The past is never dead. It's not even past.
Loyal May has returned to her hometown of Jacknife, Louisiana, a place she fled a decade earlier after a falling-out with her best friend, Cutter Labasque. Working at the local news outlet, she takes care of her ailing mother and hopes to right the wrongs of the past.
But days after she arrives, Cutter is found face down in the muddy bayou. The police call it a drowning, but Loyal doesn’t believe them. Cutter and her brothers make their meager living as alligator hunters, and Loyal is certain Cutter knew the swamp like the back of her hand. 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 can still make amends.
An atmospheric and smoldering suspense, Our Last Wild Days is an urgent examination of the secrets we keep and our fealty—to our communities, to our families, and to ourselves.
Intense, thought-provoking, and atmospheric!
"Our Last Wild Days is a dark, twisty novel that takes you into the lives of a handful of people, including reporter Loyal May, who, after returning home to care for her mother, finds herself obsessed with discovering what truly happened to her childhood friend Cutter, when her body is found floating in the river. The prose is fluid and tight. The characters are conflicted, scarred, and relentless. And the plot is a compelling, sobering tale of life, loss, family, friendship, grief, guilt, denial, secrets, abuse, neglect, poverty, desperation, self-preservation, violence, redemption, and small-town dynamics. Overall, Our Last Wild Days is a gritty, intricate, engrossing tale by Bailey that captivates from the very first page and ultimately leaves you pensive, unsettled and thoroughly entertained."
