Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy for review purposes.

I had no expectations about this novel and that makes it so much more satisfying that I loved it.

The characters are sympathetic and well written, the setting is so lushly written that it is an additional character in the novel.

The plot was complex enough to be interesting without needing a flow chart to keep up.

I will be looking for more novels by this author.

This book was sooo good! I mean i'm from Canada so not overly familiar with the deep South in the United States but I feel like Anna nailed it in her portrayal. The characters were so well written and complex and my feelings towards them throughout the book grew and evolved. It is exactly what I love to experience in a book. Anna painted such a vivid picture on every single page and I honestly thought I would look up and be sitting immersed deep in the bayou staring at Cutter, Dewall & Beau's rundown shack on the island. Although the deep south was not painted with a glamourous brush, the drugs, the poverty, corruption.... the beauty in my mind was unparalleled. I can see all the shades of green and brown, the wild vegetation and those gators, I can picture those gators, every prehistoric inch of them. Terrifying yet surprisingly beautiful.
This story had some wild twists and turns, some really unexpected relationships formed and blossomed. The connectedness of everything and everyone in this story just fit perfectly and I absolutely loved it and fully recommend.

Thank you to Atria books and Netgalley for the eArc.

If I never read the word "kudzu" again, it’ll be too soon. This plant gets mentioned in at least seven chapters, as if sheer repetition could make the writing atmospheric. It didn’t. The setting, this wet, overgrown swamp, is described so relentlessly that it starts to feel like the only character, and not in a good way. The book had originality, but the disjointed cast and plodding pace made it dull rather than immersive. It lacked the momentum to feel suspenseful or thrilling, and even the reveals landed without impact. It was just things that happened, passively, with little emotional weight. I didn’t connect with any of the characters, except maybe Sasha, and his perspective didn’t feel fully explored. I wanted to understand him better, to feel a deeper connection to his story, but it didn’t give enough for that. This story needed more: more tension, more character development, more variety in its language. I am underwhelmed and disengaged.

Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday Canada for access to this book.

Our Last Wild Days is an eerie, atmospheric murder-mystery meets thriller in a small, miserable town in the swamp lands of Louisiana. The imagery is detailed and vivid, and the story will play in your mind like an old movie in sepia tones. It involves suspicious deaths, a drug gang, an untrustworthy police team, and investigative journalists wanting to set the story straight and deliver the truth to the town and seek justice for the victim.

While I'm generally not a fan of "investigative" thrillers nor plots involving drug gangs, Our Last Wild Days takes it home in terms of eerie setting for the thriller side of things: the bayous and alligator-ridden mashland definitely creeped me out and was part of the plot itself, rather than simply a background description of the setting.

Read if you like...
🔎 Investigative journalism
🩸 Murder-mysteries
😱 Thrillers
🏚 Small town eerie settings

🙏Thank you Doubleday Canada and NetGalley for a gifted advanced electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book sucked me in and wouldn't let me go until I finished it.

Loyal May is back in her hometown of Jacknife, Louisiana, after leaving a decade ago partially due to a falling-out with her best friend, Cutter Labasque. Working takes a job at the local news outlet with an old high school acquaintance, Sasha. But she also needs to take care of her mother who is showing some advanced signs of dementia. While there she hopes to right the wrongs of the past.

However, days after she arrives, a woman is found face down in the mud on the banks of a bayou, and it turns out to be Cutter. The police say it's a drowning, but Loyal knows that Cutter knew those waters like the back of her hand. Her and her brothers were making just enough money to survive as alligator hunters, so there's just no way she'd ever drown by accident. Loyal convinces Sasha to help her dig for more answers, and they uncover a web of deceit and corruption that implicates those in town. It may be too late to fix things with Cutter, but Loyal can still do right by her.

"An atmospheric and smoldering suspense, Our Last Wild Days is an urgent examination of the secrets we keep and our fealty—to our communities, to our families, and to ourselves." - book blurb

This has a slow building pace that by the end you can help but keep reading to find out the truth.

I love the atmosphere and the style of back and forth storytelling from multiple POVs. I'm so glad I requested a copy of this book.

"You and me and the devil makes three"

Thanks NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was good but I was just expecting more from it. It reminded me a lot of Where The Crawdads Sing (which I disliked so much) but I did enjoy this one more. I'll be looking at more of what this author has written in past and future.

Our Last Wild Days was a journey into the swamplands of Louisiana, one that Loyal May returned to after being away for 10 years. When she left,, it wasn’t on a happy note- she’d had a falling out with her childhood friend, Cutter Labasque. Cutter and her brothers basically raised themselves and relied on the catching and selling of alligator meat to keep their lives afloat. The family is considered as outcasts in the small community of Jacknife.
One brother is an addict and the other is a troublemaker.. Shortly after Loyal returns, Cutter is found dead in the bayou. But Loyal doesn’t believe her friend would’ve taken her life and sets out to find the answers. I must mention that Loyal is working with the local newspaper. Her knowledge of delving into stories brings this story along on a great read.

This book, to me, was similar to Where the Crawdads Sing but with a darker, edgier side to it.
Thoroughly enjoyed this and recommend it!

Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday Canada for my eARC.

Honestly this writing was just too slow for me and it was a struggle for me to get through unfortunately

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and Penguin Random House Canada for an advanced copy in exchange for a review.

Unfortunately this one fell a little flat for me. The premise was intriguing, and the setting was atmospheric, but the actual execution just didn't hold up. Most of the characters were so unlikeable that I found it hard to care about what happened to them, and I lost interest in the mystery because I just didn't care about the victim.

I’m not huge on alligators, but this book was so well written I couldn’t help but devour it as I needed to know what happened, and the storyline was fantastic! I didn’t love the TCM reference as I’m not huge on horror. But it was incredibly descriptive and helped immerse me into a different culture and lifestyle - which is what I want to do when I go to read in the first place.

I got a lot of True Blood vibes from this, minus the obvious fantasy storyline that wasn’t present here. Minus the gore (but I understand it mostly wasn’t gratuitous and was usually relevant to the plot line) I absolutely loved it. And bar the times I had to see to my 3 small children, it was nearly impossible to put down. Had me guessing until the very end. And definitely had me holding my sweet babies a little tighter.

I also adored finding out from the author bio that the author is from England, like me. And actually grew up a stone’s throw away from me (I’m from Birmingham but my Grandparents are from Worcestershire, a county over from her), but now live in Canada. So I loved the Pride & Prejudice reference, and empathize with the author on having experiences from two very different cultures/lifestyles, and loved that a bit of her Britishness made its way into the book. Also that she identifies as they/them, and lives in the States with their wife. And I love that so much for them. 🥰🏳️‍🌈 It definitely reiterated for me that the disturbing aspects in her book were brought about in a way to highlight them as atrocities rather than glorify them. Which again, I love, as the atrocities in the book are all things against my moral compass, so was glad to know they were against Anna’s, too.

Trigger warnings - alligator attack that results in hand injury. Racism/white supremacy that is tertiary to the plot and is denounced (so I didn’t mind continuing reading the book as a mother and wife to BIPOC persons because it wasn’t the main ideology of the protagonist). Homophobic slang and meninism/incel/rape culture/transphobic etc. rhetoric that is used by tertiary character and is not condoned by the protagonist. Abortion. Graphic death of parents of protagonist’s childhood best friend. Shunning of a person by their former lover who is in the closet and is afraid of being outed. Threats of blood-eagling (old Viking/Norse punishment tradition that’s quite barbaric). Kidnapping. Torture of a child by a parent. Curb stomping. Ableist reference by a neo Nazi demeaning both liberals and people with disabilities. Threats to murder a child who was a potential accidental witness. Meth use. Attempted suicide. Insinuation of a human drug mule to retrieve drugs. Insinuation of torture by fire. Physical assault. Untrue insinuations of incest. Almost attempted murder by forcible overdose. Gunshot wounds (graphic). Murder in self defense. Feeding a body to alligators) via body dumping. Death by alligator attack for tertiary character.

Full Murder in Common review available here:
https://murderincommon.com/2025/05/25/anna-bailey-our-last-wild-days/
Bailey has written a deeply atmospheric book, you sweat in the humid heat and feel the tension in relationships. You’ll enjoy it.

I wanted to like this one. I tried several times to get into it, and it just didn't capture me or make me want to keep reading. Life is too short for mediocre books. This one ended up in my DNF pile. C

I did appreciate the way the author described the setting. You did feel like you were in the depths of the Louisiana Bayou, but the plot feel dragged out and slow.

May try and read this one again at a later time... but for now.. I didn't finish it.

I read this a bit later than I hoped but it was great! Took a few days to get through but the plot twist really took me by surprise :)

🌟🌟🌟 .25
This was just ok for me, I wanted to love it but it was so slow and nothing really grabbed me. It had potential and I really loved the authors way of describing the bayou and living in the Deep South.
Loyal returns to Jacknife to help her aging mother, when she left she cut ties with her best friend Cutter and did so in such a hurtful way. Before she can reconnect with Cutter she is found facedown in the swamp, the cops deem it a suicide. But Loyal doesn’t believe this to be the truth, so she sets out to find the truth behind Cutters death.
Bailey wrote a beautiful novel with haunting imagery and strong emotional connections. She excelled at capturing the atmosphere and inner turmoil of her characters. However, the pacing felt uneven to me and some plot threads just didn’t hit how I wanted them to. While I appreciated the lyrical writing and the themes of loss and identity, the story didn’t fully grip me. Still, fans of literary fiction and slow-burn drama may find it worth the read.
Many thanks to Netgally and penguin random house Canada | Doubleday Canada for this ARC, in return for my honest opinion.
#netgally #ourlastwilddays #annabailey #penguinrandomhousecanada #doubledaypublishing #bookishadventureswithapril #slowburn

This isn't my usual thriller, it was more of a crime thriller and I don't read a whole lot of those, as in detectives or cops or a specific person trying to solve what happened, I usually read thrillers that are from the POV of the victims while it's happening .. does that make sense 😅?

But I was looking forward to this one for a while, Anna Bailey is a new to me author and i was instantly excited to give this one a try when I read about it on a post on here actually! I wish I could remember the bookstagrammer whose review I originally read that convinced me to request this on Netgalley! It was definitely a great read. The story setting was great. Everything was well written, and that's my next point..

I love how the author wrote this, just small details, nothing about the story just random descriptions of little things like how Maybe a rocking chair was creaking or floorboards, and someone stopped and took a sip of their iced tea, things like that, not relevant to the story but setting the scene for you! And I picture things so vividly in my head while im reading so those little details no matter how small make me really get into a story and alot of the times books, especially thrillers solely focus on only details relating to the murder or mystery and just telling the story that they leave out a little of the building to capture your mind and help you picture it as if it's really happening.

I really wanted to like it. I really did. It was just so slow 😬

I really didn't like any of the characters and the writing wasn't for me. I did enjoy the story and the Louisiana setting. The descriptions of the swamp and gators were amazing. I think that's what stopped me from DNFing.

I knew that the format would be off, but this was so hard to read. Every chapter was a different character, but there was no indication to who it was until you were a full page into the chapter. It was very confusing. Also, the authors name would randomly show up mid sentence.

The Labasques live in a shack out in the Louisiana swamps, scraping out a living hunting down alligators and other animals just to get by. To the good people of Jacknife, Louisiana, they are troublemakers, outcasts, the kind of people you wouldn't want living on your doorstep. When Marianne "Cutter" Labasque is found face down in the muddy swamp, no one seems to care, not even her two rough-cut brothers. The only person who questions the official verdict of suicide is Cutter's childhood friend, Loyal May, who has just returned home to care for her ageing mother.

I was really impressed with how the setting was described and could almost feel the heat and humidity. The story is a good one but very slow in my opinion. Lots of information about the people who live in these small communities in Louisiana and also about alligators. The ending was a little too tidy for my liking. 3.5 stars rounded down.

Thank you to Doubleday Canada, via Netgalley, for providing early access to this novel. All opinions expressed are my own.
Publication Date: May 27, 2025

I found the setting of this book the strongest part of the whole thing. A book where the setting is almost a character in and of itself are some of my favourite. That said, the setting wasn't quite as fully fleshed out as it could have been.

As a mystery, it was a bit predicatable. I knew who killed Cutter almost from the very beginning. There were two other potential suspects. Well maybe three, but the third was a throwaway character with no depth and therefore no potential as a suspect.

Also, and perhaps this is nitpicky, but the title made me think this was more of a coming-of-age story. Therefore the fact that there was very little of the history of Loyal and Cutter felt a bit disappointing.

Part of the ending (without spoilers) felt a bit gratuitous. Almost like it was obligatory rather than character driven. If the characters had felt as strong as the setting, this would have been a four star read for me.

This is an engaging and enjoyable mystery novel that digs into the lives and (past) mistakes of a few people in a very small community in Louisiana. I loved the character development and I honestly thought I had the mystery solved about halfway through the book but was completely surprised at how everything wrapped up.

In Our Last Wild Days, Anna Bailey tells the story of a family of gator hunters and the mystery surrounding the death of one member of that family. We unravel the tale, as well as past relationships, through first person narration that switches primarily between a former best friend, returned to the community to understand her mother’s health condition and a young man working hard to make a name for his uncle’s newspaper. As these two reporters work hard to solve the case, they also learn more about their community and their place in its future.

The book is very well-written and really makes the characters feel realistic. I felt like I had a very clear sense of all of the characters and how they interacted with each other, which can be difficult for authors to convey when the cast begins to grow and various plot lines begin to converge.

This review is my honest opinion of the book. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a digital copy for me to read.

3.5/5

Our Last Wild Days is a haunting, slow-burn mystery steeped in Southern atmosphere and emotional depth. When reporter Loyal May returns to her hometown of Jacknife, Louisiana, to care for her mother, she’s pulled back into the mystery of her childhood friend Cutter’s death—her body found drifting in the river like a memory refusing to stay buried.

Bailey’s prose is sharp, moody, and evocative, bringing the decaying town of Jacknife to life with a sense of tension that hums just beneath the surface. The setting feels alive—humid, haunted, and heavy with secrets. Loyal’s journey is the novel’s true anchor: raw, introspective, and layered with grief, guilt, and the ache of unresolved pasts. This is less a whodunit and more a meditation on memory, trauma, and the complex weight of coming home.

The pacing is deliberate—some may find it slow—but the payoff lies in its emotional resonance and richly drawn characters. If you're looking for a gripping, fast-paced thriller, this isn’t it. But if you want a mystery that lingers like heat in the air and stays with you long after the final page, Our Last Wild Days delivers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Publisher for the ARC!