Book Summary and Reviews of We Were Never Here by Andrea Bartz

We Were Never Here by Andrea Bartz

We Were Never Here

Reese's Book Club: A Novel

by Andrea Bartz

  • Published:
  • Apr 2025, 400 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

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.

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?

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Reviews

Media Reviews

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

"Riveting." —Publishers Weekly

"Exhilarating." —Kirkus Reviews

"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

This information about We Were Never Here was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Andrea Bartz

Andrea Bartz is a Brooklyn-based journalist and author of We Were Never Here, The Lost Night, and The Herd. Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Marie Claire, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Women's Health, Martha Stewart Living, Redbook, Elle, and many other outlets, and she's held editorial positions at Glamour, Psychology Today, and Self, among other publications.

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