{"id":98251,"date":"2025-05-13T14:25:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T14:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/98251\/"},"modified":"2025-05-13T14:25:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T14:25:11","slug":"read-andrea-bartzs-the-last-ferry-out-excerpt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/98251\/","title":{"rendered":"Read Andrea Bartz’s \u2018The Last Ferry Out\u2019 Excerpt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrea Bartz<\/a> has had us on the edge of our seat every since we first read The Lost Night<\/a>. The journalist and author has since created some of our favorite gripping thrillers that leave our heart pumping and ready for more. I mean, even Reese Witherspoon picked one of her books as part of her book club. And if that isn’t the biggest seal of approval to run and pick up her new novel, then hopefully this excerpt will have you running to get your copy ASAP. <\/p>\n

Cosmopolitan has an exclusive look at Andrea Bartz’s The Last Ferry Out<\/a>, which is set to be released on May 20, 2025. The book follows Abby who comes to a mysterious island Isla Colel to find out the truth about what happened to her fianc\u00e9e. But is she ready to face the dark truth that is hidden among the island’s residents and visitors, especially after another soon disappears? Here’s some more info from our friends at Ballantine Books<\/a>:<\/p>\n

On a trip to the tropical paradise where her fianc\u00e9e died, a young woman begins to suspect the death was no accident\u2014and the killer\u2019s still on the island\u2014in this twisty thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Reese\u2019s Book Club pick We Were Never Here.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThis book is Bartz at her best: twisty, shocking, and riveting\u2014with a narrator you won\u2019t stop rooting for.\u201d\u2014Laura Dave, #1 bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me
<\/p>\n

‘The Last Ferry Out’ by Andrea Bartz<\/p>\n

\"'The<\/a><\/p>\n

Paradise hides a deadly secret.<\/p>\n

When Abby steps foot on Isla Colel, she isn\u2019t sure what\u2014if anything\u2014she\u2019ll find. She only knows that she needs to see the place where her fianc\u00e9e, Eszter, died to try and make sense of the tragic accident.<\/p>\n

The island is nothing like Abby expected: Though it was once a bustling tourist hub, a hurricane has left it a shell of its former self, with only a handful of residents remaining. Even the once-daily ferry to the mainland now runs every week or so.<\/p>\n

There, Abby befriends an alluring group of expats, but her sense of unease surges when one of them says he knows the truth about Eszter\u2019s final days. Before he can tell her more, though, he vanishes from the island. Hours turn to days with no sign of him, and the others are chillingly cavalier about his disappearance.<\/p>\n

As her quest for the truth unearths dark secrets, shady pasts, and a web of lies, Abby grows more determined than ever to find out what happened to the love of her life. And the deeper she gets in the close-knit expat community, the more she suspects that one of them is Eszter\u2019s killer\u2014and will do anything to keep the truth buried. But will Abby discover who it is before she becomes the island\u2019s next victim?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ready to see what see all the good and bad that Isla Colel has to offer? Check out an exclusive excerpt below! Just make sure to pre-order The Last Ferry Out and even check out some of Andrea’s previous releases while you’re at it!<\/p>\n

An Excerpt From The Last Ferry Out
By Andrea Bartz<\/strong><\/p>\n

I finish the steep ascent along a coastal cliff, where loose rocks slide under my feet. Thick vines hang off the trees like stiffened rope, and I cling to them as I ascend. To my left, I catch glimpses of the choppy waves and yellowish sea stacks sending up wild sprays of salt water. My heart thrums. I must be getting close now.<\/p>\n

The path widens and zags inland, past a patch of fat ferns and broad-leaved banana trees, everything glistening and wet. Was it just this morning that I paced the terminal at Mitchell International Airport, airline announcements garbling through my ears like squawky trombones? A mid-May storm was brewing outside the windows, specks of rain floating on the breeze. I thought my flight might get canceled. Then I\u2019d have an excuse to abandon the whole idea. On the plane, my eyes flooded with tears when a flat-voiced flight attendant droned, \u201cCross-check completed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vegetation drops away and it\u2019s clear, abruptly, how close the trail is to the cliff\u2019s edge, to its rough rock and deadly pitch. Eszter loved this hike\u2014on the phone, she told me she couldn\u2019t wait to show me the route to the island\u2019s highest peak. My heart thuds against the backpack. I take a step closer to the precipice, closing the gap between myself and thin air, four flights of sheer limestone. Vertigo pulls at my head and knees.<\/p>\n

So badly I had wanted to walk this path with her.<\/p>\n

This is the spot, then. The highest lookout point on the island that took her. A dilapidated hotel hulks behind me\u2014twisting around, I can\u2019t make out the building, but I spot curls of barbed wire peeking through the foliage, perhaps fifty feet inland. There\u2019s some sort of abandoned comm tower jutting above the treetops, too, big rusted pipes and dishes. The resort must\u2019ve been impressive when it was open: a hilltop property rising out of the Mexican rainforest.<\/p>\n

\u00ad\u00ad\u00adI slip the backpack off my shoulders and ease the zipper open. I feel feral, unpredictable. The sea roars and tumbles, calling out to me, some- how. I picture it: My body sinking below the whitecaps, giving in to the undertow, the ocean\u2019s impassive yank. Waves slapping my face and worming into my nose and mouth and, eventually, lungs.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been four months since Eszter\u2019s brother Laszlo called me, his wife\u2019s sobs audible in the background.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been an accident.<\/p>\n

I felt a desperate swoop. Is Eszter okay? I asked. My brain flipped through possibilities like a slide projector: car accident, bike accident, hiking accident\u2014<\/p>\n

She\u2019s\u2014<\/p>\n

And I interrupted him. Tell me she\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n

The silence was so long that it took on shape and form, dark and thick and widening by the millisecond, broadening to make room for the dawning horror.<\/p>\n

On New Year\u2019s Day, kicking off this godforsaken year, Eszter arrived here, on an island where the Gulf of Mexico meets the Caribbean Sea, for a three-week trip. I was going to join her that final week, after she\u2019d made some headway on a big final project she was working on for business school\u2014her capstone. But her brother called before I ever got to the airport. Eszter and I were only just beginning; our time together, a year and a half of dating plus three months of an engagement, should\u2019ve been a start, not a finish.<\/p>\n

I pull the phone from my backpack and leave the bag flopped against my ankle. I open a folder labeled ESZTER PHOTOS and swipe through the last ones she sent me. Smiling from the top of the ferry, hair flapping in the breeze. Sitting in the town square, dark sunglasses shielding her eyes, with a stingray mural over her shoulder. The cute rental she found, even more darling than it looked in the listing, its salmon-pink walls offsetting the white front door. Her toes in the sand, her sparkly ring in front of the marina. And sunsets, so many sunsets, each a commotion of color, lovingly documented like every one was a miracle. <\/p>\n

I zoom in on the one picture that\u2019s not like the others: Eszter with her arms around some other folks, everyone in bathing suits and cover-ups, cheesing for the camera. Hey, babe! These are the cool people I met . . . can\u2019t wait for you to meet them. I\u2019d given the heart response, fighting down a flicker of envy, labeling it my own excitement to see her. There was a tall fellow with broad, tanned arms and a salt-and-pepper beard. A pale, round-faced woman who reminded me of an angel in a Renaissance painting: unlined skin, barely-there brows, calflike eyes. An artsy-looking girl with an Afro and hoop earrings. I\u2019ve always wondered who took the photo. Did Eszter intend for me to befriend them, too?<\/p>\n

Only one way to find out.<\/p>\n

Eszter never shared their names, let alone their contact info, so I came here to look for them. Reconstruct her final days, understand the place she loved so much. We weren\u2019t talking nearly as often as we should\u2019ve while she was here; I was so busy, so focused on the upcoming investor meeting at work. <\/p>\n

I failed, of course. Couldn\u2019t get the demo to work in time; didn\u2019t get the promotion I was hoping for. So I\u2019m finally doing what Eszter begged me to do a few months ago: taking a vacation.<\/p>\n

I rewatch Eszter\u2019s video, wind competing with her voice: It feels like I\u2019m the only person on Earth. It ends on a freeze-frame, silent. This is definitely the spot. I look back and forth between the screen and the seething water\u2014<\/p>\n

A bird streaks past, so near it rustles the air across my back. I startle and step and then I feel it, the disorienting whoosh of losing my balance. The phone slips from my fingers as my arms windmill, and I trip over the backpack at my feet. I call out, joining the cacophony of wind and bugs and waves.<\/p>\n

The last thing I see before I hit the ground is my phone bouncing off the rock face and sailing out of sight. <\/p>\n

Excerpted from THE LAST FERRY OUT by Andrea Bartz. Copyright \u00a9 2025 by Andrea Bartz Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Last Ferry Out, by Andrea Bartz will be released on May 20, 2025. To preorder the book, click on the retailer of your choice:<\/p>\n

AMAZON<\/a> AUDIBLE<\/a> BARNES & NOBLE<\/a> BOOKS-A-MILLION<\/a> BOOKSHOP<\/a> APPLE BOOKS<\/a> KOBO<\/a> LIBRO.FM<\/a> TARGET<\/a> WALMART<\/a> POWELL’S BOOKS<\/a> HUDSON BOOKSELLERS<\/a> GOOGLE PLAY<\/a><\/strong> EBOOKS.COM<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrea Bartz has had us on the edge of our seat every since we first read The Lost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[3444,1329,45676,1331,77,3989,1381,45675,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-98251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-content-type-feature","10":"tag-contentid-33cd2aca-04a8-4fd0-a03f-9fddb6dad415","11":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-hasproduct-true","14":"tag-locale-us","15":"tag-shorttitle-andrea-bartzs-new-thriller-is-finally-here","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114500987952378957","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}