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All-Star Storytellers!
May 18, 2025 at 5pm ET
Andrea Bartz
Jessie Garcia
Katy Hays
Gillian McAllister
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Andrea Bartz
Andrea Bartz is a journalist and the New York Times bestselling author of the Reese’s Book Club pick We Were Never Here, The Last Ferry Out, The Spare Room, The Lost Night, and The Herd. Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Marie Claire, Vogue, and many other outlets, and she’s held editorial positions at Glamour, Psychology Today, and Self, among other publications. She lives in Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley.
The Last Ferry Out
When Abby steps foot on Isla Colel, she isn’t sure what—if anything—she’ll find. She only knows that she needs to see the place where her fiancée, Eszter, died to try and make sense of the tragic accident.
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.
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’s 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.
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’s killer—and will do anything to keep the truth buried. But will Abby discover who it is before she becomes the island’s next victim?
Jessie Garcia
Jessie Garcia has been involved in television news for over 30 years. She started as a sportscaster before moving into management. Jessie is currently the news director at Milwaukee’s CBS affiliate. She is the author of three non-fiction books, including a memoir of being an early pioneer in women’s sportscasting and several books about the Olympics. The Business Trip is her debut novel.
The Business Trip
Stephanie and Jasmine have nothing and everything in common. The two women don’t know each other but have boarded the same plane. Stephanie is on a business trip and Jasmine is fleeing an abusive relationship.
After a few days, they text their friends the same exact messages about the same man—soon, the messages become stranger and more erratic. And then the two women vanish. The texts go silent, red flags go up, and panic sets in.
When Stephanie and Jasmine are each declared missing and in danger, it begs the question: Who is Trent McCarthy? What did he do to these women—or what did they do to him?
Twist upon twist, layer upon layer, nothing is as it seems. The Business Trip takes you on a descent into the depths of a mastermind manipulator. But who is playing whom?
Katy Hays
Katy Hays is a Californian, writer, and cake aficionado. She lives in the shadow of the Sierra with her husband and their dog, Queso. In addition to writing, Katy works as an adjunct Art History Professor teaching rural students from Truckee to Tecopa. She holds an MA in Art History from Williams College and pursued her PhD in Art History at UC Berkeley. Her academic writing has been published by Ashgate, an imprint of Routledge.
Her fiction explores how far humans are willing to go to believe the unbelievable, strange-but-real worlds, and complex female friendships. She also runs a substack called June Gloom where she writes (sporadically) about creativity, culture, and California.
When not writing (or eating cake) Katy is a skier, cyclist, trail runner, eastern Sierra enthusiast, and—well, reader.
Salt Water
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Cloisters comes an electrifying thriller about an opulent family retreat to Italy that’s shattered by the resurfacing of a decades-old crime.
In 1992, Sarah Lingate is found dead below the cliffs of Capri, leaving behind her three-year-old daughter, Helen. Despite suspicions that the old-money Lingates are involved, Sarah’s death is ruled an accident. And every year, the family returns to prove it’s true. But on the thirtieth anniversary of Sarah’s death, the Lingates arrive at the villa to find a surprise waiting for them—the necklace Sarah was wearing the night she died.
Haunted by the specter of that night, the legendary Lingate family unity is pushed to a breaking point, and Helen seizes the opportunity. Enlisting the help of Lorna Moreno, a family assistant, the two plot their escape from Helen’s paranoid, insular family. But when Lorna disappears and the investigation into Sarah’s death is reopened, Helen has to confront the fact that everyone who was on Capri thirty years ago remains a suspect—her controlling father, Richard; her rarely lucid aunt, Naomi; her distant uncle, Marcus; and their circle of friends, visitors, and staff. Even Lorna, her closest ally, may not be who she seems.
As long-hidden secrets about that night boil to surface, one thing becomes clear: Not everyone will leave the island alive.
Gillian McAllister
Gillian McAllister has been writing for as long as she can remember. She graduated with an English degree before working as a lawyer. She lives in Birmingham, England, where she now writes full-time. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Wrong Place Wrong Time and the Sunday Times bestsellers Everything But the Truth, Anything You Do Say (titled The Choice in the US), No Further Questions (titled The Good Sister in the US), The Evidence Against You, How to Disappear, and That Night.
Famous Last Words
It is June 21st, the longest day of the year, and new mother Camilla’s life is about to change forever. After months of maternity leave, she will drop her infant daughter off at daycare for the first time and return to her job as a literary agent. Finally. But, when she wakes, her husband Luke isn’t there, and in his place is a cryptic note.
Then it starts. Breaking news: there’s a hostage situation developing in London. The police arrive, and tell her Luke is involved. But he isn’t a hostage. Her husband – doting father, eternal optimist – is the gunman.
What she does next is crucial. Because only she knows what the note he left behind that morning says…
Famous Last Words is the story of a crime, a marriage, and more secrets than Camilla ever could have imagined.
Meet Your Hosts
The Back Room is the brainchild of bestselling authors Hank Phillippi Ryan and Karen Dionne.
Learn more about how they conceived of The Back Room, how it works, and about their books too!