This piece introduces Saratoga Schaefer as the guest of The Scroll, a column that invites writers to highlight key passages from their latest work while opening up about their process. In this installment Schaefer discusses The Last Time We Drowned, a novel that traps a circle of high-profile creators on a luxury vessel and then lets tension escalate until it becomes dangerous. The conversation mixes plot notes with craft talk, and the author teases moments readers can expect to underline, annotate or argue about long after they close the book.
Rather than a straight Q&A, the author frames choices about character, setting and pacing in ways that reveal method as much as motive. Schaefer explains why one figure among many—the ostensibly ordinary but quietly observant Charlie—serves as the reader’s anchor, and why a confined environment like a yacht creates fertile ground for psychological suspense. The excerpts included are presented with commentary that illuminates how a single scene can shift tone, raise stakes and reveal deeper truths about fame and fear.
Centering Charlie: an everyperson among celebrities
At the heart of the book is Charlie, a character written to feel recognizably human amid a constellation of performative personalities. Schaefer intentionally makes her the emotional focal point because Charlie’s taste for books and quiet reflection positions her as a counterweight to the group’s glossy performativity. The author describes Charlie as someone an audience can align with—not a flawless heroine, but a believable one whose missteps and small triumphs map onto a reader’s empathy. By shaping Charlie as a quasi-reader stand-in, Schaefer ensures the narrative perspective stays grounded even as the plot grows increasingly claustrophobic.
Influencer culture as texture, not reportage
Schaefer did not conduct formal interviews with bookstagrammers while drafting this novel; instead, the work draws on personal experience and observation. The author references their past time as a sobriety micro-influencer and an interest in the phenomenon of content houses, which inspired the idea of placing creators together in an enclosed, high-pressure environment. That background supplies the novel’s social dynamics: competition, curated vulnerability and performance. In the manuscript, the label bookstagrammer functions as more than a job title—it’s a social position that affects behavior, alliances and the optics of survival on the yacht.
Why a yacht? using a closed setting to amplify suspense
Choosing a yacht for the majority of the action was a deliberate tactic to limit escape routes and raise dramatic tension. In an interview Schaefer describes the setting as a deliberate pressure cooker: when geography is restricted, personality cracks widen and secrets surface faster. The author leans into the theory of the locked-room scenario not as a gimmick but as a character test; with nowhere else to go, every interaction becomes a behavioral indicator. The sea, weather and the vessel itself act like a secondary character, shaping tone and dictating which survival strategies become plausible.
Character under strain
That cramped geography also allows Schaefer to examine how different people respond to crisis. The novel uses close quarters to contrast performative calm with genuine panic, revealing private histories through pressure rather than exposition. Schaefer notes that confinement forces authentic reactions: who keeps composure, who cracks, and who exploits chaos for advantage. These behavioral pivots are meant to expose not only motive but the brittle ethics of a culture that monetizes personality.
Clarity, fear and the rhythm of revelation
Schaefer describes Charlie’s inner life as a series of incremental recognitions interrupted by new shocks—moments of memory or honesty that are immediately unsettled by fresh danger. The narrative rhythm reflects a human pattern of progress and relapse: one step toward insight, then a setback that requires reorientation. That ebb and flow is deliberate, designed to mirror how real people process complicated emotional truths. The result is a protagonist who may frustrate readers by not being instantly decisive, but whose gradual illumination offers a more faithful portrait of coping under duress.
When asked whether she would personally spend time on the book’s yacht, Empress, Schaefer gives a wry answer: yes, in calm weather and with realistic expectations about the onboard personalities; absolutely not during the storm-lashed sections of the plot. Practical disclaimers aside, the author’s playful refusal underscores a serious point about writing risk: authors can orchestrate peril on the page without volunteering for the same danger in life. The Last Time We Drowned will be published by Cosmo Reads and released on June 2, 2026. To preorder, readers can choose among common retailers including Amazon, Audible, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Apple Books, Kobo, Libro.fm, Target, Walmart, Powell’s Books, Hudson Booksellers and Google Play. Excerpt and annotations: Copyright © 2026 by Saratoga Schaefer.
