The Last Time We Drowned by Saratoga Schaefer: White Lotus Meets Below Deck

A luxury yacht. Elite influencers. Endless parties. Big money. Doesn’t sound all bad, right? As soon as I saw the main character was a ‘Bookstagrammer,’ I knew I had to dive into The Last Time We Drowned by Saratoga Schaefer.

It begs the question: If you were invited to join this elite inner circle and make a life-changing amount of money, would you step on board? Even if you knew everyone on that guest list was hiding a life-changing secret?

Cover of 'The Last Time We Drowned' by Saratoga Schaefer, featuring a vibrant purple and pink ocean landscape with stylized text of the book title and author's name.

3/5 stars ★★★☆☆

My Vibe Scorecard:

Atmosphere: 🌊🌊🌊🌊 (High)

Gore Level: 🔪🔪 (Moderate)

Pacing: 🏃‍♀️ (Good start, slow middle, sprint finish)

“The White Lotus” Factor: 🍹🍹🍹🍹🍹 (Maximum)

To read the summary

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

From the publisher: “From Cosmopolitan’s Cosmo Reads imprint comes The Last Time We Drowned, a razor-sharp, atmospheric, and impossible to put down locked-room psychological thriller where luxury curdles into terror and survival comes at the highest price.

Six influencers. One luxury yacht. Nowhere to hide.

Published on: June 2nd, 2026

Pages: 384

My Thoughts on The Last Time We Drowned:

In our world where influencers, well, influence our every day lives, I was intrigued to read what life might look like if there were six of them on a yacht living together. I pictured the yacht like the one on the television show Below Deck – luxurious, well-equipped, and living the life of millionaires. What I didn’t picture was the toxicity that existed between the characters. Schaefer did a great job of creating characters that all had secrets to share.

The tension among the characters is what kept me reading. We see influencers and think they are living perfect lives. On this yacht, that is the opposite. With an Agatha Christie vibe, mixed with the feeling of drowning in grief and sorrow, I needed to find out what really happened at the end.

Schaefer highlights the stark contrast between being a ‘book lover’ and a ‘content creator.’ Seeing Charlie, the bookstagrammer, struggle to keep her love for reading alive while being forced into the high-glamour, high-toxicity world of lifestyle influencers was one of the most interesting parts of her character arc for me.

I enjoyed the first part of the book and the last part of the book. The middle, however, is when things started to get weird. Some parts felt forced to keep the story alive, and the ending was summed up a little too quickly for my taste. I kept waiting for that “gotcha” moment that I love in thriller books. It reminded me a lot of the show The White Lotus. Intriguing and strange at the same time.

I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars because I didn’t love it nor did I dislike it. It was a fun read.