I was a fan of WE WERE NEVER HERE and hoped to have the same exciting read. Unfortunately, this one fell a little short. There were too many characters, it was slow paced and a bit predictable. But still a fun read. I'll be interested to see what Bartz writes next. Thank you NetGalley for the advance ARC.

I really enjoy this author! This was a thrilling book with a secret that kept me guessing until the end!

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for this arc. As a fan of Andrea Bartz’s work, I wanted to read this right away.

This story follows Abby as she seeks out answers to her fiancé Eszter’s sudden death on a small island in Mexico. You meet many different characters that spent Eszter’s final days with her and wonder what happened to her and who is telling then truth.

With many different twists and turns in this book, it kept you guessing without any predictable ending. However, at times, it also became confusing. The real selling point that kept me going through the confusing parts was the writing. Andrea Bartz has a way with words and descriptions that makes reading this book so easy. Overall, I’d give it a solid 3.75⭐️

First, the goods: I appreciated that the premise of this book was something new and different. As an avid reader, I love a unique storyline! I also felt like this was an "easy" read and didn't feel tortuous to get through.

With that being said, it still wasn't my favorite. I didn't really love or connect with any of the characters and I was really hoping for more of a big twist at the end. 3.5 stars rounded down. It's readable it's just not a wow.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group Ballantine Books for an ARC of this novel.

Talk about a wild ride! This book started out different than I expected! The first seemed more like a sad novel about a healing woman, but quickly turned into a thriller mystery! I finished this book fast because the constantly changing storyline kept me motivated, engaged, and excited to read more. I liked how it changed from past to present, giving the reader more history to the story

A twisty, entertaining read that kept me turning the pages. I enjoyed the flashbacks and POV shifts throughout, and I was definitely surprised by the big reveal. I also loved the extra little twist in the final chapter!

Solid thriller. I keep trying this author but she may just not be for me. The island setting was eerie and beautiful. I just did not connect with Abby. Thanks for the review copy.

First of all, I love the cover. Second, I’m ready to pack my bags and move to this island- who doesn’t sometimes want to move to an exotic island and reinvent themselves as a new person?

This book was a fairly fast read, but a little on the slow burn side for me. I was impatiently waiting for something to happen faster than it actually did. The MC spent a lot of time grieving the loss of her fiancé and rehashing what happened during the relationship, and while it DID play a part in the resolution, it just caused me to lose a little interest. The final twist was certainly not something I expected, and I loved that! Great finish.

Thanks so much to Andrea Bartz, Ballantine and Random House Publishers for the advance copy!

This was such a good, genre-busting story! I initially thought that it was going to be a sad tale of a woman who lost her fiancé to anaphylaxis and how she was healing in the location it happened. It then turned into a friendship story, all about the group of expats. Then it twisted into a mystery/thriller and was trying to figure out who killed the fiancé. It had overarching themes of ecology, feminism, and queerness. I couldn’t put this down, it had so much to offer!! What a great story and great twists!!

The Last Ferry Out by Andrea Bartz starts out interesting. Abby fiancé is killed on a remote island. She goes there to see if she can figure out what really happened.
I got lost – there were a lot of characters and with the different timelines I really had to make myself finish. I did want to find out what really happened. The story was slow, but the end was interesting.
I am sure this book is for someone who likes a lot of characters and a slow build up.

This was an exciting book. Abby searches for closure after her fiancé dies on a remote Mexican island. When she meets the people her fiancé befriended, she starts to suspect her dealt was more than an accident. The book alternates between the past and the present, and there are lots of twist and turns. The character development was excellent and this was a true page turner. I read the book in just a couple of sittings. I highly recommend this book to those who like suspenseful k, character-driven books.

𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚: ★ ★ ★ ★
𝗥𝗘𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗘 𝗗𝗔𝗧𝗘: May 20, 2025
𝗔𝗥𝗖 𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗜𝗘𝗪:

I will read anything that Andrea writes!!!! This gave me the best summer murder mystery vibes ever. We have a death that may not be as it seems on an eerie AF island with no phone service etc..creeeeepppy. Abby is determined to get to the bottom of her fiancés death & those who could be helpful seem to have something they aren’t saying right 👀👀 and things aren’t as they seem.

Secrets and twists will keep you guessing in this one and the ending was as I hoped. Recommend this being on everybody’s TBR.

Huge thank you to our Author, NetGalley as well as Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Ballantine Books

𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗣𝗘𝗦: Mystery, Suspenseful, Multiple Timelines, Drama, Secrets, Fast Paced

2.5⭐️ rounded up.

Where to start? This book fell flat for me in so many ways. I found myself uninterested in all of the *many* characters introduced to the reader. I never connected to the plot itself, and found myself skimming pages just to get to the end. The epilogue served up an interesting twist—that was a bright spot in the end.

Thank you to Andi Bartz, NetGalley, and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of "The Last Ferry Out" by Andrea Bartz. I went in with high hopes given the premise of the novel, which involves a woman searching for answers in the midst of the tragic loss of her fiancé, who died on a remote island off the Mexican coast. None of the supporting cast of characters had any remotely redeeming qualities and I found myself rushing through the last 5% of the book just to finish. I appreciated the attempt(s) at twists and turns but something about this fell flat for me.

The characters and setting were very interesting. Lots of suspense at points. Interesting resolution that I didn't predict.

I'm weirdly proud of myself for finishing this one because it was slow!

I mean, very little happens until you're about 3/4 through the book.

The MC was a little dull, though she thought she was funny.

The expat crew was a bit insufferable.

I did like our dead girl.

I will tell you that the reason I kept reading it was because I was actually very curious about what the big secret was and, while it wouldn't be anything earth shaking to me, it was unexpected and satisfying. I also was pleased that the author was able to keep me guessing about the who and the why of everything.

Not my favorite, and you do have to devote some time, but overall not bad in the end.

This author is a hit or miss for me, but I was super excited to read this one! The setting was perfect; a remote stormy island & a mysterious death. The island felt dangerous and ominous. I devoured it! My only complaint was that I really didn’t connect with the characters, and wanted more. I did appreciate the twists, and recommend this to anyone who is in the mood for a rainy day thriller! Thank you so much to NetGalley and publisher for this ARC!

Bartz is a must-read author of mine. I'm a huge fan of the way she tells a story. This latest title was no exception. It took me a bit to get into it, but once I did, I was all in! Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

I received a free eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I really enjoyed We Were Never Here (although I confess to not remembering it in great detail since I never wrote a review!), and I was just looking for something fast paced for a Sunday afternoon read. I picked this pretty much at random from my collection of ARCs and ended up blowing through the whole thing in basically one sitting. For all of its many content warnings, it actually ended up being reminiscent of a less scandalous version of The Resort. Here as there, all of the expats have something to hide (to be fair, if life is going great, you probably don’t pack up and leave home never to return…), but all of the secrets here are comparatively tame.

Our protagonist is Abby, and she’s made a short trip to Isla Colel, a small island off the coast of Mexico (that somehow has great WiFi, which is a weird point EVERYONE harps on constantly. Like…they’re cut off from the rest of the world and there aren’t many tourists and they like it that way…but also the WiFi is excellent! …what?). A few months earlier, her fiancee Eszter died there, and Abby is hoping to find, if not answers, at least closure. Eszter went to the Isla to ostensibly finish up her master’s capstone project. She stayed the first couple of weeks by herself, and Abby was set to join her for the last week. But a few days before Abby was supposed to leave, Eszter suffered an allergic reaction and died in her rental house. Seeing as she’s both “just” the fiancee (not the actual spouse) and that Eszter’s parents didn’t exactly approve of their daughter being engaged to a woman in the first place, Abby never really got the closure she wanted about Eszter’s death. And once she gets to the island, it feels like Eszter may have been hiding something big from her.

As is usually the case on islands like this, we have a merry band of expats from various countries who have formed their own sort of found family. There’s Rita, a recent arrival from Germany (she actually arrived after Eszter died, but Abby latches onto her motherly energy quickly). There’s Brady, an Australian who claims to be on the run from his overbearing father; Pedro, a strict environmentalist; and Amari, a beautiful artist. They take Abby under their collective wing, and agree to help her sort out what happened to Eszter (Brady, Pedro, and Amari were all there when it happened). But of course, things aren’t what they seem on the island, and once another of the expats disappears, Abby suspects Eszter’s death wasn’t an accident after all.

It’s a fast-paced story - I don’t know that I necessarily needed all of the flashbacks? They’re meant to establish Eszter and Abby’s relationship, and they do give a little more depth to her character. I just didn’t find them all that interesting in the grand scheme of things. Overall this is fairly predictable, but it’s still entertaining.

I'm a big fan of Andrea Bartz's [book:We Were Never Here|56084054], so I was hoping for a similar experience with The Last Ferry Out. I did like this story, but the pacing dragged big time for me. The themes of trust in a relationship and how well you can really ever know people were very intriguing and certainly added to the eery setting of such a remote island, but neither could make up for what ultimately felt like a book that was coming in waves with high highs and then plot to get from A to B. Overall, just a like for me on this one.