Andrea Bartz's New Thriller The Last Ferry Out Puts 'Messy' Characters on a Killer Island: Read an Excerpt (Exclusive)

Author Andrea Bartz is back with another queer thriller, this time set at a tropical paradise that turns deadly.

The Last Ferry Out debuts May 20, 2025 from Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, and marks Bartz's fifth novel. According to a synopsis, protagonist Abby makes a trip to a tiny Mexico island called Isla Colel — where her fiancée Eszter died — seeking to make sense of her late partner's "accidental" death.

Only a handful of locals and expats remain on the once-bustling island following a devastating hurricane, and a ferry that used to make once-daily trips back to the mainland now runs weekly.

There Abby meets a group of expats, one of whom claims to know the truth about Eszter’s last days — but that expat goes missing, and no one seems to think much of it. "As her quest for the truth unearths dark secrets, shady pasts and a web of lies," the synopsis teases, "Abby grows more determined than ever to find out what happened to the love of her life."

Bartz tells PEOPLE her latest is a "globe-trotting thriller set in a stunning foreign land, where the sun-splashed dream quickly becomes a nightmare."

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She says The Last Ferry Out is "packed with tension and complex group dynamics," as well as the types of "messy, imperfect heroines and twisty narrative" fans have come to expect from her thrillers.

The author's debut came in 2019's The Lost Night, which she followed up with The Herd in 2020. Her 2021 mystery We Were Never Here was a Reese's Book Club pick and her last outing was the locked-down love triangle thriller The Spare Room last year.

Bartz says this upcoming book has a "puzzle-box-like structure, with multiple narrators and timelines (including one in reverse-chronological order), so the pieces slide into place at just the right moment."

Her inspiration for the story was sparked by a month she spent solo in Mexico in February 2020, plus a personal connection to the themes it covers.

"I met a ton of friendly expats along the way, and I was fascinated by their tight-knit community. I wondered what led these folks to leave behind the lives they were born into, and if they’d even be friends if they all lived in an English-speaking country," she says.

"I love exploring closed-door social milieux in my thrillers, and a tiny, isolated island felt like the perfect place to set a mystery," adds Bartz. "As the daughter of a Hungarian immigrant, I’m also really interested in questions about who 'owns' a place and what it means to call somewhere — or someone — home. I had a blast exploring these topics through my cast of characters and weaving together a page-turner."

Below, get a sneak peek at the world Bartz has created in an exclusive excerpt shared with PEOPLE:

PROLOGUE

Blood hits limestone and splatters for a second before the rain beats it back, diluting it and sluicing it away in pink rivulets. Next a raw scream pierces the air, but the storm waters it down too. A human cry is no match for the roar of rain on rock and the steady pulse of white caps beating against the cliff, of thunder rolling around the bay and palm fronds shivering in fear.

There’s no chance of anyone hearing it, but the scream isn’t a cry for help. It’s involuntary, a knee-jerk reaction to the way her skeleton now juts out of the arm that ensconced it moments ago. The bone is a riot of white, like a sharp, bleached tooth, and where it pierces the skin blood gushes freely.

She managed to drag herself here, through the frothing waves, but the base of the cliff isn’t the oasis she hoped. Forty feet of sheer rock stretch overhead. Even if there were a clear path, there’s no way she could scramble up with her forearm snapped in two. She’s trapped in a bay with no hope of climbing out.

Looking above her and then out at the roiling sea, she sees no sign of the people who are after her. No sign of a savior, either, anyone to help her out of this mess.

Her chest heaves, harder and harder, until her vision starts to blur. She presses her half-shredded palm against the rock and turns to rest her back on the limestone. She looks out at the storm, a tempest strobed in lightning strikes. The foamy water makes her think of a rabid dog.

Blackness tugs at the corners of her vision, an undertow from every direction.

I did my best, she thinks. I went down fighting.

Then she closes her eyes and lets the darkness win.

Excerpted from THE LAST FERRY OUT copyright © 2025 by Andrea Bartz. Used by permission of Ballantine Books, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. 

The Last Ferry Out hits shelves May 20, 2025 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.