Review: Our Last Wild Days by Anna Bailey

 

Our Last Wild Days by Anna Bailey

Publication Date: May 20th 2025 by Atria Books

Pages: 339

Source: Publisher

Rating: ★★★★½

Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Libro.fm | Audible | Goodreads

My Thoughts:

Loyal Mae has returned to her small hometown of Jackknife, Louisiana when it seems her mother’s memory is declining. Taking a job at the local paper, the Bayou Leader, she teams up with Sasha, another journalist, and it’s not long before they’re thrown into a dangerous investigation.

 

Loyal left town years earlier after an accident led to a falling out with her best friend, Cutter Lebasque. However, before Loyal can mend that fence, Cutter is discovered dead in the bayou under suspicious circumstances.  Loyal is determined to get to the truth even when she comes up those who definitely want her to stop digging.

 

Cutter’s death impacts several and we get the POV of Cutter’s brothers, Dewall and Beau shining light on their messy and sometimes violent history.

 

Jackknife was a small town; parts gritty and shabby, but it held some wild appeal. Loyal and Sasha encounter prejudices and danger, but there’s also kindness and community.

 

The writing was beautiful without being clunky or slowing the plot. I was fully immersed in this atmospheric mystery, staying up late to find out how it all turned out!

4.5 Stars

Book Description:

From the author of the “irresistible” (Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author) Where the Truth Lies, an atmospheric novel about a young woman who searches for answers after her estranged friend is found dead in the bayou of their rural Louisiana hometown.

The Labasques aren’t like other families.

Living in a shack out in the swamps, they made do by hunting down alligators and other animals. To the good people of Jacknife, Louisiana, they are troublemakers and outcasts, the kind of people you wouldn’t want in your community.

So, when Cutter Labasque is found face down in the muddy swamp, no one seems to care, not even her two 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 mother. When she left town at eighteen years old, she betrayed Cutter. Now with a ragtag group from the local paper where she works, Loyal goes in search of answers, uncovering a web of deceit and corruption that implicates those in town. It may be too late to apologize to Cutter, but Loyal has restitution in mind.

Weaving through the swamps and bayous of rural Louisiana, Our Last Wild Days is an atmospheric, smoldering suspense about our darker impulses—and how to set things right.