Is This Andrea Bartz's Most Twisted Thriller Yet?

0:03When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp. The secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans. Send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th. And never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end-to-end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. We don't like seeing women be full of rage. We don't like seeing women, you know, feel embarrassed because they're still single later than they thought they would be or any of these things. I bring those into my books because they are all aspects of myself and of my psyche and like the stuff that I'm sort of most ashamed of.

0:47I work it in different ways. Obviously, there's not a lot of real murder in my actual life, but these feelings are real. And actually none of them are, to be clear. What's she telling us, guys? She has bodies buried somewhere. Yeah, well, only I know where the bodies are buried. Don't worry.

1:07Andrea Bartz, new book out, The Last Fairy Out. You've wrote many, many books, you know, part of Reese's Book Club, New York Time bestseller. So talk to us about this specific book. And I know you can't give a lot away, but let's I want to get I want the audience to it a peek behind your mind because this is a thriller. And from what I started reading, I'm like, whoa, this is kind of twisted. So what's wrong with you really? Twisted, twisted, twisty, all of the above. I'm a very nice person with a very dark mind. That's just, I think maybe they feed each other, maybe because I put all the darkness into the books, I can be very light and happy during the day.

1:46But The Last Fairy Out, it came out summer 2025. And it tells the tale of a grieving young woman whose fiance died on an island off of Mexico a few months earlier in a tragic accident. So she travels to this island herself to just experience it, sort of, you know, say goodbye and have that moment of closure. But while she's there, she meets this really enchanting group of expats that have made this island their home. And of course, they knew and spent time with her fiance when her fiance was there. And the more she gets to know them, the more she begins to suspect that maybe this accident wasn't an accident at all.

2:24Maybe something actually went down. Then one morning she wakes to a text from one of these expats and it says, you deserve to know the truth about Esther, your fiance. Meet me at the cafe 9am. So she rushes to meet him. And not only does he stand her up, but he seems to have disappeared from the island. When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know your choices matter. You're the expert because you know what fits your life. And getting it right starts with good information. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing more information about our ingredients at goodtoknowfacts.org.

3:01No spin, no judgments, just the facts straight from the experts for more than 140 beverage ingredients. visit good to know facts.org all together so now she's left with all sorts of questions and trying to figure out what happened to her new friend what happened to her fiance and if she's trapped on an island with a killer so that's sort of the the general idea and it's twisty like you said and it's kind of a puzzle box uh mystery it's got different timelines different narrators and i had so much fun writing it so hopefully it's really fun to read too It's funny because it's like one of those storylines that you would pick up on one of the streaming services for the limited series and just go face into that thing and binge it and be done in two days.

3:49I'm in. That's the idea. When people tell me that they read this whole thing in a day or two, that's the ultimate compliment. I just think it could be a streaming thing too. If you look at what's going on in the world, books come into life and then even Netflix or Hulu creating their own type of shows that twist the mind of the viewers, but also things that could actually happen. right? And I think that's what's interesting about the last ferry out because it takes place, you know, on this beautiful Island that it was very touristy, but then a hurricane came in, right. And swept it out, you know, a few years ago.

4:26So it's, you know, not as, I mean, it's more desolate than it was previously. And that can actually happen in real life. So, you know, I don't know in your process, how did you think of, of this concept and then bring it to life in the pages? Yeah, that's a great question. So back in February, 2020, right before the pandemic, though, of course, I didn't know that I spent months traveling solo around Mexico by myself. So I was meeting people everywhere I went the way that you do when you're traveling alone. And I was just meeting these really friendly, welcoming, interesting, kind of charismatic expats everywhere I went.

5:05And they were from all over. They were from Sweden and Australia and the US and Canada and everywhere. And, you know, while I was there, while I was in town, I was just one of them. And there were this really interesting motley crews of people who were so, you know, close knit and such good friends. But I remember thinking, I don't know if you, if you all lived in the same country where everyone spoke English, I don't know that you would be friends. Like I don't think it's just a place that would otherwise come together. Wow. And all they really had in common, as far as I could tell, was that they had all kind of chosen to parachute out of their lives, right?

5:40Like left behind their friends and their family and their careers and just the whole life they were born into to be here. And it was interesting because they were sort of, you know, maybe learning a little Spanish, maybe a little bit integrating into the society, but they were their own little world, their own little microcosm. And I'm not super interested in talking about their past or talking about work or jobs or any of that. Just very kind of in the moment, like living in paradise. And I was envious, but I was also a little turned off. And I was like, but I also want to be you. I just knew I had some feelings about it.

6:18And, you know, I love taking kind of close knit, closed door, social milieu and just throwing a dead body in the center and making a whole mystery around that. So that was that was what I did. And then that sort of desolate island that, you know, there's a debate on the island, the fictional island of the last ferry out that the community is sort of going through. Like, do we rebuild? Do we try to become a tourist destination again? And especially the expats are very against it. They're sort of like, you know, we don't want all those. Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly cleaned and folded.

6:55So you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you. Like tea time you. Mmm. Or this tea time you. Or even this tea time you. Said you hear about Dave. Or even tea time, tea time, tea time you. Mmm. So update on Dave. It's up to you. We'll take the laundry. Rinse. It's time to be great. those tourists coming in and ruining our island. Time, of course, tourism brings, you know, brings dollars and brings money and can supercharge the economy. Right. So I wanted to watch that kind of play out on this island, too, where it's a small community with a lot of different opinions about sort of the future of the island.

7:42And then the last element that I sort of sprinkled into this this stew was that I'm first generation Hungarian. My mom was born in Hungary and I and her, her, she was brought over as a child, but my grandparents always had thick accents and had to learn English upon getting here. But they were always, they were so determined to sort of be seen as American, but they were always immigrants. No one ever called them expats. Right. And so there's just this interesting dichotomy. I gave one of the narrators a similar background where she's first generation and her parents came over from Hungary. Cause I I think that that sort of dichotomy to talk about people in the world shows up where, you know, one is a person, an expat or a visitor versus an immigrant versus a true American or Mexican or part of this community.

8:35And I wanted to sort of play with that tension as well. So those people got into it. That's so wild. So creative. Because, you know, I think we all can kind of, when I travel internationally, I always think of like all the bad things that can happen. Does that, when you're there, right. And you're, you're traveling for a month by yourself, which is not a hundred percent safe, right. That's a risk. So good on you for being that open and wanting to do that. Um, I don't know that I'm even brave enough to tackle something like that. Um, like how do I pay for stuff? Like, what do I do? Um, but you know, I'm not a worldly traveler, but in those moments when you're kind of hanging around and thinking like, wow, this could be really messed up.

9:16Something like this could happen in this way. Do you take your certain fears that you may have and then mold them into your style of writing? Oh, absolutely. That's a really good way of putting it. I have the most sort of, I don't know, anxious mind where I'll be in even a neutral situation and friends will make fun of me because sometimes I do it a lot. We'll be in a totally neutral situation together and I'll just be the creepy person who's like, you know, like that person was so nice, but wouldn't it be weird if he actually like, you know, locked us away in a cabinet and da, da, da, da happened.

9:49And everyone's like, why would you say that? Why are you summoning this on us? Why are you like that out there? And I think for me, it's almost like, it's almost similar to the reason some people are obsessed with true crime. It's like, if I think about it, if I learn about it, if I hear about it or read about it or watch it, then it can't happen. And I think there's a similar thing for me where it's like, if the absolute worst case scenario happened, what would I do? How would I figure it out? How would I get out of it? And for me, that gets sort of channeled into these narratives, these, these mysteries of like terrible things are happening.

10:24How is my main character going to get out of it? Because then maybe if I find myself in a terrible situation, I'll have already thought through. I've already done this. I've already been here. I've done it already. I've already escaped this. I ask the question because I also have a very anxious mind. Right. And so I'm very interested because even when we just went to South America and we went to my wife's home country, Ecuador, and even just flying in the plane, I'm looking out the window, I'm like, what happens if? What if I see another plane? My mind is constantly always working and it's really hard.

10:56So how do you channel that? Because for me, it's been a challenge. Yeah, yeah. I think for me, it was a big mindset shift when I could start to see those sort of paranoid lines of thinking as grist, as fuel for creativity. And so when I'm in the mindset of what would happen if, yeah, something went wrong with the plane right now, that's very scary. if I can say, but wait, it'd be interesting if what went wrong with the plane was this, but then, you know, the, then this person got to stand up and do this and then this happened and then, Ooh, and then my brain is, it's sort of shunted off its track of just spiraling around fear.

11:38And instead I'm activating, I think on a brain level, right. I'm, I'm sort of shutting down the amygdala in order to let the brain cortex, like come out and be creative and, and turn it into a narrative. And, um, I think I'm kind of playing mind games with myself, um but if i can tell myself oh no this is interesting start writing this down instead of this is scary and i can't stop just circling around and around and around it for me that's empowering it sure is because you're talking about taking action on something right and so it's like a lot of times when we have these scary moments in our life whether it's writing a book or traveling or something going on on a very deep personal level if we shift out of all the bad shit that can happen, right?

12:21And you're all of a sudden go, okay, what can I do right now to move forward just a little bit? It gives off a little bit of power. And if you do that enough, it becomes like this muscle that you work, right? It's kind of my experience. Yeah, I think that's really true. And I think, I mean, even for those who aren't fortunate like me to have a career of turning these things into, you know, I have a real reason to take those scary thoughts and turn them into something. But even with stuff that's not thriller book adjacent, it's like, if I can shift from being in that fear to actually looking at that fear from one level back, in my case, it's like as an author, then that sort of gives me the power to, okay, and now we're going to hit pause on thinking about this.

13:03So, you know, I think even for scenarios that don't necessarily lend themselves to a narrative, if you can say, if you can sort of catch yourself, oh, I'm really stuck on this. Like I've had this thought over and over and you notice that you did that. And then you can sort of take this step back of like, man, I'm ruining this walk by just thinking this one thought. What if instead I tried to, you know, look at the flowers, the wild flowers around me or whatever it is, you're gaining this control and you're taking some action to just stop that, you know, sort of swirling around a drain. It's so interesting, Andrea, because on a daily basis, We're all doing things.

13:38We're driving to our next appointment, to our next lunch, or we're going to sleep at night or something. And we never know truly what's going to happen that next moment. I think to your point though, a lot of us miss a lot of beauty because we're so worried about all the bad things that can happen instead of shifting into how beautiful is this current moment. Yeah. Yeah. Like, am I actually in danger right now? No. then why am I acting like I'm in danger? Why is my whole body activated? Like I'm in some kind of danger. And I think a related, go ahead. It's like, you're always on guard at that point.

14:14You're always like tense. Right. Right. Just like, like girding your loins for something. And I find a kind of related issue that I have that I'm working on too, is there's, there's the fear of something bad happening, but we also have sort of this fear of boredom and fear of not You know, just fear of sitting with our own thoughts in a more positive way or daydreaming or wasting time, which that sort of idea of, you know, wasting time versus allowing yourself to be in the moment actually gets explored in the last very out as well. But I know people who will have a portable, I'm thinking of someone I dated, he had a portable speaker and he would have a podcast on all the time and he would go from one room to the next room.

14:59And it was just podcast after podcast. Wow. And I just remember thinking like, you are never alone with your thoughts. You are never sitting in silence. You know, when I'm brushing my teeth at night, it can be quiet. That's okay. I don't need anything. Sometimes if I'm driving, I just turn off the radio. And it's just me in a car and, you know, just being, letting myself be quiet for a minute. And I think that's sort of a lost art. And especially as we have our phones and we have games on our phones and we have so many things we can do while we're standing in line at the grocery store, it can be really easy to never let yourself just be.

15:38And, you know, as a writer, I think it's essential. And as a human, I think it's essential. Agreed on both points, right? as a writer and as a human being because, and I can relate to him, because there was a time where if I was in the gym or I was in my truck or just even around, I had to have something on. It was almost that crutch, right? Like I need to have this podcast on in order for me to move forward in my life. I'm looking for the silver bullet, right? That I can put in my holster, my chamber and fire it at any moment. And I'm good. But the reality is, is I never found what my silver bullet was until I started taking action instead of listening.

16:17So there was a while, Andrea, where I took all podcasts and stopped listening. I stopped. Oh, absolutely. I stopped listening to all personal development. I stopped listening to all podcasts and I just went so hard inward on me. And that's when I pretty much started creating the show. It was like, wait a second, I'm going to find my own way. And too many people are looking elsewhere, right? When we really need to find like what makes us special, what makes us tick, what's going to make us bring some serious value to the world? Because we all have that purpose in order to do so. You just got to find the thing and you can't find it if it's too noisy.

16:57Absolutely. I agree a hundred percent. And to be clear, we're very pro podcast here, right? And I'm very - Oh, absolutely. I love the podcast freaking Luli, man. I mean, the determined society all the way, just the only one guys, it's the only one you need to listen to. No, no, but no, I'm very pro podcast. But, but to your point though, for a while, I had to be still and that's okay. You know, and that's hard for someone who has ADHD, you know, high anxiety. It's like, oh my gosh, like my mind is a dangerous neighborhood that I'm walking through alone right now. And I don't like it, but I also think for the audience listening, it's necessary.

17:34Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. And I think that's another kind of important dichotomy is that it's so important to take action, right? Like we said, it's so important to, you know, choose what's important to you and go after it and think about what you want in life. And also they're not at odds. And also we need to be still, right? It's like knowing when to be moving forward and when to actually be pausing and just being in the moment because you can't really have one without the other. It's true. And I also find that a lot of people, they'll see that, I guess, that part of their mind that's very, very scary and they run from it, right?

18:12Instead of what I find very useful is leaning into that pain and just kind of find an understanding where it comes from. And so that way I know when to move on and take action. And I know when to sit there and literally just bathe in it. You know? Yeah, we have such an aversion to feeling. unpleasant feelings, right? And now, especially in, you know, 20, 25, we have so many ways to not, you can be on, you can, you know, be scrolling on your phone instead of actually feeling a feeling at any moment. Or some things, you know, difficult. Now we have AI to just jump in and kind of handle it for you.

18:53We have all of these, these different crutches in different ways, not to say that any of them, you know, don't have a place, but we all gain so much from resisting the temptation to like numb those feelings, take the shortcuts. Um, and just, you know, the stuff that makes us human and that brings us actual, you know, joy and wholeness and comfort and all those important things is not running away from the negative stuff. It's letting that be part of the experience. You know, that's very hard for a lot of people, right? But for you as a writer, how is that? I mean, because to me, that's an outlet, right?

19:30It's a way for you to sit with your feelings, but also know when to say, okay, this isn't real or this may be real, but this is fake over here. Let me dive into my creative mind. How has writing helped you filter through those moments? Yeah, that's a great question. I think for me, something that's really important in all of my books is that my narrators bring to light. Well, my books through the narrators bring to light these sort of aspects of the human experience and largely the female experience that we as a society don't love talking about. We don't like seeing women be full of rage. We don't like female shame.

20:12We don't like talking about that. We don't like thinking about it. But we don't like, other than in sort of a mean, mean girl's way, we don't like seeing women not support each other, be envious or jealous of each other. We don't like seeing women, you know, feel embarrassed because they're behind in life or they didn't reach certain landmarks they thought or they're, you know, still single later than they thought they would be or any of these things. and I bring those into my books because they are all um aspects of myself and of my psyche and like the stuff that I'm sort of most um ashamed of I work it in different ways obviously there's not a lot of real murder in my actual life but these feelings and actually none of them are to be clear what's she telling us guys she has bodies buried somewhere yeah well only i know where the bodies are buried don't worry but these these elements whenever i am uh you know going deep in these these tough emotions that a character is feeling and i'm trying to put them into words part of it is catharsis for me because putting them into words is uh taking power over them right taking some some control but also it's like the more uncomfortable i am because i'm worried people will judge it judge the character, judge the book, the more I know, like I'm on the right track and that I have to put that vulnerability onto the page.

21:39And I mean, it has meant that there will be, there will always be people who read my books and say, Oh, I didn't, I didn't like them. I just, the main character was so unlikable. I just, you know, that there's going to be people who see that, um, that's going to trigger something in them, probably something they don't want to face. And therefore they're just going to go, I didn't like it. I didn't like it. I didn't like her. I didn't like that. She had these emotions. I didn't like that I had to read about them. You know, even if they're entirely internal, even if she's not, you know, hurting people or saying any of this, just having these feelings.

22:11Because, and the reason it's so important to me is because the way that you defang shame is by taking it out into the light, right? I have found this with, you know, my own career. If somebody tags me in an incredibly vicious review that just tears apart one of my books, I see that my chest sinks, my stomach sinks, you know, my, my heart just, just, uh, it's, it's so painful. And the temptation is nobody can know. I can't let anyone know. Um, because this is so they're right. And I'm awful. And this is so shameful and so embarrassing. And I'm, I'm, this is really saying something about me as a person to me as a writer, but I have found that if I can have the bravery to share it and talk about it and express, you know, why I know I'm doing something right.

22:57of some people love it and some people hate it. And I, you know, how I have to keep going, even though some people are going to hate my work. When I share it, that's when the groundswell of support comes in. And I'm reminded, like, suddenly I have perspective. Suddenly that was just one random person on Instagram who tagged me for God knows what reason, right? So - And it can be just about them too, right? You like, to your point, you could have triggered something in them that really pissed them off, reminded them of somebody else in the past. And now you are the punching bag, but I'm going to tell you something from my perspective, I'm listening to this and like, that's what gives your writing so much power because you're able to evoke that real emotion through real life.

23:41Even though it's thriller, you're taking your own experiences that people can really relate to putting them on the pages. And then what happens thereafter? That's not your, it's so funny. It's not your, it's none of your business, not your, or your responsibility. Right. And so you're, you're now receiving what it did for somebody in their life. And I'm going to tell you something that one person that said they hated the book or hated that character. That's the person that got the most out of the book. So you're about to make a trade based on a friend's text, but which you do you listen to? Is it, we could buy a house in Tulum.

24:24Get optioning those options. We could lose everything. Or let's do a little research. Get your head in the trade and make the investment decision that's right for you. Learn more at FINRA.org slash trade smart.

24:44That's a great point. It brought something out, right? It did something to them. It made them feel something big. Very visceral. Yeah. That's just sort of milquetoast and forgettable. That's not what I'm going for. That's not what I'm going to do. Yeah. You're like, hey, I want you to love me or hate me. Which one is it? Yeah. I know I'm doing something right if I'm going to have extremes. And this is reminding me too. And this is something I'm always encouraging authors or really anyone to do. I have a, on my desktop, I have a folder that's just called nice things. and when somebody sends me, either tags me in a really beautiful review or even better, sends me a DM or an email that tells me how much one of my books meant to them and why.

25:29Not just, I thought it was so fun, I read it in two days, but like this really spoke to me, this, you know, somebody said, and I'm gonna tear up thinking about it. Somebody said, it made me look at myself and my past in a new way. And like, when someone's really touched, I need to save those things because my God, I'm going to need them later when I'm down in the dumps and really downing myself. And so I save them. I PDF it. I screenshot it, whatever. I put it into this folder. But you just made me realize for the first time that, yeah, it's not just that they liked my books. It's sort of the mirror image of those really upset.

26:04I can do get emails to the emails and the DMs and the tags to use where someone's really activated. It's sort of the inverse of that. And you're right. They both point to the same conclusion, which is that I am saying something uncomfortably true and that's what I'm setting out to do. So in one way or another, I'm achieving that goal. Well, I think you're playing, you're, you're not playing, but you have two sides of emotion, right? And as long as there's emotion evoked on either end of the spectrum, I think that's, you're doing a great job because like you said, you don't want somebody like milquetoast.