part, and the part I think will divide readers here, is how much disbelief you're willing to suspend. I know a few readers personally who might accept a premise in one book but think the same premise in another book is too unrealistic or unbelievable. They aren't being disingenuous, I think it just means that more goes into it than simply whether a situation, or string of situations, is believable. I'll offer my own feelings. I am willing to go along with a lot of coincidence and poor decision making, and even dislikable characters won't make me skip their part of the story. Every thriller has things that might seem unrealistic or unbelievable, we wouldn't have very many books to read otherwise. How many we accept is what matters, even to those who claim a single such instance fit the bill but not the others. Because this is fiction, I don't expect every character to make rational decisions (I also don't expect it in real life) and I accept that some unlikely coincidences will occur. After Katrina I had to relocate with my company. I went from Louisiana to Indiana, to the same town as a junior high school girlfriend from our school days in Maryland. Some readers, seeing this in a book, would claim it was too farfetched and unrealistic. As long as I don't think the resolution showed up ex nihilo, I can accept it. It might not be as satisfying as some other solution, but I didn't write the novel, so...

All of that is to say that, for me, the final twists here weren't too much for me to handle, though I can easily see why some readers might feel the accumulation of events might lower their enjoyment of the book. In fact, the star deduction was because I would have preferred something different that didn't require extending my suspension of disbelief almost to its breaking point. If you prefer your thrillers to more closely resemble the life you experience every day, this might not be your cup of tea. I don't want to live in the worlds of most thrillers, not as the characters are experiencing it, so I am fine with this.

Sorry I didn't get into particulars but I have been writing some critical essays recently where readers are familiar with the works and I kept finding myself here doing that very thing, so I changed gears. I would recommend this to readers who enjoy edge-of-your-seat thrillers, just know going in that the twists do push you to accept a lot.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

Okay this book is going to stick with me for a VERY long time! I can not even begin to explain how well done this book was. Like wow! Highly recommend.