I've read all of Ruth Ware's others books so of course when NetGalley offered up a copy of her latest novel I wasn't going to say no! The Death of Mrs Westaway features an old country estate, a feuding family, dark secrets, and my favourite bit - tarot cards! Harriet Westaway makes her living reading tarot cards for people on the pier in Brighton. She is totally self-sufficient following the death of her mother in a hit-and-run accident some years earlier, and her father has never been made known to her. One day she receives a letter from a solicitor to say that she has been named in her grandmother's will and must travel to Cornwall to find out what the bequest is.

Hal (as she likes to be called) is somewhat sceptical, her grandparents are both dead, so surely the solicitor has made some sort of error. However, with very little income, and a fierce loan shark on her back Hal thinks that she can probably scam the family into believing she really is the granddaughter they believe her to be. After all she makes a living out of telling people their fortunes based on their appearances alone, so surely she can use this skill to her advantage?

Arriving at Trepassen House is nothing like Hal expected, and for the first time in ages, she is suddenly part of a family; albeit not an especially cosy one, but it feels right. The housekeeper, however, seems to have taken an instant dislike to her and Hal isn't sure if she has already seen through her plan. With trip wires, bulbs that are removed in the dark, and things that go bump in the night, Ruth Ware has conjured up a gothic style mystery for the modern day. Families are never quite what they seem, are they?!

Oh goodness, I love Ruth's books, so it pains me greatly to say I just couldn't get on with this one. I've had this on my kindle months (hence the late feedback) and I kept thinking if i tried it another time it'd work, but in the end you have to give in.

It was nothing to do with Ruth's writing why I didn't enjoy it; her usual fantastically gothic and eerie style was right there as always which I love, it was more on a personal level where I just didn't click with the character and I just found it a wee bit too far fetched.

I appreciate the chance to review this and again apologise for my lateness (but it's only because I wanted to love it and kept picking it up and trying!). I still can't wait for Ruth's next book and she's still one of my very favourite authors.

A lovely book by Ruth Ware telling the story of Hal who works on Brighton Pier as a tarot reader. Since the death of her mother, Hal has struggled to fend for herself. When she receives a solicitors letter telling her she is to receive a bequest from her grandmother, despite knowing it is a case of mistaken identity, her stricken circumstances lead her to decide to play along and accept the money.
Although she is making this decision, Hal is an incredibly likeable character and this kept me intrigued as to what would happen next and how the story would resolve and what would happen to Hal.
An intriguing mystery full of twists.
Highly recommend.
Thanks to NetGalley for a Kindle copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Death of Mrs Westaway is a fast-paced, engaging gothic mystery... if slightly annoying and prone to narrative leaps that are frankly, too far-fetched and extraordinary to be fully believed. That is not to say that I did not enjoy it, because I did. In fact, I sat in my living room and read it in its entirety over the course of an afternoon. And sometimes, that is all that I need from a mystery/thriller — not for it to be a literary masterpiece or a marvellous work of fiction, just an intriguing whodunnit that will help a few hours pass by. But with that being said, I will probably not be picking up another Ruth Ware book in the future, if the rumours are to be believed and that this is the strongest of all of her novels, because The Death of Mrs Westaway was a level of average that I could handle, but anything worse than it? That would be a whole different story.

I think this is probably my favourite Ruth Ware novel to date. A great setting, likeable main character and a whole cast of others worthy of an Agatha Christie novel. I really enjoyed the story and not trying to second guess everything.

This was the first Ruth Ware book I have ever read and I'm clearly going to have to check out her back list. I loved the setting - creepy, crumbling old estates are definitely my jam, The displaced heiress trope could have been a bust but wasn't because the MC had so much agency and personality. It's so nice to see a heroine who was practical and would do anything to survive. The plot was satisfyingly twisty and well paced. The prose was plain and unadorned. This was a thoroughly enjoyable book, even if the ending was a little predictable after all that wonderful build up. Really enjoyed this.

Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. I’ve read all of Ruth Ware books, and they’re always a rollercoaster of a treat.
This follows Harriet, a young woman who works as a tarot reader on Brighton Pier. She’s still dealing with her mother’s death, paying off crippling debt, and living in a tiny flat that she’s struggling to maintain, when she receives a letter from a solicitor inviting her to Penzance, as her grandma has died and she’s due to an inheritance. But this must be a mistake because Harriet’s grandparents have already died...Desperate she decides to pretend to be the long lost grand-daughter and goes to Cornwall...
This was a fast gripping read. I highly enjoyed the characterisations of Harriet (I found her motivations believable) and the squabbling uncles. I particularly loved the setting: most of the story is set in Mrs Westerley’s creepy, isolated and enormous estate, with dashes of a cold and rainy Brighton. My only gripe was with the last 10%. I personally found the climax predictable and cliched, filled with tropes I’ve seen many times.
On the whole this is a good pass-time mystery. It’s 3.5 from me.

Plot: Hal, Harriet Westaway, a cold-reading fortune teller on Brighton’s pier, receives a letter telling her of the death of “her grandmother” and bequeathing her an inheritance. The problem is that she knows this relative may not really be her own. Still, she travels to strange and eerie Trepassen House for the funeral, meeting her “uncles” and their families, where it quickly becomes clear that, in fact, she does have a connection to the family after all. Can she keep up the ploy, using her cold-reading skills, or will she give in and admit the truth?

My thoughts: I LOVED the setting of this novel at Trepassen House – crumbling estates with a creepy history are the best, and this one does it very well. On top of that, the slow unraveling of the plot with a variety of kindly and, frankly, quite creepy characters was excellent. It’s a book with several layers and clues hidden and planted among them all that come together in the end. I’ve read criticisms that it has a lot of plot holes, but honestly, those that may have appeared to me weren’t so significant that it ruined the reading for me – in fact, this spellbinding novel has become one of my favourites of late.

Although the 'gimmick' of appearing in place of a heiress is hard to wear, and it does not work entirely well for the heroine Hal. In fact she is meant to be there! In the end, it was the bare style of writing that impressed me, strangely - matching Hal herself in some ways. No flounces or light wit but just straight ploughing forward. It's the strength of the writing and after a while, it began to feel to grim - I did not like Hal, really. And I think I am meant to admire her grit and her capacity to survive. We get immessed with her in a family when there is a surprising discovery - her father! - so perhaps the letter did not go astray??!! And murderous intent that did not entirely convince me. Extremely impressive and professional writing - however, i just did not warm to it ...

Deeply atmospheric, and steeped in the Gothic, The Death of Mrs Westaway is by far the best book Ruth Ware has written thus far (and I say this having read all of them bar The Lying Game but I'll assume my statement will still stand after reading that one too).

Harriet 'Hal' Westaway is a tarot reader at the Brighton Pier. Broke, in trouble and alone she receives a letter from a mysterious benefactor bequeathing her a substantial inheritance. With limited options and a loan shark on her back, Hal decides to fradulently claim this inheritance as her own, but when she arrives as the Westaway family home, she quickly finds herself immersed in a rich family history breaking apart at the seams. There's something dark and sinister at bay in this family built upon betrayal and greed.

I truly cannot rave about how much I loved this book enough. Gone was your typical unreliable (and often alcoholic) narrator and instead was Hal Westaway: brazen, headstrong and determined to survive. She had depth and relatability and was such a joy to read. I couldn't rest until I had my answers, and even though Hal's real father was glaringly obvious from the moment she met the Westaway's, the reveal itself was shocking and a delightful twist.

If Ruth Ware continues to write more books like this one then I will be impatently waiting for every new release because I need more books like The Death of Mrs. Westaway.

I am a great fan of Ruth Ware and have read every book she has published. I always await the next publication and jumped at the chance to read The Death of Mrs Westaway. And yet again the author had delivered a phenomenal read.
Thoroughly enjoyed this book and it comes with a high recommendation

The Death of Mrs Westaway is, in my opinion, Ruth Ware’s best book yet. It is part gothic mystery, part psychological thriller, part whodunit and part whatisgoingon!

I found Hal to be a very sympathetic character – she’s grieving, she’s torn about how she makes a living but she’s trying to do her best. I found the descriptions of the tarot deck and her cold reading techniques fascinating. It was a bit like watching Hustle – you know she’s doing something unethical, probably illegal, but you’re still cheering her on to succeed throughout the book.

The supporting cast of characters are all well drawn and each brings something crucial to the narrative. The story itself is brilliantly plotted, running back and forth in time with dual narrations, allowing a complex web of secrets, lies and tragedy to be gradually exposed and some great twists to surprise you.

The locations are all very atmospheric, from cold, wet and windy Brighton and Hal’s small flat to gloomy, run down, forbidding Trepassen House, with its creepy rooms, grounds and lake. I could clearly picture it all and could see The Death of Mrs Westaway making a great mini series.

I loved this book and am hugely grateful to NetGalley and Random House UK, Vintage Publishing for the ARC of The Death of Mrs Westaway.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. This has to be up the top of the best books I have read in 2018. I cannot rate this highly enough. Fantastic read.

I've enjoyed all of Ruth's books and this is by far the best title and story. Ruth writes so well it puts her a cut above most thriller writers.

Loved this intriguing book especially as I have a friend who is a Tarot reader. I could not put it down as I could not wait to see how Hal was going to get out of this situation. Great family drama.

While I enjoyed this book, I wasn't blown away by it. It felt contrived, bordering on the ridiculous at times. Some of the characters were great but some felt like they had been dropped into the plot purely for the sake of adding some red herrings.

There's lots to like about this book but I'm probably not its biggest fan.

Hal Westaway is eking out a living as a tarot reader on a seaside pier. Lonely and struggling financially, her prayers seem to have been answered when she receives a letter telling her that she's the beneficiary of a large fortune left by her grandmother. Quickly realising that it must be a mistake, a desperate Hal makes the decision to play along in the hopes of gaining a slice of the cake. However, from the minute she arrives at the imposing Trespassen House and meets the rest of the Westway family she realises all is not as it seems.

Ruth Ware is one the first writers I ever reviewed on Netgalley when I read her excellent "In a Dark Dark Wood" She's written consistently addictive novels since then and this book shows how she's grown further as a writer. Hal is an imperfect character but is also extremely sympathetic. Living alone since her mother's death and constantly struggling for money, Ruth Ware really captures what its like to live that existence on the breadline. The seaside setting exacerbates Hal's difficulties too, especially in the off season where the cold bites and the tourists are few and far between. Trepassen House is equally atmospheric. Far from being an opulent mansion, it's old and dilapidated and the house keeper is openly hostile to Hal (eerily reminiscent of Mrs Danvers!). The more Hal gets to know the rest of the family the more she becomes equally curious and guilt ridden making for an exciting conclusion. anyone who reads books in this genre loves a good twist and this book is no exception. If Ruth Ware continues to write to this standard then count me as first in the queue for her next book!

I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for a fair review.

I’ve enjoyed Ruth Ware’s psychological thrillers in the past but this book is a bit of a departure from that format. The story revolves around Harriet (Hal) Westaway, a quiet and introverted young woman who receives a letter from a solicitor in Cornwall informing her of in inheritance from her grandmother. Hal is suspicious at first, as apart from her late mother she wasn’t aware of any other relatives, but the substantial debts she has accumulated since her mother’s death and the increasingly menacing visits from loan sharks mean that Hal puts all her doubts aside and travels to Trepassen House, the Westaway family seat, to investigate.

This is much more of a traditional old country house mystery/family drama than Ware’s previous books. At Trepassen House Hal is immersed in a tangled web of family secrets, hidden diaries and dark truths. I enjoyed the Gothic undertones, the array of interesting and sympathetic characters and the resolution of the central mystery surrounding Hal’s identity. I hope Ruth Ware continues to write in this vein rather than adding to the over-saturated domestic-noir market.

Ruth Ware’s latest novel, opens on our protagonist Harriet—known as Hal—trudging through rain and wind with a fish and chips she can’t really afford under her arm. Hal does tarot readings on Brighton pier: she inherited the booth from her mother, who died in a hit-and-run accident three years ago. Now twenty-one, Hal has unwisely taken money from a local loan shark, and is in desperate need of three thousand pounds before his steel-toed-boot-wearing enforcers come around. So when a case of mistaken identity results in a letter from a lawyer’s office in Penzance, referring to her as the beneficiary of her grandmother’s will, she decides she might as well use her cold-reading techniques to see what she can get. When it turns out that the bequest isn’t just a few thousand pounds, but most of the estate, Hal realises she has two choices: confess now, or stay in it for the long haul. She chooses, of course, the latter, but things at Trepassen aren’t what they seem, and she finds herself unraveling a conspiracy of silence that stretches back decades. This is the first of Ruth Ware’s novels that I’ve read (a shocking admission given how well they go down at Heywood Hill), and it’s highly impressive. It’s so easy to lose the thread of thriller plotting, particularly when your subgenre is psychological intrigue, where so many of the significant plot points happen inside characters’ heads, but Ware never does: there’s always that sense of forward momentum, no scenes that feel like they’re treading water. Tarot, and the interplay between superstition, fate, and self-determination, is woven through the book: is life something Hal can navigate for herself, or does the past determine the present? Ware deals with these questions subtly, and creates a protagonist whose constant calculations are made necessary and sympathetic by the precariousness of her situation. Very good stuff indeed.

Hal Westaway is not in a good place in life. A few years ago her mum Maggie was killed in a hit-and-run accident outside their ramshackle Brighton flat, and struggling to make ends meet and pay for the rent on her seafront tarot kiosk, Hal has taken out a small loan from a local ‘lender’. Having missed a couple of payments, the lender has been sending his heavies out looking for Hal, the ‘interest’ on the loan has increased by 5x at least, and she’s running scared.

When a letter arrives telling her that she is to inherit part of her late Grandmother’s ‘substantial’ estate as the daughter of Mrs Westaway’s only daughter, Maud, she’s confused. Rightly so – she’s never known her father or his parents (she was the result of a drunken one night stand) and Hal’s maternal grandparents passed away over 20 years ago. But the letter is definitely addressed to her, at her current address, and as it sits next to the threatening note left by her lender’s heavies, in her freezing cold and rundown flat, an idea starts to form.

Hal, uncomfortable with this decision, but not sure how else she can escape the trouble she’s in, grabs the last pennies she has and heads to the family estate to meet the family Westaway.

Hal’s arrival puts the cat right amongst the pigeons. Secrets are flying around everwhere and thought she is welcomed into the fold, there is something very clearly wrong at the Westaway estate and when a photograph comes to light of the family alongside Hal’s late mother, Hal realises that this more than just a case of mistaken identity. Determined to get to the bottom of it, she is in for more than a few surprises, and at what cost?

This is a wonderfully written book, I read it in two sittings, as I just didn’t want to put it down. Hal is a nuanced character, although she’s doing something she believes to be wrong, she is doing so because she is desperate, and you cannot help but root for her. The supporting characters are believable and rounded and the plot is rich and full of surprises. I was entertained until the very last page.