Harriet Westaway (aka Hal)21 year old is a down on her luck tarot card reader living in London. After her mom died several years ago, things haven’t gone quite right for her. She lives in a tiny top flat and runs a booth on the pier where she reads palms and tarot cards. But she barely makes enough money to support herself. Worse yet, she has final bill notices coming in the mail and loan sharks paying her visits. Hal is the feeling pressure from all sides. All she needs is one break. She thinks she may have found it when a mysterious letter arrives from a solicitor stating that she could be heir to a fortune. Hal thinks there is a mix-up and they have the wrong person, but if anyone deserves this, it’s her. Right? Besides, what harm could it do?

Hal eventually makes her way to the imposing Trepassen house where she meets the family she pretends to be related to. Things seem to be going according to plan until Hal finds out that she is inheriting more than she bargained for. Now duping her new “family” just became a little bit harder and Hal’s conscience may get the best of her.

I enjoyed reading The Death of Mrs. Westaway. It was a fairly easy read. I loved the setting of this book. It was very atmospheric and intriguing. The story is told from Hal’s point of view for the most part. There are flashbacks sprinkled throughout the book, told from the POV of someone else. The flashbacks gave me a slight “Flowers in the Attic” vibe. I remember reading In a Dark, Dark Wood almost three years ago by the same author. That one I liked, but I would have to say for now, this one is my favorite between the two. Ruth Ware is great with words and knows a thing or two about how to set a proper tone for her books. I look forward to reading whatever she writes next.

RATING: 3½ out of 5.

Thriller–drama 'The Death of Mrs. Westaway' is Ruth Ware's best yet
Ruth Ware has really hit her stride in “The Death of Mrs. Westaway.” I loved “The Woman in Cabin 10” and thoroughly enjoyed “The Lying Game,” but neither has the nuance of her newest book. It is much more complex—not just a thriller, not just a mystery, but also the playing out of a fascinating family drama.

Harriet “Hal” Westaway is a struggling young woman, whose life took a terrible turn when her mother was killed by a hit-and-run driver. She not only lost her mother, but her plans for college were ruined and she found herself taking over her mother’s kiosk on the Brighton pier reading tarot cards. She is in debt to a loan shark who is threatening her and sees little in her life that might bring her joy.

Then a letter from an attorney arrives in the mail, informing her she has received an inheritance from a grandmother she never knew existed. Perhaps this might provide her with enough money to get out of debt and straighten out her life a bit, so, in spite of the fact she believes it is all a mistake, Hal decides to head to the funeral and meet the family.

Ware’s masterful skills in character development really shine here—each character plays a vital role and is carefully drawn with her perfect prose. Hal finds herself thrown into a household of estranged siblings and a very ominous housekeeper, Mrs. Warren. Trepassen, the long-neglected family home seemingly guarded by a huge flock of magpies, could not be an eerier setting for this story. It’s the perfect Gothic mansion, falling down around its inhabitants. I could feel the frigid air coming through the cracks, hear the creaking of the stairs and sense the terror of the darkness, especially in the attic, where Hal had to sleep. The room with bolts on the outside of the door.

Hal arrives believing she is just playing a role, but soon wonders if she might really be a part of this dysfunctional family. What did her mother hide from her? Who was her mother? Who was her father? Why does Mrs. Warren dislike her so much?

It’s not just the tarot cards that foretell the future—the magpies have a voice as well:

“One for sorrow

Two for joy,

Three for a girl

Four for a boy


Five for silver

Six for gold,

Seven for a secret

Never to be told.”

A feeling of tension and foreboding pervades the entire book. Ware’s ability to take the reader on a dark roller coaster ride of twists and turns shines. Set aside a good chunk of reading time for this one—you won’t want to put it down.



Sandy Mahaffey is former Books editor with The Free Lance–Star.

More Information
THE DEATH OF MRS. WESTAWAY

By Ruth Ware

(Scout Press, $26.99, 384 pp.)

Published: May 29

Even though I’m typically a huge fan of suspenseful thrillers, for some reason I had not gotten around to trying one of Ruth Ware’s popular novels yet. I don’t really have any real excuse other than I sometimes tend to shy away from hyped books and this was one of those cases, especially since I’ve seen Ware referred to as the Agatha Christie of our time and that seems like a pretty tall order for any author to try to live up to. The synopsis of The Death of Mrs. Westaway captivated me, however, and I decided it was past time for me to try my first Ruth Ware novel. How did it work out? I’d say the fact that I’ve ordered copies of all of Ware’s novels since finishing this one is a pretty good indicator of how it went. While I might not go so far as to call her the Agatha Christie of our day, Ruth Ware is a superb mystery author in her own right.

Sympathetic Protagonist: Harriet Westaway (or Hal as she is more often referred to) is a character that tugged on my heartstrings from the first pages of the novel. She is a 21-year-old tarot card reader who works on a pier in Brighton, England. Hal fell into this line of work a few years earlier when her mother, also a tarot card reader, was struck and killed in a hit-and-run accident. The driver was never caught and so Hal was forced to drop out of school and take up her mother’s work in order to keep a roof over her head and food on the table. There’s no father and no other family in the picture so Hal is all alone in the world and is struggling to make ends meet. When we meet Hal, she is up to her neck in trouble, having borrowed some money from a sleazy loan shark who keeps changing the terms of her repayment and has sent his goons to deliver a message to her, that message being threat of bodily harm or even worse if she doesn’t cough up 3,000 pounds, which she clearly doesn’t have.

Although Hal is a sympathetic character, she’s still pretty savvy and street smart, which is another thing I liked about her, as well as the fact that she also has a bit of a morally gray element that adds even more interesting layers to her personality. When a letter from an attorney’s office arrives in the mail telling Hal she has been named as a beneficiary in the will of a Mrs. Westaway who has just passed away, Hal knows it can’t possibly be her, as she has no family. That said, however, she can’t help but wonder if her ability to read people – so finely honed by years of reading tarot cards and telling fortunes – is sharp enough for her to fool people so that she really can claim the aforementioned inheritance. Yes, there’s a risk she could go to jail for fraud, but if she can pull it off, it’s the answer to all of her prayers. That in itself makes it a risk worth taking. It’s so wrong of course, but I just couldn’t help but admire her guts and determination.

Atmospheric Quality: In addition to the wonderfully well-rounded character that is Hal, my other favorite part of the book is the atmosphere that Ware has created. Everything about the atmosphere has an air of suspense to it but it takes a turn for the creepy and Gothic once Hal arrives at the residence of the late Mrs. Westaway. The house itself is dusty and ill-maintained, some of the windows are barred, It’s filled with endless dark corridors and stairways, and to top it off, there’s a mean old housekeeper, Mrs. Warren, that Hal seems to find lurking around every corner. Everything about the house just had this ominous feel to it and had me wanting to yell at Hal to get out while she could.

Family Secrets – Web of Lies: If you’re into books that focus on messy families and their dirty little secrets, The Death of Mrs. Westaway is the book for you! As soon as Hal arrives and hears the will reading, she can tell that something is amiss with the Westaway family and that she has landed herself right in the middle of a hornet’s nest. Nothing is as it seems and although she knows she should just cut and run before she ends up in potentially deeper trouble than she already is, she feels compelled to find out the truth about the family and whatever it is they appear to be hiding. Ware does a marvelous job with the pacing of the novel and I remained enthralled as I waited for each strand of the web of lies to unravel.

I don’t really have anything at all here. It was a phenomenal read that I couldn’t put down once I started reading.

While this was my first time reading Ruth Ware, it will definitely not be my last. I’d recommend The Death of Mrs. Westaway to anyone who is a fan of mysteries and thrillers as well as to anyone who enjoys a good domestic drama.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for my review. Here is that review"

Ruth Ware is great at creating suspense. It builds and builds, but then it just ends. I wish she would figure out a better way to divulge the "bad guys" and end the books. They are just so abrupt!!

This one begins with Hal, whose mother has recently been killed in a hit-and-run accident right outside their door. In order to survive, Hal has to give up her dreams of college and take over her mother's booth on Brighton Beach reading tarot cards and telling fortunes. She is in debt to a loan shark, who is threatening to do her some serious bodily harm. And then a letter arrives from an attorney, telling her she is an heir to a fortune from a grandmother she never knew existed.

The book follows her visit to the family's country home and unburys some deep family secrets along the way.

It is an OK read, but it did not really grab my attention and took me a long time to finish.

I ADORED this book! This is my first book by Ruth Ware, and I am excited to read more. I loved the young but wizened main character, and the familial mystery and intrigue. I certainly didn't guess the ending. Give me an old house with family secrets and I am IN!

Characters that readers will care about; a conspiracy that lasted for a whole generation; and a writing style that made the book difficult to stop reading.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an eARC of this book.

Darkly intriguing, gothic creepiness that almost became scary, interesting well-developed characters one of which is a tarot reader, twisty plot that didn't become repetitive and an ending that did not make me crazy. All of these thing made for 4 stars from 3.5. A good entertaining summer read.

Ruth Ware at her best - all her another books are great but this one was FANTASTIC holding the reader in suspense until the very end.

This book was both odd and interesting. The oddity of this book was the time period. It felt as though it was a story from long long ago, but it was not. It was a little slow and hard to follow at times but the story held my interest--I wanted to see if my prediction was correct.

I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review.

I had heard a lot of good things about this author recently, but I haven't had a chance to read any of her books up until now. I was excited to get the opportunity to read this book. The plot line of this book I thought was great, there were so many twists and turns that by the end I couldn't wait to see what was truth and what was lies. I thought the author did a great job of gently guiding you down a particular path and making you believe things while at the same time presenting facts that would help lead us to the real answer in the end. The answer was right under our noses all along! And the ending really just threw me for such a loop - I didn't see it coming and it was such a great twist ending. There were a couple small slow parts but other than that I couldn't put the book down. I also really liked the incorporation of the tarot cards and their meanings. I thought that was such an interesting addition to the story line and also made the whole plot seem a bit more mystical and mysterious. This book was full of danger and heart-pounding tension, and I can't wait to read more by this author in the future. I would definitely recommend this one!

This is my second Ruth Ware book, and I'm starting to think she may be becoming the queen of the mystery/thriller genre.

Harriet (Hal) Westaway finds out that she will be receiving a legacy from her wealthy grandmother who has just recently passed. Hal has never met this grandmother, and after some digging, finds out that she is not the right person. Still, desperate times call for desperate measures, and with piling bills and looming threats from a loan shark, Hal decides to pretend. She goes to the funeral and meets Mrs. Westaway's three sons, all the while pretending to be the daughter of their estranged sister. Soon, she discovers that everything is not as it seems at Trepassen House, and finding out the truth may be more important than money.

Admittedly, it took some time for me to get into this book. The writing is phenomenal and the beginning was definitely interesting, but it is a slow-build book that only increases in tension the further along you get. There is an overwhelming sense of wrongness throughout the entire story, and the creepy, eerie descriptions only add to the foreboding atmosphere. You will sense that something the story is building to something big, and can I just say, you will not be disappointed. The story changed for me at around the 60% mark, and from that point on, I could not peel my eyes from the pages.

I was guessing every character's motive. It was impossible to tell who to trust. Who is lying, and who is telling the truth? Truth and lies is a major theme of this book, and one that comes full circle. The chapters are interspersed with occasional diary entries from Hal's mother, which gives you just enough insight to draw your own conclusions but not enough to give any sort of clarity.

I loved the tarot card readings and the way that the cards were used to predict and symbolize aspects of the story. I also liked that Hal never put too much stock in the cards, but rather used them to give herself and others the opportunity to find their own answers. Hal is a great main character. She's strong, brave, and intuitive, and I enjoyed witnessing the story unfold through her eyes.

All in all, a great read. I didn't know how much I needed a good mystery novel until I had this one in my hands. I look forward to reading more Ruth Ware books in the future!

A case of mistaken identity turns the tide for a struggling young woman when she receives a surprising inheritance in THE DEATH OF MRS. WESTAWAY. In Ware’s signature style, the narrative unwinds gradually, ratcheting a sense of unease and tension.

We meet Harriet “Hal” Westaway, who reads tarot cards at Brighton Pier and struggles under the weight of overdue bills. Worse yet, a loan shark is circling, ready to collect an old debt, or else. But her luck seems to be turning when she receives a letter from a solicitor informing her of a sizeable bequest. Quickly she realizes they meant to send it to someone else, but feeling trapped and out of options, Hal knows her skills at reading people could help her find a way out, a little extra money in her pocket to settle her debts.

With hardly any money left, she sets off to claim the inheritance and meet the family of the now deceased Mrs. Westaway. What she discovers is a derelict house, a surly housekeeper, an estranged family and more secrets than she can process—secrets that suddenly have her questioning everything.

The story has a suspenseful, gothic vibe to it and tells us of a family and the secrets they keep. While there are no huge, action-packed thrills (that’s not her type of book), Ruth Ware does an exceptional job of creating a sinister, threatening atmosphere that keeps you entrenched, flipping the pages until you finally know how it all ends. She’s so adept at creating suspense, you’re on the edge of your seat, waiting for the situation to explode off the page. There were even notes of horror woven throughout.

Hal, our heroine, was a great character and anchor in the story. She had real depth and relatability. You’ll really feel her sense of desperation and struggle throughout, and on many levels. Overall, the book was just so well done, it was very clever and engaging… my favorite of Ware’s to date.

THE DEATH OF MRS. WESTAWAY by Ruth Ware was just released. Although this is the first suspenseful mystery by Ware that I have read, I will definitely be going back and looking for The Woman in Cabin 10 and others by her. THE DEATH OF MRS. WESTAWAY is an atmospheric novel set primarily at a family estate named Trepassen House in Cornwall - picture the moors, the sea, and a frigid, gothic mansion complete with angry magpies to add to the sinister feel.

That’s what 21 year old Hal (short for Harriet) Westaway sees as she responds to a solicitor's summons to attend the funeral and reading of the will for her supposed grandmother, Mrs. Westaway. Complications ensue because Hal is arriving under false pretense with no knowledge of the family, having lost her own mother to a car accident several years earlier and never knowing her father. Gradually, she begins to realize that there is a tie between her mother and the "uncles" she meets, but the sense of danger is almost overwhelming at times with a locked attic room, unappetizing food from a scary housekeeper, and chance of being stranded without transport.

Mystery fans, even if you think you have figured it out, there are plenty of surprise twists; I am definitely recommending THE DEATH OF MRS. WESTAWAY. This title was also a LibraryReads selection for May and received a starred review from Booklist and Kirkus. Read, shiver, and enjoy!

LibraryReads list: http://libraryreads.org/may-2018-libraryreads/

Everything Ruth Ware does is SO good! If you like a good mystery that you'll want to consume in one sitting, she is definitely the author for you. I loved the old english manor and tarot elements of this story.

Ruth Ware has rapidly become one of those authors that are an instant buy for me. I loved In a Dark, Dark Wood and really enjoyed The Woman in Cabin 10 as well. When I saw she had written a new one, I knew that I had to nab it up ASAP.

Hal, a young woman who lives alone, receives a letter notifying her that she was named as a recipient for an inheritance. Her grandmother, Mrs. Westaway, has passed away and she needs to travel to that town in order to claim the offering in the will. The only problem? She doesn't have a grandmother by that name. It's clear that they have accidentally confused her with someone else.

Hal decides to deceive the family in order to claim the inheritance. She knows that she is breaking the law and playing with the emotions of a grieving family, but what she doesn't know is to what extent she will regret playing that role.

This book took me quite by surprise. Judging by the blurb, I expected this to be a thrilling and shocking ride. I expected to hate the heroine and despise every decision she makes. Instead what I got was a slow-burning mystery ladled with heartache and secrecy. I didn't expect to feel so much sadness and hopelessness. Ruth wrote Hal's character so intricately and so realistically that I felt my heart breaking for her time and time again.

There were plenty of surprises all throughout the novel. Although there were a few parts that I was able to foresee, it still kept me guessing until the very end.

Special thanks to Gallery/Scout Press and Ruth Ware for approving my request to read this book through Netgalley!

I am a huge Ruth Ware fan and was thrilled to get my hands on The Death of Mrs. Westaway. Shout out to Netgalley for the ecopy! This book is creepy delicious. The setting is dark and lonely, the characters quirky, and the storyline is haunting. Written in that gothic noir style (very different from Ware’s previous books) this book so reminded me of old dark movies. I remember watching “Dialing for Dollars” in the 70’s – a daily movie that featured a lot of film and gothic noir. I loved it back in the day and love it now.
Hal (Harriet) receives a letter in the mail notifying her of an inheritance that could be quite substantial. She knows the letter is a mistake, but life has been difficult, the last three years definitely the worst. Her mother was murdered by a hit and run driver requiring Hal to drop out of school right before her graduation. Lacking any kind of financial stability, Hal immediately takes over for her mother as a tarot card reader.
She was trained by the best, spending time in the backroom of her mother’s business and listening to her read fortunes. Hal learned the fine art of reading people, situations, and using technology to learn more about potential clients (something her mother would never have done). Needless to say, this was not enough. Hal turned to a loan shark to supplement her income and has not been able to pay him back.
This book is a true mystery, and I was hooked from the beginning. Be prepared to set aside some free time to read this book because you will not want to put it down.
5/5 stars

The Death of Mrs. Westaway
Ruth Ware
May 29, 2018

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware is full of spellbinding menace and told in the author’s signature suspenseful style—an unputdownable thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.

An allusion to an English folk-rhyme; a plot that’s tangentially anchored to the meaning of Tarot cards; plus a downtrodden and vulnerable heroine: these elements comprise the plot of The Death of Mrs. Westaway. The prologue—dated 29th November, 1994—is a meditation of sorts on magpies. It’s not clear who the author is.

The magpies are back. It’s strange to think how much I used to hate them, when I first came to the house.

It has a ring of the famous opening line of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Like du Maurier, Ware is floating questions about where and why. The magpies described in the prologue are omnipresent and upsetting. The writer references “One for Sorrow,” a “traditional children’s nursery rhyme about magpies.” N.B. “One for Sorrow” is the epigraph for The Death of Mrs. Westaway.

One for sorrow

Two for joy

Three for a girl

Four for a boy

Five for silver

Six for gold

Seven for a secret

Never to be told

Did the person writing in 1994 have bad luck? Because the folklore tradition is that “the number of magpies one sees determines if one will have bad luck.” The dark, eerie prologue ends on a hopeful note: “I’ll change that rhyme. One for joy. One for love. One for the future.”

Ruth Ware then switches to a classic mystery opening—a young woman, living in unfortunate circumstances and teetering on the verge of homelessness and worse, receives a letter that promises to vastly improve her life. She is a person of interest: a lawyer invites her to come to Penzance for a reading of a will. Hal (Harriet) Westaway is an orphan, reading tarot cards in the persona of Madame Margarida at a down-at-the-heels kiosk on the Brighton Pier. It’s November, the crowds are dwindling, and the nights are cold and dark. Worse still, she owes money to a loan shark who threatens her livelihood and personal safety.

Hal gives sensitive readings, constantly searching for the right words with which to educate, console, or relieve the worries of her clients—like when she talks to a distraught mother, grievously worried about her drug-addict son. The last card in the woman’s simple three-card spread is the Priestess, symbolizing intuition. Hal’s words are soothing and open-ended. It’s almost as if Hal is speaking to herself.

“Ultimately,” Hal said softly, “you have to decide for yourself what the cards are telling you, but my feeling is that the Priestess is telling you to listen to your intuition. You know the answer already. It’s there in your heart.”

The woman drew back from Hal, and then she nodded, very slowly, and bit her white, chapped lips.

Then she stood, threw down a crumple of banknotes on the table, and turned on her heel.

Hal is horrified at the amount of money the woman gives her—she tears after her to return it. When she can’t catch up, she stuffs every crumpled banknote into a charity slot on the pier. It must be karma: the charity of the month is THE LIGHTHOUSE PROJECT—DRUG REHABILITATION IN BRIGHTON AND HOVE. Hal’s need for karma is paramount because when she returns to her kiosk to pick up her forgotten coat, her loan shark is waiting. He tosses her belongings, tells her he’ll bust up her face, and leaves with a sinister, “sibilant, whistling ssss” snarling that she has a week to come up with the money.

In the years since her mother was killed in a car accident, Hal had become “someone hardened, someone who had to become hardened in order to survive.” Her need for survival has her looking up the Trainline website, “December 1. 7 a.m. Brighton to Penzance, return.” It’s a no-brainer. Hal leaves for Penzance as an imposter, riding a train of nerves and exhilaration. But, of course, there is more to the lawyer’s letter than she realizes.

Ruth Ware’s The Death of Mrs. Westaway is “an unputdownable thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.” Ruth Ware, like Dame Christie, is British. She was born in 1977, the year after Christie’s death. Writer Karen Woodward, in an extended piece on how to write like Christie, noted her propensity to have a “late start” to the initial murder.

Many of the murder mysteries I read (and watch) have a relatively short interval between the start of the story and the murder. Not so for Agatha Christie’s books. She often had an extended interval between the first character walking on stage and someone getting knocked off.

Perhaps this needs a spoiler alert, but that’s true of The Death of Mrs. Westaway too. But the true mystery is who Hal is. What is her connection to a group of seeming strangers that she meets for the first time at a funeral? Hal’s life and circumstances—both before and after she receives a letter from a lawyer promising an inheritance—are bleak, mysterious, and sad, only occasionally shot through with fleeting joy. It is an unputdownable book—readers will find themselves imagining Hal’s future life, unable to fully part from her, well after the story is finished.

Short Take: Last night I dreamt of Manderley… ahem… Trepassen again……

(*Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review*)

I have always had a weird fixation on houses, especially old ones. I read The Witching Hour by Anne Rice obsessively, not just because of the creepy stuff or hot witch-on-witch action, but for the loving descriptions of the old Mayfair house being restored. There’s just something so delicious about an ancestral home, the one that’s been in the family for decades if not centuries, and the way they tend to become a starring character in some of my favorite stories.

In The Death of Mrs. Westaway, the house is known as Trepassen, and the unlikely heroine of the story is Harriet, or Hal for short. Hal works as a tarot card reader in a somewhat run down beach town, a trade she learned from her mother, who was killed by a drunk driver shortly before the start of the book. When we meet Hal, she’s flat broke, nearly homeless, and about to have her face kicked in by some very serious loan sharks.

So when she opens a letter addressed to her, stating that her grandmother has died, and Hal is the sole heir of a massive estate, it seems like things might finally be breaking her way. Ok, the grandmother is someone she’s never heard of, and the person named as her mother in the letter is another stranger, and the letter was probably never meant for her in the first place, but if anyone could pretend to be the missing heir, it would have to be an experienced fortune teller.

And so, Hal travels to Trepassen, where she has to pretend to be a long-lost relative of people she’s never met. In order to play the part Hal tries to quietly snoop and learn as much as she can about them, but when her digging starts turning up skeletons that someone would rather keep buried, things take a Turn For The Worse.

I enjoyed this book quite a lot, but I couldn’t help but feel like Ruth Ware had read Rebecca a whole bunch of times and used it as a template.

Chick with dude’s (nick)name? Check.
Ancestral home with dark secrets being investigated by our heroine? Check.
Creepy housekeeper screwing with our heroine at every turn? Check.
[spoiler] hidden in a [spoiler]? Check.

That last is a MAJOR plot point that I won’t describe, because it would be a huge spoiler and everyone would hate me forever after, but trust me - it was lifted directly out of Rebecca.

Of course, there are still plenty of differences, and overall, Mrs. Westaway is a lot of fun (especially the tarot stuff), but to me, there were just too many similarities, and it was distracting.

The Nerd’s Rating: FOUR HAPPY NEURONS (and an Ace of Swords, just because it looks cool).

“How could one family, one person, have so much?”

Hal’s mother dies, leaving her nothing but a cheap rented apartment, a deck of tarot cards, and endless sorrow. She is perplexed but slightly hopeful then, when she receives a note from an attorney indicating she has inherited money; it’s got to be a mistake, but she sure can use it. Why not see where it leads?

My thanks go to Net Galley and Simon and Schuster for the DRC, which I received free and early in exchange for this honest review.

Ware writes in a classic style that’s been compared to Agatha Christie. The traditional elements are there: a menacing old house with a creepy housekeeper; a fortune, complete with competing would-be heirs; an ambiguous old photograph; sinister strangers; a nasty winter storm that prevents escape. In less capable hands it might feel generic, but Ware provides some clever twists that update the old-school model, making for an absorbing read.

My practical side inserts itself, and I find myself wondering—if she feels intimidated by the family, can’t she find an attorney to handle this mess for her at a distance, given what’s waiting at the back end of the transaction? And when she returns to the spooky old house with nothing resolved yet, her stomach in her boots, quivering, I want to say—in all that great manse, surely she can find a different bedroom, one without bars on the windows and locks on the outside of the door. Why be bullied by an 80-year-old housekeeper? Find a different room and claim it, for heaven’s sake. Clean it and put the sheets on yourself if it comes down to it.

But if Hal followed my advice, the story would be no fun at all, so it’s just as well she cannot hear me.

Ruth Ware writes like nobody else, and those that have read her work before know how addictive it is. The more pages I turned, the more I wanted to turn. Mystery lovers and Ware’s fans will want this book right away; turn on all the lights and lock the doors and windows before you dive in. Trust me!

This book is for sale now.

This expertly crafted whodunnit does everything right. With a clever plot and numerous twists and turns, this book had me spellbound from the start, intrigued with attempts to untangle this mystery. I loved the well drawn characters as well as the atmospheric setting.

It reminded me of a 21st century version of an Agatha Christie mystery. In a crumbling, creepy English manor house, the protagonist, Hal, uses her phone as a flashlight to climb the rickety staircase to the even more creepy attic. She has tattoos and piercings and dresses in black, but is surrounded by a cast of characters that would make Christie proud. The omnipresent, elderly housekeeper who, for some reason, seems to hate Hal, sneaks up behind her and whispers warnings in her ear as she passes by.

The pacing was so well done, I had a hard time putting it down. It would make an excellent vacation read, on a sunny beach perhaps? I’m glad to have discovered Ruth Ware, and am looking forward to reading more of her work. I highly recommend this book for a fun, light-hearted read.

Note: I received an advance copy of the ebook from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.