The Last Time We Drowned by Saratoga Shaefer
Cosmo Reads/June 2, 2026
The surface of this group is a shiny oil spill, rainbows and beautiful, and easy to miss as toxic.
When Wisconsin-based Bookstagrammer Charlie meets glamorous influencer Vivienne during an interview in the Floria Keys, she’s desperate for the job. Vivienne is seeking a sixth member of an elite group who live aboard the Empress, a luxury yacht docked off a private island in Florida. The baby of billionaire Trey, the idea is for these influencers to hype the appeal of the Empress so Trey can build an empire chartering and selling luxury yachts just like it.
The goal is to build a brand, so Charlie is dubious that she belongs with these gorgeous influencers. She’s not a toned, tall goddess with makeup or fashion savvy, but @ChaptersWithCharlie, a girl who has built a modest Instagram following by mimicking the far more extroverted personality of her former best friend, Sage, during her online reviews.
Still, she needs this opportunity. Charlie once had dreams of becoming a writer, crafting a unique mermaid romantasy tale with its origins in Greek mythology. She’d spent countless hours plotting and outlining her novel with her supposed best friend, only to be blindsided when Sage announced that she’d written and sold her book. After this bombshell, followed by Sage cutting ties with Charlie, A Song of Salt and Scales became a runaway bestseller. Charlie begged Sage to come clean about her book’s origins, her efforts cut short when Sage drowned in a tragic accident.
Now, Charlie can’t write or create anything of her own, so she reviews the works of others. When Vivienne invites her to join the other influences onboard the Empress, Charlie sees this as a distraction and a means of income. Social media is not her preference, but perhaps something good can come from the exposure.
Charlie immediately realizes she sticks out like an unpolished thumbnail. There’s pink-haired Fiona, makeup genius; the stunning former professional surfer, Piper; twins Ashley and Rachel, set apart by Ashley’s abrasiveness and surgical enhancements; and Queen Vivienne herself.
The only thing they appear to have in common is desperation. As Charlie soon learns, the other four accepted Vivienne’s invitation to board the Empress while struggling financially. They literally cannot afford to leave the yacht.
Not long after Charlie steps onboard, strange things begin to happen. Elena Never Left appears written in the steam collecting on her bathroom mirror, referring to the girl she replaced. The girl no one wants to talk about, the girl who seems to have vanished into thin air. Charlie begins seeing things, hearing things. Is the yacht haunted, or are her own thoughts after her?
Despite Vivienne deeming the six influencers as a “sisterhood,” a “family,” the dynamic is toxic. Vivienne is more of a mob boss than a sorority leader, controlling the girls from their social postings to their calorie content. Charlie catches Ashley in a tryst with Fiona’s boyfriend. Piper alternates between binge drinking and verbally attacking the others. These girls may have the perfect life on Instagram, but they’re barely holding it together in reality.
When a hurricane traps the group on the yacht, the dream Vivienne promised Charlie becomes a nightmare. With her past trauma about Sage at the surface, Charlie realizes that the girls aboard the Empress aren’t simply catty, backstabbing influencers. Something more sinister boils below the surface, but there’s no way off the yacht.
The Last Time We Drowned is a solid psychological thriller set against an opulent, glittering backdrop. It begins as a slow burn, with Charlie’s past rolling out to set the stage for the action of the last half. Charlie’s own demons influence her actions and reactions, with the novel’s themes of guilt, grief, and moral justice distinguishing it from other locked room thrillers. This one isn’t a “thinker,” but it’s more than mindless entertainment.
Then there’s the aspect of the “luxury yacht.” It’s no accident that the yacht’s less aesthetic features are hidden from view, as it serves as a metaphor for its inhabitants. Everyone has something ugly to hide despite a seemingly perfect surface.
Charlie is not the blonde bimbo of horror movies, and makes choices throughout the terror that make sense. She’s reluctant to trust the others, observant. Being thrown into the toxic nature of the group brings other issues bubbling to the surface, and Shaefer does an excellent job teasing these out despite the fact that the action aboard the yacht takes space over about four days. Considering everything that happens, it’s a lot to cover–the fighting, the hurricane, the revelation, and the throw down. Without giving anything away, a great deal of secrets unravel once Charlie boards the Empress, and it’s hard to believe some of these would be revealed so readily. But it’s fun, so we ride along.
About the reviewer: A writer of dark comedy thrillers, Sarah Reida is currently seeking representation for her sophomore novel, Murder Boat. Her debut, Neighborhood Watch, received a Kirkus Star and was honored as an Amazon editorial pick as one of the Best Books of the Year So Far 2024. Join Sarah’s elite group of Instagram followers here.
