Oof—this one quickly pulled me in! I mean - a remote island, a dead fiancée, and secrets lurking in every corner? Umm, yes please!

Months after her fiancée Eszter dies from a severe allergic reaction, Abby travels to Isla Colel, the quiet little island where Eszter spent her final days. Abby wants to walk the same path as Eszter and hopes to find people Eszter interacted with.

Because it just doesn’t add up…Eszter was always SO careful about what she ate. It doesn’t make sense that Eszter consumed something she shouldn’t have and it especially doesn’t make sense she wouldn’t have immediate access to her epi-pen. So Abby is determined to find answers and won’t stop to get them.

But what she finds is a hurricane devastated island leaving little opportunities for the locals, a group of expats with a little too much history and who seem to be holding each other’s secrets, and someone who hints that maybe Eszter’s death wasn’t an accident after all.

When that person disappears, Abby’s grief takes a back seat as she realizes she doesn’t know anything about the people she’s been talking to. They originally seemed willing to help Abby find answers but now things begin to feel more sinister especially when Abby finds evidence of someone breaking into her room.

With the last ferry off the island just days away, Abby starts to question who she can trust—and how far someone might go to keep the truth buried.

Thank you NetGalley, Andrea Bartz, and Ballantine Books for the opportunity to consume this thrilling four star read in exchange for a review! I can’t wait for Andrea Bartz’s next thriller!

This was a very slow moving book without a whole lot going on. While I enjoyed it in the end, I didn’t feel like it made me excited to pick it up each time I but it down.

I enjoyed this suspenseful read up until the ending. Abby’s finance Ezther dies of an apparent anaphylactic reaction while on a secluded island. When Abby heads there for answers so befriends Ezther’s group of expat friends. But were they her friends or are some of them susupexte as Abby tries to uncover what really happened. I found myself engrossed in the page turning story but I felt like the ending didn’t make sense for these characters. A good quick thriller read for summer.

I've been going through a reading slump, even with books/authors I normally read in a day, for a couple of months now. With this book, I was curious from the first chapter.

Set on an isolated island, Abby travels to understand more around the passing of her fiancée Eszter. No one can be trusted, and she finds that's even the case for Eszter as she digs... it's moderately paced and keeps you guessing about who and what!

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House - Ballantine for a review copy.

A story of love and loss, and of finding oneself. A young traveler dies while on a remote island. The fiancé goes to the island to make peace with what happened only to find a unique expat community and begins to wonder if all is what it appears to be. Thanks to NetGalley for the read!

While I was not immediately connected, or drawn in to the character, I grew to enjoy it. A solid suspence/mystery

Thank you Net Galley and the publisher's The Last Ferry Out and Andrea Bartz for the opportunity to listen to and review this book!

I thought the plot and story line sounded interesting. A definite slow burn, I kept thinking something more was going to happen. And, throughout the read I kept thinking, I wish it would have taken different directions and explored the wonderful possibilities and scenario's a woman trapped on an island could have encountered and endured. Predictable but enjoyable. I was left wishing it was more than it was. Still 3 stars.

"The Last Ferry Out" gets you pretty invested right from the start.

I felt like Andrea Bartz did a good job of creating a captivating setting. However, it was definitely a slow burn-type of thriller and that made it harder to continue to care at times. I felt as though the side characters weren't very likable either.

All in all, I feel like readers will enjoy it, particularly if they are a fan of remote settings with mysterious deaths.

Thank you to Ballantine for selecting me for this ARC.

Abby finds herself traveling to Isla Colel to see where her fiancée Eszter tragically died, and try to better understand what lead up to her death. The island has become a shell of its once tourist filled self, but maintains some devoted locals and expats. Abby finds herself drawn to this group of expats whom Eszter had also become friendly with during her stay. One of the members mentions to Abby that he knows the truth about Eszter's last days, but mysteriously disappears overnight before he can tell her more. As Abby's time on the island passes, she discovers more secrets in the groups past, and suspects someone was involved with Eszter's death.

This book was an ok one for me. The beginning was a bit slow for my taste, so it took me a while to even get into the story. I did enjoy the multiple perspectives, but the different timelines sometimes felt unnecessary to the main story. The thriller aspects of the the story did feel a bit lacking throughout and the twist wasn't as riveting as I was hoping it would be. But, there is an interesting layer throughout the story around relationships and dealing with loss and grief that I didn't consider until after I was finished and thought about it less as a thriller.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group, Ballantine Books, NetGalley, and Andrea Bartz for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I loved THE LAST FERRY OUT! It starts with a gripping prologue that sat in the back of my mind as I was reading the book. There are multiple POVs and timelines, as well as multiple mysteries unfolding.

I have been a big fan of Andrea Bartz's books for a while now, so I wasn't surprised that this was a big hit for me. I love her writing style and that she tends to explore topics that I don't always see in mystery/thrillers.

I had the chance to be in conversation with Andi at one of her events for THE LAST FERRY OUT's release, and it was SO wonderful being able to pick her brain about it!!

Four months after Abby’s fiancé tragically passed away, she decides to take a trip to the island where it happened to get a sense of her final days and finally find some closure. When she finds the group of expats who befriended Eszter she doesn’t find the closure she is searching for. One of the expats tells her he has something he needs to tell her and then goes missing. As she searches for him all of the secrets and lies begin to unfold. I really enjoyed this book. It starts off as a slow burn but then lies and secrets start to unfold one right after the other and it becomes hard to put down.

Abby visits the island where her fiancée passed away recently for some sort of closure. But when her fiancée's friend goes missing during her visit, Abby starts to question everything.

***

I want to start this review by saying that I read The Spare Room and really enjoyed it. While Bartz's plotting is always a little slow, it still generally has a sense of mystery that draws the reader in. Unfortunately, nothing about this book mattered to me or felt mysterious or thrilling. The characters were all boring and mostly unlikable. The story was uncomfortable slow from beginning, middle, to end.

And the ending was so perfunctory and "well legally there's nothing we can do here" just didn't sit right with me. The last chapter was SO unnecessary and thrown in so that the reader would be "thrilled"? It felt lazy to me.

Abby, girl, you're better off. Glad you moved on in the end. Readers, skip this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC in exchange for this honest review.

I quite enjoyed this book and appreciated the isolated setting with its eerie environment. FMC, Abby heads to an island where her fiancé passed in the search of answers as to the cause. This isolated tropical island is only visited once a week by a ferry, and so once on the island, people cannot get off. As another person goes missing, the story continues, but I found was a slow paced thriller at times. The characters were not super likable, but that’s OK for me in a thriller as it added to the twists within the plot line. At times, the timeline changed from the present with Abby, into the past with, her and her fiancé - but the small dual timeline was easily to follow.

Overall, I think it was a decent thriller, but lacked excitement for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced reader copy of this book and exchange for my honest opinion and review.

3.5⭐️

I'm not entirely sure this one was for me. By the time the protagonist arrives on the island, she's trying to reconstruct what happened to her fiancé, who died there. Before I could get to the friendly local (person with information) disappearing, I didn't feel invested enough in either the protagonist or her relationship, since I'm not sure the author did enough to build up their bond via flashbacks or other tools at her disposal. The fiancé is already dead, so there's nothing to be done about that. However, I didn't feel myself engaged enough with the present action to keep rooting for Abby to figure out exactly what happened based on the current plot.

This is a decent locked door style mystery…..Abby has gone to this island to find out how her fiancé died and what her big secret was. Of course the island is tiny , and there are the typical expats hiding out there who take Abby in like they did Eszter. You get a very slow burn mystery. Super super slow. All of the action pretty much comes at the last third of the book.
Not my favorite book by this author but a solid read.
I old say 3.5/5 on a star scale.
I received an ARC all opinions are my own:

This was a solid read for me. I enjoyed the mystery surrounding Eszter's death, however some of the ways that Abbey chose to deal with it didn't make sense to me. Also the inclusion of the past of Abbey and Eszter's lives didn't add any relevant details to the current plot so these chapters seemed excessive and not needed. I did enjoy the twist at the end relating to Eszter's death, but looking back it seemed like it was obvious.

ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I love a locked room (or in this case locked island) mystery. This was just a bit lacking. The plot was subpar and fell flat. The twist was a bit out of left field and didn’t really work.

📕People start to look for hidden meanings in everything when they lose someone they care so much about and doubt anyone and their intentions. Anything they do or say becomes another part of the puzzle they need to solve. But maybe first explanation is the correct one and as evil as it is, it makes sense
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📗”It's weird to me how some people don't need alone time. Much as I love Abby, I miss having space to think, to dream. Space to work on my project. Not that I have any idea how to express any of this.” - tell me more about the need to be alone for a second to feel normal
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📘”She smiles kindly. "You're impressed by what I built." I nod and she sighs deeply. "I'm going to tell you something that I wish I'd known sooner: If you try to impress people into loving you, you're telling yourself you aren't lovable without those impressive things." She shrugs. "But you are! And so am I. You're enough."
I look away, blinking hard. She's hit on something so deep that it compresses in my stomach, carbon turning to diamond. I think of Eszter, too, us cheering each other on in the Sisyphean struggle to be the Best. Maybe we gravitated toward each other because we recognized that drive-two overachievers, with different fuel in our tanks, both striving toward greatness. God, even that first night on the beach with Rita, I couldn't shut up about Eszter's accomplish-ments, could I? Top student and brilliant thinker and accomplished pianist and blah blah blah blah blah.” - can you imagine how tiring this is?!

I was so intrigued by the cover of this book and then after I read the plot I was even more excited to dig into Andrea Bartz's newest thriller. I really enjoyed the atmospheric writing with Abby on the island and meeting many expats and wondering if everyone is truly who they seem. I did find parts of it a bit slow though. I did enjoy the twists and thought it was pretty well done! If you love a thriller that takes place on an island then I'd recommend this one! It was a solid book. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for this eARC!

Abby arrives at Isla Colel with one mission - find out about her fiancée's last days on the island before her death. The island is small and full of secrets. She quickly learns that all of the expats there have brought secrets from their lives before the island, including her fiancée Eszter. Abby thought she knew everything about Eszter, but her time on the island shows her there's a lot more to the story than she understood. Abby doesn't know who she can trust and when strangers are warning her to leave, it's time for her to decide how much she is willing to risk to find out the truth.

This is a good, fast paced thriller. The first third took me a while to get into the story but from there I couldn't put it down. The twists kept coming until the very last page. Definitely a good book to get you out of a reading slump.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing - Ballantine for the ARC of The Last Ferry Out.