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!

With beautifully haunting writing, <b>Our Last Wild Days</b> tells the story of a reporter estranged from her home town, returning to care for her mom, but finds herself in the middle of figuring out how her childhood best friend would up dead in the Bayou.

I though the writing flowed really nicely in telling the story. You really get the moody, gritty vibes of this close-knit community through the gator hunting, journalist investigating where cops don't seem to be, and the varied and interesting group of characters we meet.

Slow-burn thrillers are a different genre all on their own, and Anna Bailey is very good at building this type of story. If a deeply complex mystery unraveling its multitude of strings bit by bit is something you love, this would be right up your alley.

Grateful to Penguin Random House Canada via NetGalley for an ARC to read.

There is no doubt Ms Bailey's atmospheric descriptions and meticulous world-building bear reading, if for nothing other than to truly get into metaphoric (and literal) weeds of a community most of us would have at best a surface-level understanding from aerial videos of the Katrina floods.

But therein lies the quandary: the deeper the author delves into the abject, unredeeming, almost hopeless poverty of the murky Louisiana bayou, the more uncomfortable it is for the reading - perhaps it is the consequence of trying to flesh out way too many characters but it was hard to find humanity in perhaps all but two of the characters who ultimately led me to wonder who or what to root for.

Or perhaps I was hoping for a more Jane Harper-esque take on the small town/back of the beyond murder/drama - one that sets out the ruthlessness of an unforgiving environment in vivid detail but pairs it with at least a few people who present with thoughts and feelings one can relate to, and in whom therefore we are invested enough to want to wade through the dismal environs to however their story concludes.

A good, educational read, but for me, probably not one I'd delve into while on a sunny beach holiday.

My gratitude to NetGallery for the advanced reading copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a melancholic mystery novel. The atmosphere is created so well since it's Southern gothic at its finest. Jacknife is such a captivating place. It's dark, stifling, and almost suffocating, both in its weather and in the expectations of the town. Even though this novel starts off really slowly, as soon as the first murder occurs, it's hard to stop reading.

It's been a long time since I've fallen in love with both the main characters and the secondary characters but all of them were written with such poignancy. They felt like real people with real motivations and more often than not, I found myself hurting for them and wanting better.

I really enjoyed the mystery of this novel and I thought Anna Bailey had such a talent on making Cutter feel like such a vivid main character, even when she was no longer the main part of the story. I'm in awe of how good the writing was and how deeply I connected to this story.

I'll definitely be reading her future novels.

A bit slow for me, but I enjoyed the atmospheric descriptions. I didn’t like the constant mention of Loyal’s weight, and the romance that was thrown in at the end. Thanks to Netgalley for the eArc.

Our last Wild days

For those who love a Southern Gothic and atmospheric novel - this is likely an excellent choice.
Unfortunately, this genre isn’t for me. I don’t typically love southern gothic or swamp/bayou type settings. While there was good mystery and twists and good writing that I could appreciate, it took me a little longer to get through it and I think generally, it was just not quite the right niche genre for me. There were also some pacing issues and a lack of connection to any of the characters.

⭐️⭐️💫2.5 star

Thank you to Double Day Canada and Penguin Random House Canada for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have been thinking about the assortment of misunderstood characters that made up this book - he mysteries and assumptions that slowly and painfully get revealed. This is not a fast thriller but a slow burn of a book that keeps you turning the pages to see how it will all unfold. The writing is well done and the atmosphere created sounded beautiful and terrifying on every page.

This book felt like a darker, grittier, hotter version of 'Where the Crawdads Sing'. It touches on grief, guilt, the awful position poverty can force someone into, and how secrets and corruption can make a small town dangerous.

In the background is the environment, systematically being poisoned by the chemical plant while at the same time trying to kill you at every turn and to take back whatever man made objects it can get its hand on.

'Some people go through life like broken bones that haven't been properly set, never really getting better, just slowly racking up damage for later down the line.'

'No one hates a woman like a man who thinks he owns her.'

'The preacher's son rubs his hands over his arms like he's cold, even though the heat is thick enough you could lean on it.'

'When they get out of the car, the heat closes around them like the palm of some huge clammy hand.'

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

Intense, thought-provoking, and atmospheric!

Our Last Wild Days is a dark, twisty novel that takes you into the lives of a handful of people, including reporter Loyal May, who, after returning home to care for her mother, finds herself obsessed with discovering what truly happened to her childhood friend Cutter, when her body is found floating in the river.

The prose is fluid and tight. The characters are conflicted, scarred, and relentless. And the plot is a compelling, sobering tale of life, loss, family, friendship, grief, guilt, denial, secrets, abuse, neglect, poverty, desperation, self-preservation, violence, redemption, and small-town dynamics.

Overall, Our Last Wild Days is a gritty, intricate, engrossing tale by Bailey that captivates from the very first page and ultimately leaves you pensive, unsettled and thoroughly entertained.

Holy man, this one was so slow for me. I feel like a mystery/thriller should grasp you pretty quick but this one was so dry and hard to get into. If this wasn’t an ARC, I would have not finished the book. It would pick up at times but I always felt like it needed more.

I did like the southern aspect of it and feel like that was done correctly but I just felt like the plot moved too slow to enjoy the book.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada (Adult) for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own

This one was too slow for me.
Not enough thrill or intrigue in the first quarter of the book to keep me invested.
The premise was smart and interesting and the setting/ location was atmospheric but this one fell short for me.

Summary: Loyal May has returned to her home in rural Jacknife, Louisana, to look after her aging mother. Loyal hasn’t been home since she graduated high school and burned bridges as she left with a nasty article about her former best friend, Cutter (Marianne) Labasque. Loyal has contemplated reaching out to Cutter, but before she can decide Cutter is found facedown in swamp. Was it an accident, suicide or murder? Loyal joins the staff of the local newspaper and is determined to get to the truth of why Cutter died, regardless of the dangers that lurk in the forest and swamp.

Thoughts: I had no expectations about this novel before going in since I knew nothing about it. However I was quickly drawn into Loyal and Cutter’s world: sub-tropical heat, the buzz of insects, the swish of alligators in the bayou and rural small-town life where everyone knows everyone else (or thinks they do). The Labasques are at the bottom of the pecking order in Jacknife and they know it. Having lost their parents at a young age, the three siblings grew up together in a ramshackle house by the swamp, hunting alligators and doing whatever they could to survive.

Poverty, drug addiction and despair are omnipresent in Jacknife, as is often the way in struggling small towns. While gossip about Cutter’s death is rampant, Loyal is certain that Cutter was murdered and she is relentless in her pursuit of the truth to the point of endangering herself and those around her. There are so many deep issues and themes running throughout the story – indifference to poverty and suffering, industries poisoning the natural environment, the scourge of drug addiction which feeds on poverty and hopelessness, and deep-seated corruption which allows those at the top to pursue their agenda while ignoring the needs of the townspeople. It is a well-written, atmospheric novel which delivers an immersive reading experience. 4.5/5