I was so thrilled to receive an early copy of this book! Andrea Bartz is one of my favorite thriller authors: she consistently writes interesting, complex female leads and throws them into psychologically stressful situations. She does exactly that in THE LAST FERRY OUT (our protagonist Abby is mourning the loss of her fiancée Eszter and has traveled to the place where she died only to discover Eszter may have been keeping things from her) — all while giving us a lush setting in Isla Colel and a suspicious cast of side characters.

When Abby decides to visit the tropical island paradise where her fiancée, Eszter, died from an allergic reaction, she didn’t expect to meet so many others who knew Eszter. She truly wanted to feel closer to Eszter and what better way to do that than sit and talk with others who knew her.

As Abby learns more and more about the island and Eszter’s plans, things start to get muddled. What was Eszter up to? And, more importantly, why does it seem like things are being hidden from her?

Though a bit slow, this book did hold my interest as I was invested in what happened to Eszter. The descriptions of island life were lovely. Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the eARC.

Nothing is quite as it seems in this thriller when Abby travels to the Mexican island where her fiancée Eszter took her last breaths. Told in dual timelines, The Last Ferry Out tells the story of Abby’s investigation into Eszter’s death and the mysterious last message that she received from her that indicated there were secrets in their relationships. The other timeline moves backwards in time and explores Eszter’s time on the island, her relationship with Abby, her relationship with her strict immigrant family, and more.

The cast of side characters is quite entertaining as well and will add to the veil of uncertainty readers feel as they try to determine the exact circumstances behind Eszter’s death and whether Abby is safe on the island.

This is my first book by Andrea Bartz. I think this is a well written book, and I think the author has a great literary style. I enjoyed the main characters, and the development of those characters, including their secrets and interests.

The storyline starts off with a woman., Abby, whose fiancée, Ezsther, dies of a medical emergency on a remote island in Mexico. Abby tries to follow Ezsther's footsteps in order to get some closure, but she finds more than she bargains for. From expats with secrets to local islanders who don't want to mingle. Abby doesn't know who to trust.

The ending had an interesting twist, but wasn't the level I was hoping for. (My jaw didn't drop). The book has a lot of pieces to it that I would classify as soul searching, restarting your life, etc. I would definitely recommend to readers who like these kind of stories.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC.

Thank you NetGalley and Publisher for allowing me to read and review this book.

An enjoyable thriller, but I did find it hard to get into.

Thank you to #netgalley for granting me an ARC for an honest review.
While I did enjoy the story, there were parts that dragged on, it became better the closer it came to the conclusion.
I stuck it out because I really like this author. It could be that my head wasn't in the right mindset for reading the story, I hope that others really enjoy the novel.

The main character, Abby travels to a remote island to search for answers about her fiancé's last few days. The beginning unfolds with the dynamics of the relationship and foreshadowing what is to come!

The Last Ferry Out was an interesting read for me. It was not the most thrilling thriller, and it definitely took me a while to get into it, but overall it was a solid read.

I loved the setting of this book. I could vividly imagine this, eerie, almost desolate, remote island in my mind. However, I found the characters lacking. I wish there was a little more background and focus on the supporting characters. It even felt like the background of Abby and Eszter's relationship could have been explored a little bit more.

I did enjoy this book, but it took me a lot longer to get through than other thrillers.

Does anyone really know their significant other as they hope they do? While diving into what her fiancé was doing on a small island, strange things happen and secrets threaten to come to light to ruin all the hopes and dreams of the life she held close…. While trying to outrun the secrets others want to hold close will she die as her fiancé did and not understand the truth of how her life came crashing down around her wile looking for closure?

I really wanted to love this one! The multiple pov, the back and forth from past and present, the whiplash in the story...it was all just a lot for me personally but would definitely recommend giving it a read! It had SO MUCH potential and simply missed the mark imo but I still enjoyed it.

Novel Concept: 5/5
Novel Execution: 4/5

Title: 3/5
Characterization: 4/5
Voice: 4/5
Plot: 4/5
Atmosphere: 4/5
Theme: 2/5
Prose: 2/5

Does this pass the Bechdel Test: Yes

Title
Last Ferry Out as a title functions well enough but I suppose I'm disappointed that it didn't do much more. It specifically refers to when Abby is on the Island Colel that the storm is preventing the last ferry out from heading to the mainland. I just feel that there are so many other important things that we could have drawn the title from than the ferry because the ferry isn't really all that integral to the plot. Like yes Abby will have to stay on the island, but it never felt like Abby was racing to get off. She always seemed so pressed to find answers, that it was hard to feel the stakes of the last ferry postponing itself. My hot take is that the book might have been called "She Who Dares, Wins," because the phrase comes up a lot in the novel and is better connected to the characters and theme.

Characterization
I think my biggest struggle with Abby is that she did not feel very rural Wisconsin, and this is coming from a girl who grew up rural Wisconsin. I think I would have believed her more if she'd been from Milwaukee because it felt like she had a much more urban attitude. At the same time, she is supposed to have lived in Madison for a good long while so she might have adapted into a more urban lifestyle because of it. It was just weird because we kept referencing back to her rural Wisconsin upbringing when I felt like she seemed raised in one of the cities.

Aside from this note, I think all of the characters had really interesting narratives that blended well together. The general mystery of the expats was cool. Eszter always having a notebook of points to cover as something both endearing and infuriating was interesting to see (as someone who has to write a script to make a phone call).

When I think of the expats as a unit, Abby makes an observation that I really liked where they acted like they were natives to the island, and not tourists themselves. That they had some kind of ownership or possession of the island and it's giving big colonizer energy and I'm really glad that Abby highlighted the absolute absurdity of it. Especially when we find out that the only people who were fighting against what Eszter's dad was doing were expat tourists/non-natives. The only perspective from someone indigenous to the island we get is Carlos and he is very pro this project.

Voice
So the voice in this novel--I think it's good. The language is very direct at times and so it felt often a little spoonfed. I think the best example is that when Abby hallucinates Eszter, after she realizes it was a hallucination Abby makes a comment wondering about how bad she must have been messed up to hallucinate Eszter, and the observation just felt unnecessary. I think I would have preferred less direct observations made by the characters.

Plot
Okay so the plot is unfortunately a little all over the place when we start getting towards the end. At first, I bristled at the reveal being Brady of all people but actually when I sit down and think about it, I can jive with it. All the set up is there I just really thought we were learning hard into Amari. If I'm going to be honest, I really thought that the entire group of Expats were in on it and played a role in some way.

I really don't understand where Brady was staying and that part felt very contrived. It's also so absolutely wild that Abby has no idea Brady killed Eszter. That he found the Epi-Pen and knowingly refused to help her. It just felt like something that we'd get a reveal on. Like the bad guy gets away with it at the end, and I guess I don't know how I feel about it.

This novel feels like it didn't know how to end because it didn't want there to be a bad guy in the traditional sense. It was framed like an accident, with Brady and Gloria both getting away. As a result, it really feels like we're treading water in the last act because all that suffering Abby went through in the last act was for nothing. The stakes were imaginary. The thriller was an illusion.

It was cool that Abby hallucinated Eszter. I liked that part. In terms of fake-outs, it worked really well.

Atmosphere
So the world of the Isla Colel comes to life. We can feel the heat and the waves, the energy of the expats and the Mexican people who inhabit the island. Isla Colel is fictional but it felt real enough and I think that's what matters most.

In terms of emotional atmosphere I found the book lacking. Even when Abby is crying, I just really struggled to connect with the emotion. It often felt like I was being told how to feel rather than it comes to life on the page. This is probably a result of the direct language used throughout the novel.

I did feel Abby's danger though when she finds herself in peril. I was scared for her in the moments that counted. I was fully invested in the end trying to figure out who did it and why.

Prose
This book is multiple POV in an Asynchronous Timeline that isn't always clear as to when we are in time. This sounds like it would be a bit of an overwhelming disaster, and it kind of it. While I can compromise on having a POV from Eszter, we absolutely did not need any of the POVs from everyone else. I think what the author might have been trying to avoid is big lore dumps through dialogue but we instead have big lore dumps through exposition. While I think knowing some people's motivations is important, a lot of this felt entirely unnecessary. In this case I really do think that "less is more" should have been utilized more.

This book also effectively has 3 epilogues and I already don't like epilogues to begin with, so imagine my shock that we've got three. And I hate to say it, but I was skimming these epilogues because we were at the end, and a majority of it just didn't feel relevant. I didn't need to know exactly the moment Abby and Eszter met in real time, I could have lived with the "where are they now" style epilogue of the expats, but then we have the actual epilogue which is the grocery store clerk, who was revealed to be the actual killer who intentionally gave Brady the wrong food which resulted in Eszter's death.

This was dumb. I hate to be crass, but it was. There's nothing really setting up Gloria as an expat who successfully masquerades as someone native to the area. She's never doing anything that could cause suspect, and so it feels like something that was slapped on at the end for the sake of the drama. I think because we're supposed to like Brady and not see him as the bad guy, so we have to place that negative feeling on someone else. In this case, Gloria.

I'm sorry but I just didn't care.

I think part of the struggle in this novel is that it wanted to be general fiction of this rolling perspective of the inhabitants of Isla Colel and this death that occured but also a mystery on how this death happened but then also a thriller as the main character has to survive peril. But because we having these many POVs, we don't really have a mystery because it's not like Abby is really discovering much of this stuff. We're just getting it as the reader. And the thriller doesn't land because none of the threat was real and no one faced any consequences for Eszter's death. And because these two aspects are struggling to work, the general fiction of the different POV's of the island doesn't work because that's not what the book set to do.

I think I wanted less of these POVs and more focus on the mystery or have us go further into the thriller--give Gloria a bigger role.

Theme
Thematically I can't really say for sure what this book is about because nothing really comes up. Eszter's killers get away. No one faces any consequences for their actions. I fear that nothing in relation to Eszter feels like it changed meaningfully. As far as Abby is aware, it's still just an accident. She never learns that it wasn't. So with the status quo of the premise not really shifting, I ask what was the point?

I do think it's interesting that the people who are against the island being developed are the expats and people not from the area. That there's this selfish possession of their "authentic Mexican destination." A level of ownership over this exotic local remaining exotic. We never really get the opinion of the island beyond one guy. I think it says a lot that we don't really get to see the islander's perspective. It's always just the expats.

I was approved as an ARC for this book, it was a very interesting book. It started off slow but it started to pick up quick. I’ve character development and good story line. I enjoyed this book

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the opportunity to read this book
The premise for this book drew me in. A Caribbean Island where Abby’s fiancée had died has the feel of a locked room mystery. This well written book could have been great but I felt like it let me down

In the wake of her fiancée Eszter's sudden death, Abby decides to pay a visit to the island paradise, Isla Colel, Eszter had been visiting during her final days. As Abby begins to meet others on who knew Eszter, she soon begins to feel they are hiding something, and now has even more questions than answers. The Last Ferry Out is layered with mysteries and leaves you wondering who can be trusted in this twisted tale. Interwoven with themes of complicated family dynamics, loyalty, trust and grief, I would highly recommend this book for readers looking for a fast paced, twisted suspense that will leave you feeling transported to this remote island. Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the advanced copy, all opinions are my own.

THE LAST FERRY OUT was a well written book with an interesting premise and a couple of surprising moments, but ultimately fell short in entertainment. While the plot did move quickly, it wasn’t very captivating and even the twists fell a bit short. It felt like more could have been done with the story given the set up.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the opportunity to read and review THE LAST FERRY OUT.

An interesting setting in an island that is only accessible twice a day. Now inhabited by a mostly madwoman.
It was good, it was intriguing, but had some plot points that were weak - like how this woman got to be there.
B-/3⭐️

Terrific vacation reading.

Abby, a young woman mourning her fiance Eszther who died suddenly four months earlier, heads to the tropical island where Eszther died, and starts to suspect the death was murder - and the killer is still on the island.

Abby befriends the expats who were Eszther’s friends, gets caught up in their secrets and lies, and by that learns about Eszther’s many secrets, all while re-examining their relationship through flashbacks to see how real it was, and ultimately to not become the killer’s next victim.

There’s a lot of traditional mystery story elements here, from the dark and stormy secluded island to the small circle of suspects who each harbor a secret, and it is all done really well and in a very modern way, from an environmental vs big business conflict to a same sex relationship at the core of the story.

The Last Ferry Out is a dark moody thriller that besides the central mystery also explores themes of love and trust and grief.

This is an author I have not read before - I downloaded it because I was on a cruise ship and the cover caught my eye - but I will certainly read more of her stuff. This is a fast, suspenseful and entertaining read.

Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an advance reading copy of this book. It will be published on May 25th.

Another one I couldn’t put down!!

I absolutely loved this book—the total mysteriousness of loving and losing your other half suddenly, plus a remote island—where nobody is giving whole truths—I wanted to pack up and head there myself!

I was on the edge of my seat the whole time I was reading this, and felt like I was watching a movie unfold in real time with a sinking feeling that got worse the further I got into the book.

Five stars!

Andrea Bartz delivers a gripping, atmospheric thriller with The Last Ferry Out, weaving suspense and mystery into a sun-soaked but sinister paradise. When Abby visits the island where her fiancée died, she expects closure—but instead, she uncovers chilling secrets, eerie disappearances, and a dangerous web of lies.

Bartz masterfully builds tension, making the isolated setting feel both beautiful and claustrophobic. The twists are sharp, the characters compelling, and the suspense unrelenting. Fans of psychological thrillers will be hooked until the final, jaw-dropping reveal. A must-read for those who love their mysteries with a side of tropical dread!

I have enjoyed all of Andrea Bartz's books and this one was good too, not my favorite from her, but still a solid read. Abby travels to a tropical island to figure out what happened to her fiancée, as she does not believe the death was an accident. The island is populated with a group of expats, who seem to be hiding things. Even Eszter, the fiancée has secrets. They are a quirky crew, though and it was fun reading about them. The story kicks off pretty much from the start, no draggy setup. Abby was the weak link here, to me. Not very likeable and a bit annoying. Overall, a good, suspenseful read with some heavy topics covered in the story, as well. There is a reason Andrea has become a favorite author.

Thank you to #NetGalley, Andrea Bartz and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Ballantine Books for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

I will post my review to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Instagram and other retail and social media sites upon publication day of May 20. 2025.