We Were Never Here: A Novel

by Andrea Bartz Narrated by Becca Tobin

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ¿ REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK ¿ “This book is every suspense lover's dream and it kept me up way too late turning pages. . . . A novel with crazy twists and turns that will have you ditching your Friday night plans for more chapters.”-Reese Witherspoon

A backpacking trip has deadly consequences in this “eerie psychological thriller . . . with alluring locales, Hitchcockian tension, and possibly the best pair of female leads since Thelma and Louise” (BookPage), from the bestselling author of The Lost Night and The Herd.

A Marie Claire Book Club Pick ¿ Named One of the Best Books of the Year by NPR and Marie Claire

Emily is having the time of her life-she's in the mountains of Chile with her best friend, Kristen, on their annual reunion trip, and the women are feeling closer than ever. But on the last night of the trip, Emily enters their hotel suite to find blood and broken glass on the floor. Kristen says the cute backpacker she brought back to their room attacked her, and she had no choice but to kill him in self-defense. Even more shocking: The scene is horrifyingly similar to last year's trip, when another backpacker wound up dead. Emily can't believe it's happened again-can lightning really strike twice?

Back home in Wisconsin, Emily struggles to bury her trauma, diving headfirst into a new relationship and throwing herself into work. But when Kristen shows up for a surprise visit, Emily is forced to confront their violent past. The more Kristen tries to keep Emily close, the more Emily questions her motives. As Emily feels the walls closing in on their cover-ups, she must reckon with the truth about her closest friend. Can Emily outrun the secrets she shares with Kristen, or will they destroy her relationship, her freedom-even her life?

Editorial Reviews

SEPTEMBER 2021 - AudioFile

Kristen and Emily are such best friends they’d bury a body for each other—literally. Narrator Becca Tobin’s nuanced performance captures the friends’ bond and their opposite personalities. Despite the traumatic events of last year’s trip with Kristen—when a backpacker wound up dead—Emily is excited to embark on another trip with her friend. On their last night in Chile, Emily returns to their hotel room to find another backpacker dead and Kristen once again claiming self-defense. But how could this happen twice? Tobin uses a playful voice for confident Kristen, whose voice remains cheery in the days after the bloody killing—to chilling effect. For Emily, whose voice often wobbles with tears, Tobin uses a softer tone. As Emily worries about their cover-ups, Kristen keeps her close, causing Emily to question . . . everything. A.L.C. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

05/10/2021

Milwaukee resident Emily Donovan, the narrator of this riveting psychological thriller from Bartz (The Herd), and her best friend, Kristen Czarnecki, who left Milwaukee 18 months earlier for a job in Australia, reunite in Chile for their annual vacation. The trip turns deadly when Kristen kills a backpacker in self-defense. A similar fatal encounter occurred during an earlier trip to Cambodia, only then Kristen killed to defend Emily. Emily decides she needs to distance herself from Kristen, but the more she tries to do so, the more Kristen tries to stay connected. Kristen moves back to Milwaukee, where she soon starts popping up in places she doesn’t belong—such as Emily’s yoga studio and therapist’s office—constantly reminding Emily of the secrets they share and how they need each other. Bartz does a good job dramatizing the increasingly creepy relationship between the two women as the twisty plot builds to a slightly confusing conclusion. Suspense fans will look forward to seeing more from this talented author. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, ICM Partners. (July)

From the Publisher

A book that skillfully examines toxic friendship at its most extreme . . . When the reckoning arrives, it shows that sometimes, we should fear our friends a lot more than strangers.”—The New York Times Book Review

“A page-turning thriller about two best friends whose annual reunion trip goes wrong—one of them may or may not have ‘accidentally’ killed a fellow backpacker!—transforming their friendship as they once knew it.”—Marie Claire

“Bartz takes the idea of a ‘frenemy’ to new heights. . . . Yet another expert vivisection of female modes of communication and competition.”—Los Angeles Times
 
“A thrilling tale.”—Oprah Daily
 
“Beneath the thrilling cliffhangers and impeccably paced plot lies a very sharp portrait of female friendship and how magical and intense it can be.”—NPR

“Whether you’re planning far-flung summer travels or kicking it closer to home, you’re going to need a great beach read—and that’s where We Were Never Here comes in. . . . [A] twisty thriller.”—PopSugar
 
“Bartz’s evocative descriptions of destinations as varied as Chile and Cambodia pulled me in immediately, but it was the way she ratcheted up the tension by dropping clues about the duo’s murky past that kept me rapt until the end.”—Travel + Leisure

“Pulse-pounding with secrets, lies, and friends who trust too much.”—CrimeReads

“This smartly written psychological thriller will leave you all tingly.”—Reader’s Digest

“Incredibly tense and atmospheric, We Were Never Here explores the nuances of memory, the secrets that bind a friendship—and those that threaten to tear them apart. Andrea Bartz delivers a sharp, unsettling thriller about power, obsession, and the inescapable grip of the past.”—Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author of All the Missing Girls and The Last House Guest

“A nail-biting, immersive whirl of a read . . . Brimming with mysterious twists, turns, and a frenemyship of the most chilling proportions, We Were Never Here is every woman’s worst nightmare—and every thriller-lover’s dream.”—Zakiya Dalila Harris, author of The Other Black Girl

“Andrea Bartz takes a friendship with boundary issues and adds an extra-special ingredient—the permanent, secret alliance of two people who have gotten away with murder. . . . An observant, suspenseful, and deeply scary novel.”—Steph Cha, author of Your House Will Pay

“A terrific novel, blending the Hitchcockian elements with a touch of Patricia Highsmith.”—Booklist (starred review)

“Riveting.”—Publishers Weekly

“Exhilarating.”—Kirkus Reviews

Library Journal

09/24/2021

In Bartz's (The Herd; The Lost Night) third novel, Emily and Kristin, best friends since college and as close as sisters, take an annual vacation to a far-flung place. The trip has become more precious since Kristin moved away to Australia, leaving Emily in Milwaukee. Emily is finally feeling back on track after the previous year's trip to Vietnam ended in tragedy, when Kristin saw Emily being attacked and killed the man. On the last night of this year's trip to Chile, Emily returns to the room to find that Kristin had been assaulted by a guy and killed him in self-defense. Trauma renewed, Emily tries to distance herself from Kristin but finds Kristin both unfazed and moving closer. Emily starts to question what she knows about her friend, the plot twisting and the tension building toward a surprising but somewhat confusing ending. VERDICT This gripping and thoughtful novel with a self-aware protagonist considers feminism and the psychology of memory while never losing its pace. This book will appeal to readers of psychological thrillers such as Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl and Paula Hawkins's The Girl on the Train.

SEPTEMBER 2021 - AudioFile

Kristen and Emily are such best friends they’d bury a body for each other—literally. Narrator Becca Tobin’s nuanced performance captures the friends’ bond and their opposite personalities. Despite the traumatic events of last year’s trip with Kristen—when a backpacker wound up dead—Emily is excited to embark on another trip with her friend. On their last night in Chile, Emily returns to their hotel room to find another backpacker dead and Kristen once again claiming self-defense. But how could this happen twice? Tobin uses a playful voice for confident Kristen, whose voice remains cheery in the days after the bloody killing—to chilling effect. For Emily, whose voice often wobbles with tears, Tobin uses a softer tone. As Emily worries about their cover-ups, Kristen keeps her close, causing Emily to question . . . everything. A.L.C. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2021-05-05
A backpacking trip gone awry tests the relationship of two best friends.

Emily and Kristen, now almost 30, have been close since college, and as neither are close with their families, they’re more like sisters than friends. Now it's time for their yearly trip to somewhere adventurous and off the beaten path, trips that have become even more important since Kristen moved to Australia for work a few years ago. Last year's trip was a disaster, though, ending when Kristen killed a man who'd been sexually assaulting Emily; now, on the last night of their trip to Chile, Emily finds Kristen standing over the body of the cute guy she'd brought back to their room, saying he'd been rough with her. Taken aback by the similarities to what had happened the year before, Emily helps her friend cover it up and heads back to Wisconsin, unsure how to deal with her newly reignited trauma. Just when she thinks she’s ready to move on with her new boyfriend and therapist, Kristen appears on her doorstep as if nothing has happened. Bartz's latest thriller is full of twists and turns as Emily discovers new things about the friend she thought she knew so well. The dread creeps up slowly on both Emily and the reader as more and more comes to light and the truth slowly reveals itself. Up to the unexpected climax and beyond, Bartz’s writing will keep readers on their toes, questioning everything and looking for hidden meanings in every communication between Emily and Kristen. While the last 10 pages or so may not quite live up to those that precede it, the overall plot is exhilarating.

A slow-burn thriller that gradually suffocates both the protagonist and the reader—in a good way.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173309136
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	08/03/2021
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	769,875

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Kristen trotted to the patio’s edge and crouched, long arm outstretched. Her fingers groped along a vine, lifting leaves, exposing the tender stalks beneath. I pictured her tipping over and tumbling off, there and then not there, the afterimage of her silhouette still hanging in my vision. I don’t know why. For a wild moment, I pictured pushing her.

Instead I half stood from the table. “Kristen, don’t,” I called. The wooden patio perched on stilts above the vines below and we were alone, as we had been almost everywhere we’d stopped this week. Empty restaurants, empty markets, empty tourist information centers. An occasional cluster of other visitors standing or sitting nearby despite everyone having all the space in the world.

A snapping sound and Kristen stood, holding up a blob of green grapes. She popped one into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Not bad. Catch.”

 I missed the toss and the grapes bounced onto the glass tabletop. I glanced around, then tried one—it burst bright and tart on my tongue.

“He said their yield sucks this year. You didn’t need to take an entire bunch.”

She sank into her chair and lifted her pisco sour, lime green and frothy. “I’ll leave ’em a few extra pesos on the way out. I was hungry.” She nudged her glass against mine. “You’d rather see me steal some grapes than get low blood sugar, right?”

“Fair point.” Hangry Kristen could cut to the core.

A man with a bandanna looped around his head was watching us from far out in the fields, just before the grapevines bumped up against a row of bushy trees. Beyond that, braided hills cut a jagged horizon. Kristen waved at the worker and he nodded.

I let the last of my drink linger on my tongue. We’d been sipping these daily: lime juice, powdered sugar, and the yellowish brandy the Chileans swore predated Peruvian pisco. I felt the swell of yet another one of those well-isn’t-this-nice moments, one blissfully free from the fear that’d prickled my brain nonstop for the last thirteen months. Here I was, on the trip of a lifetime: seven nights in South America, exploring the rough mountains and the ripe valleys between with my best friend of more than a decade. A cocktail so bracing and sweet, it tasted like stepping into the surf. And we still had two nights to go.

Kristen made everything better, her confidence like a bell jar of security in a strange and gnarled world. When we’d hugged at the airport almost a week ago, tears of relief had coated my eyes. I hadn’t seen her in a year—a year pockmarked by panic attacks, nightmares, and screaming into my pillow or the shower or occasionally my fist. But in Santiago, as we’d picked up our rental car and driven north on barren highways, Kristen was her usual boisterous self. She whooped when the Pacific came into view; she honked at a clump of plush alpacas by the side of the road. She pointed and gasped at roadside fruit stands, rippling cornfields with laser-straight rows, fat fields of vegetables growing bushy in the sun. And sky, sky, so much blue sky, almost crackling in its crispness, the way it shot down into the ocean on one side and the crinkled peaks on the other. Her presence was like a calming scent, aerosolized Xanax, and I allowed myself to relax.

We spent the first night in La Serena, where we carried leaky ice-cream cones around a leafy town square and stayed in a hotel with bright colors on the walls, where paintings of saints watched us as we slept. Too touristy, we decided, and the next morning we drove inland. In Pisco Elqui we took a yoga class from a woman with bowed knees and hip-length hair; as we stood in mountain pose, our chests puffed out, she announced, “Your smile powers your corazón, your heart.” On the second night there, three college-age guys from Germany cornered us in a bar, and the panic came roaring back like a panther lying in wait. Kristen had taken the lead—she was charming, could talk to anybody—and when she’d noticed the fear in my eyes, she politely disentangled us from the cocky trio and led me back into the night.

“It’s okay, it’s me, I’m here,” she kept murmuring as we walked the dark streets back to our hotel. “Kristen’s here.” Her voice was a balm; her words a weighted blanket. We’d packed up and left the following day.

And this morning we arrived here, in Quiteria. At first, I’d been alarmed by its emptiness. We’d parked in a lot and wandered the hilly streets, our suitcases trailing behind us like dejected toddlers, for what felt like hours before we found an open hotel. There I scored the keys to a small suite, the duvet damp despite the dry mountain air. The sun was sinking, and I realized the city’s vacancy would be an asset: fewer men to bother us, two women walking the streets at night. You know what they say about women traveling alone.

Kristen swallowed the last of her pisco sour. “You know what we should do? Birthday wishes.”

“My birthday’s not for two weeks.”

“I know, but I want to do it in person. And it’s a big one!”

It was our tradition, telling the other what we hoped would happen for them that year. I’d had the idea after I read about two best-friends-slash-business-partners who wrote each other’s New Year’s resolutions.

“I’ll go first,” she said, turning toward the grapevines. “My birthday wish for you, my darling Emily . . . is that your company gets its head out of its ass and gives you the promotion you deserve.”

“That would be nice.” I’d thrown my name in the hat for a director-level position months ago, but my employer, Kibble, was disorganized and putzy and dragging its feet. I liked my job there, though, promotion or not: project manager of a start-up that shipped raw, organic cat food to pet owners with too much money. I had hip young co-workers, including my work wife, Priya, and cat photos literally everywhere.

Still, I didn’t tell Kristen that my secret wish, whenever I saw a shooting star or caught a dandelion fluff or spotted a clock at 11:11, was to land a great partner, settle down. It felt too antifeminist, too needy to put into words. But with Kristen halfway around the world and all my friends getting married (hell, having kids), my patience was wearing thin. And maybe I was finally headed in the right direction . . .

“He said they’re gonna start interviewing candidates this month,” I told her. “It’s funny, he acts like there’s no time to even think about the open position. Like he’s too busy saving the world, one feline digestive tract at a time.”

“Cat people are the worst people. I say that as a card-carrying cat lover stymied only by allergies.”

“I think his devotion is kinda sweet!”

Kristen snorted. “It’s an entire business predicated on people being obsessed with a disinterested animal.”

“Russell’s cat isn’t disinterested. Mochi loves him back. I’ve seen the videos.” Kristen rolled her eyes and I leaned forward. “C’mon, I like my job.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” She waved a hand. “Okay, now you go.”

“Right. My birthday wish for you, a full four months early, is that, hmm.” I tapped the stem of my glass. That you realize you hate Australia. That you move back to Milwaukee. That we go back to the way things were. “I hope you get your stupid boss fired and your job gets a million times better. Or you find a new job that makes you happy.”

“No fair, you just copied me!”

“This is what our thirties are all about, right? Vaulting forward in our careers. At least we have jobs.”

“True. And thank God we put that disposable income to good use.” She swept her arm out across the vines, whose pristine rows narrowed in the distance. Behind them, rumpled mountains reddened in the dipping sunlight. A bird landed on the edge of the distillery’s deck and uttered a squeaky trill. A cute sierra finch, yellow as an egg yolk—I recognized it from some idle research I’d done at my desk in Milwaukee.

Nearby, a thumping sound. It was probably a woodpecker, but before I realized that, the memory flashed before me: Stop. Stop. Stop. Kristen’s eyes wide as she stepped back, blood speckling her shoes. The moment that changed everything, when life cracked neatly into Before and After.

Kristen slid up her sunglasses and gave me an indulgent smile. I grinned back.

I’d been wrong to worry. Even the incident with the trio of Germans had been harmless. There’d been no strange men hulking in corners, their eyes following us hungrily. No drunken dudes who’d stood a little too close or followed too few steps behind us on darkened streets. No cause for alarm.

I gazed at Kristen and felt a rush of warmth.

Everything had gone perfectly.

A fat bee bumbled around our glasses, and Kristen waved her hand, fearless.

“Feels like we’re the only non-locals for miles,” I said. The isolation was both thrilling and unsettling.

Videos