ONE BY ONE is Ruth Ware’s latest thriller. Set in a luxurious French ski resort in the Alps the executive team from Snoop are meeting for a conference. Snoop is a new music app that has become hugely successful. An offer to buy the app has been made and the executive team needs to make a decision: sell for a big return or hang on in hopes of a bigger profits in the future. The team is divided. Topher St. Claire Bridges one of the co-founders and his supporters want to hang on. Eva van der Berg the other cofounder and her supporters want to sell.
Liz a former employee is the shareholder who holds the deciding vote.
Liz is one of the two narrators of the story. Erin the events co-ordinator at the chalet is the other narrator.
The first night at the chalet is relatively uneventful. The next day presentations are put on hold so the group can go skiing. The weather is suspect so the majority thinks it would be a good idea get in some skiing before the weather turns. All the skiers return to the chalet except Eva who has gone missing. Others in the group spotted her skiing, headed towards the funicular.
In the meantime an avalanche has taken place and chalet is without power and the group is stranded waiting for rescue.
After Eva’s disappearance other members of team go missing one at a time.
Liz and Erin share the storytelling giving two different perspectives on the events as they unfold.
I liked the story. The suspense built at a good pace. While there were quite a few characters to keep track, of the story begins with a list of the Snoop employees in the form of an “About Us” summary taken from the Snoop website. It doesn’t take long to get into the rhythm of the story.
ONE BY ONE is an enjoyable and immersive novel. It would be a great story to opt for as a long weekend read.
Thank you to Simon and Schuster for the opportunity to read the advanced ebook of ONE BY ONE.

I’ve enjoyed all of Ruth Ware’s books (think I’ve read all but one) and this one was no exception. Ideally I’d have read it on a snowy winter weekend and not a lovely September one but I couldn’t wait any longer!

Set in an exclusive French ski resort we find ourselves following Erin and Danny, two staff members at the resort, and a group of their rather unlikeable guests as they find themselves snowed in during an avalanche. After a guest goes missing and another is found dead they soon start to wonder if there is more than just the avalanche putting them in danger and soon everyone becomes a suspect.

A locked room style mystery is my absolute favourite type of mystery/thriller and I thought Ruth Ware navigated this one expertly! Disclaimer, I did guess the killer long before it was revealed (I got the impression that maybe we were meant to?) but I still thoroughly enjoyed finding out their reason behind it and watching the story play out!

Thanks so much to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster Canada for the e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A murder mystery without a real mystery, I readily admit, but I still liked it a lot!

The book is set at a chalet in Switzerland where a small lodge is hosting a work retreat for a tech company called Snoop. The viewpoint alternates between Erin, an employee at the lodge, and Liz, a former employee at Snoop. After the retreat takes off and tension begins amongst the attendees, people are murdered or disappear "one by one." It's a rip-off of Agatha Christie, but a lot more obvious (I knew who the murderer was right away), but it was an enjoyable read. If you are looking for a difficult to figure out mystery, then I doubt this is the one for you. If you are looking for a fun read with a straightforward mystery, then this might be a good fit!

Thanks to the author, NetGalley, and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read an e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

Ruth Ware is a modern day icon when it comes to writing thrillers. The comparisons to Agatha Christie continually pop up and for good reason. She presents updated themes on the classic mystery genre and spins them into thrilling and intriguing reads. Every book of hers that I read, I absolutely enjoy and One by One has to be my favourite so far. I absolutely could not put it down and even once the culprit is exposed it continues to take the reader through twists and turns, thrills and chills.

Ruth Ware is always good for a quick, fun read - an opportunity to lose yourself for a few hours. As far as her books go, I'd say this wasn't my favorite but it also wasn't my least favorite.

Lock Room Mysteries are one of my favourite types of stories for an entertaining read. I love the intense, isolating and claustrophobic feel of them. Ruth Ware knows how to bring one by creating one tense setting here after an avalanche at a ski lodge in the French Alps snows in the characters. Erin and Danny host employees of a social media company (sounds like a nightmare already, right) who are there to promote “mindfulness and collaboration,” but they might have other motivations to being there.

While Ruth Ware does a great job creating that tense setting I love, there were a couple of things that nagged at me. Like how are there, only two staff members snowed in with them? I am not a skier, but I think it takes a few employees to run ski hill, especially with these high maintained guests. Did I miss something? Anyways I guess that is a small nagging point. The other was the characters. There were many characters to keep track of, and none really had anything interesting to them to stand out. While I don’t find anything interesting about social media, I do with tech startups. A team of tech startups should lead to some diverse, interesting characters. Nothing was exciting here with these characters, just shallow, unlikable characters. There wasn’t enough tension and suspense created with the characters and I didn’t feel any sense of danger from them even though they were being killed one by one.

It was all about the setting here for me and the tension with the danger the weather put them under and their escape from it. I enjoyed the showdown even though it was a bit unrealistic. Overall this was an enjoyable, fun and entertaining read for me.

An up and coming social media app takes it’s staff on an isolated ski holiday in the French Alps. The app is called Snoop and allows the users to “snoop” what music other people are listening to in real time. Erin & Danny are the hosts at their chalet, Perce-Neige which is in St. Antoine 2000, a village which is only reachable by a funicular (cable car). Topher & Eva are the founders of the company and Eva uses the retreat as an opportunity to pitch a buyout which would make the share investors millions of dollars. When an avalanche strikes the mountain after the Snoop group has been out skiing for the day and Eva is missing, things start to go VERY wrong. Eva is assumed to have been murdered and more people end up dead. Who is the murderer that is trapped in the chalet with them?

What I loved about this book: the setting & most of the characters. I am a skier myself and I loved the action and mystery that Ware’s location created for the plot. She depicted the remoteness of the chalet perfectly and it lent to the suspense building and claustrophobic tension very well. The Snoop employees were a motley crew that I was very curious about and I really liked one of the narrators, Erin. What I didn’t love about this book: the other narrator, Liz, and the predictability in parts. Liz wasn’t executed as well as she could have been in my opinion. The grand reveal of the murderer was a wash for me as I had nailed it down already. The plot was a bit far fetched in some bits and the ending was meh. What made this a 4 star for me was totally the setting as it took an average story and created an atmospheric intrigue. If you aren’t a skier, maybe you wouldn’t enjoy it as much but one of the escape/skiing scenes at the end had me gripping the edge of my seat! Thank you so much to @simonandschuster for this review copy, I can never pass up the opportunity to read Ruth Ware!

I enjoyed this story. It was very reminiscent of MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, except in a hotel. The murder victims were pretty predictable, there are clues that aren’t so subtly dropped that give you an indication of who will be next, so the thrill and wow factor wasn’t high up there. The whodunit was more of a challenge, but not a complete shock. Again, the setting was the star, as an avalanche hits the resort. With the loss of power and soon water, what looked like a peaceful retreat turns into a sinister suspect in itself, which I quite enjoyed. The actual suspects and victims fell a little flat for me.

Thank you @simonschusterca for a copy of One By One by Ruth Ware for review. This locked room mystery is available September 8th.

One By One is a traditional locked room mystery. A company retreat in the mountains goes wrong when employees slowly start to go missing or end up dead after an avalanche traps them all together. Can the chalet employees figure out who it is?
This one starts slow with a weird idea for a streaming music slash social media app and a ton of employees to get to know in a very short time. It starts right in the action but somehow doesn’t pick up until everyone goes skiing. That is when it picked up for me and changed this read from an average one to a good one. The last 25% has all the action and I enjoyed that part the most.

ONE BY ONE by Ruth Ware was a surprising thriller. The plot offered so many suspects and it was hard to guess who the real murderer was. The characters were a bunch of entitled snobs and it was hard to like them. But that is beside the point or maybe it was the point. The story was well put together and thrilling until the end. The “how she got away” moment was a bit anticlimactic, in my opinion. Overall, it is a good and entertaining read.

Thank you, SIMON & SCHUSTER CANADA for sending me an ARC of this thrilling book.

A group of co-workers from 'Snoop', the app that allows users to snoop what music other users are listening to in real time, are staying in a ski chalet in the French Alps as a week long corporate retreat. After an avalanche, the group is snowed in and tensions are high after a shareholder pushes a lucrative but contentious buyout offer. The group starts disappearing one by one... and they all have something to lose or gain.

This one wasn't for me. The plot wasn't very unique, none of the characters were too exciting, and I found myself 'hate-reading' it to get me to the end. I find that I am not enjoying 'whodunnit' thrillers as much as I used to.

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster Canada for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Ruth Ware is one of my new favourite mystery writers, so the moment a new book of her is out I am there to read the title. This one I did struggle to get into the premise as I'm not a skier and the talking off techniques and off-piste, etc went over my head.
But the moment the second death occurred I was pulled into the story and felt the Agatha Christie's "Then There Were None" feeling started. When the avalanche occurred you felt the tensions in the group rising as now they are trapped with a murderer, with no reception, no heat and new victims.

Ruth ware has been a favorite of mine for quite some time so I was so excited when I received a copy of One By One.
This one had a little different feel than her other books, I felt like it started out rather slow and confusing with all the characters.  However  once I got into the novel I quickly became hooked and really enjoyed the book and the way that the who dun it mystery unravels.

A fun, cozy vacationin the French Alps for 8 co-workers takes a quick turn when someone doesn't come back from a day of skiing. The co-wokers along with the chalet staff suddenly become trapped due to an avalanche.  Everyone is on edge, then a guest suddenly turns up dead, accusations begin to fly as they realize one of them is a murderer.  One by one they begin to take matters into their own hands. Will anyone make it out of the vacation chalet alive?

Happy North American publication day to Ruth Ware! I have been a fan of her novel's since I read In a Dark, Dark Wood several years ago. Her latest release (heavily inspired by Agatha Christie), One By One is another edge of your seat thrill ride.

<p>From the publisher- <em>A gripping thriller which finds a group of colleagues trapped by snow in their hotel in the French Alps, with deadly consequences.From the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller.

Snow is falling in the exclusive alpine ski resort of Saint Antoine, as the shareholders and directors of Snoop.com gather for a make or break corporate retreat to decide the future of the company. At stake is a billion-dollar dot com buyout that could make them all millionaires, or leave some of them out in the cold.

The clock is ticking on the offer, and with the group irrevocably split, tensions are running high. When an avalanche cuts the chalet off from help, and one board member goes missing in the snow, the group is forced to ask - would someone resort to murder, to get what they want?

Ruth Ware always does an excellent job creating atmosphere in her novels. Most follow the same premise - a group of characters, isolated from the rest of the world; at the mercy of a killer. In the instance of One By One, it is a beautiful mountainside chalet in the Alps, high above civilization, when a massive snow storm and accompanying avalanche strike. There is no service, no technology and no electricity. The sense of helplessness and fear are palpable and the reader becomes transported to the chalet themselves, trapped in the dark, hoping for salvation.

Speaking of characters - there are a lot of of them in this novel to keep track of and they are introduced in quick succession (a flow chart would be helpful). The story is narrated by Liz (former Snoop employee and now share holder with the deciding vote on the company's sale) and Erin (Chalet manager with a mysterious past). Both are enjoyable overall, yet it is difficult to form connections with most of the other characters as we learn very little about their actual backgrounds.

While the ending is a bit silly (the ski chase?), overall, I enjoyed this story. While predictable at times (I did guess the murderer early on), the novel is a well written thriller/whodunit, typical of what I have come to expect from Ruth Ware. I am looking forward to her next book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my review copy.

Ruth Ware's latest book 'One By One' is terrific, modern and entertaining. I have enjoyed her writing in the past, and this book is no exception.

'One By One' is one such thriller which will take you to the Alps and will thrill you with its bitter cold and height. The setting of the snow-covered mountains, chalet, skiing and the stranded tourists are one of my favourite settings in the mystery books. Ruth Ware chose these settings brilliantly by enveloping them in an aura of a technical app.

I have always experienced Agatha Christie vibes from Ruth Ware's books. 'One By One' gave me the vibes of 'And There Were None' and 'The Murder On The Orient Express' by Agatha Christie. A group of people stranded in the snow-covered chalet and series of mysterious murders - I'm in.

The writing has been superb and non-complex. The book is fast-paced, and I was turning pages quickly to find out the murderer. The dual narration by Erin and Liz makes the whole narration interesting. I kept second-guessing who the killer could be.

Not my favourite Ruth Ware but read it if you are a Ruth Ware fan and love thrillers.

Thank you, Simon & Schuster Canada and Netgalley for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Even though I haven’t loved all of Ruth Ware’s novels, I was super excited for this book after hearing the plot. Plus, I absolutely LOVED the cover (and still do!).

I was actually really excited for this book, especially since I liked what Ruth Ware did in The Turn of the Key, but unfortunately this one just didn’t hit the mark. I’ll be honest and say that it did keep my attention, and I sped through it in only 2 days! Living in Canada, I know firsthand how creepy it can get during a snow storm, and I think that Ruth Ware really captured that atmosphere in this book. That being said, I thought the beginning was a little slow, and that the mystery was just too predicable. Halfway through the story, I already had an inkling of who the murderer was, and by the end I felt that it just dragged on too long.

All in all, this book is still an average read, and would be perfect for someone who’s just looking for a fun, quick thriller. There’s nothing really new or innovative about the story, but if you’re a fan of Ruth Ware’s thrillers then you should definitely still give it a shot!

I read Ruth Ware's In a Dark, Dark Wood back in 2015. It was a 'closed room' mystery. A group of friends gathers at a remote cabin. And you guessed it - there are deaths....I loved it and have eagerly awaited each of Ware's new releases.

That 'closed room' format is one of my favorite premises. Ware takes us there again in her latest release, One By One. Ten employees are sent on a corporate retreat to an isolated chalet high in the French Alps. With the two chalet employes on site, that makes twelve. (Yes, there are comparisons) Tensions are running high within the corporate group. When an avalanche snows them in, things turn deadly - and the body count begins.

Oh, One by One was such an excellent read for me! Each and every one of the characters has a secret, an agenda, a scheme. They're all very disparate personalities with the corporate crew decidedly unlikable. The reader won't have a problem remembering who is who, even with such a large cast. The about us page at the beginning of the book lays the groundwork on who's who.

The group of ten are all employees of Snoop - a music app that lets the user see in real time what others they follow are listening to. Very current and very real. (Watch the Snoop stats at the beginning of every chapter.)

Ware drops lots of clues along the way to the final whodunit. The book is told from the viewpoint of two of the characters in a back and forth narrative. I did have my suspicions (and was right), but this in no way detracted from my enjoyment of the book. Honestly, I couldn't put the book down. We find out who the killer is, but there's a good eighty pages after that. The tension. does. not. stop. Those last pages detail a delicious cat and mouse game.

Ware's writing is so easy to get caught up in. Either way - if you've read Ware before or this is a new to you author - you're going to enjoy One By One.

This was an interesting thriller set in a luxurious ski chalet. There were a lot of characters to keep straight initially. A tech start up company brought their employees to the chalet to have a series of meetings. Also in the chalet were two employees of the chalet company that were there as hosts. The guests head out for a day of skiing and on their return they realize one of them is missing. A massive avalanche comes rumbling down the mountain and they become trapped.
Murder and mayhem ensues and no one knows who to trust. The writing was very atmospheric as you could feel the cold and imagine the gloom. I was kept guessing until about three quarters of the way through as to who the killer was. I enjoyed this book and will definitely read more from this author?

I'm often a seasonal reader, so it jumped ahead from Fall to Winter for Ruth Ware's newest, One By One.
This "locked room mystery" is set in the French Alps at a ski chalet during avalanche season.
Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for my eARC for review!
A group of co-workers from a trendy social app company gather for a week-long ski getaway. A looming financial takeover and secrets of the group are strategically revealed and mysterious deaths start piling up. The vibes here are pure Lucy Foley and Agatha Christie, some good old cat-and-mouse action.
After a couple of recent disappointing reads for me, this new thriller was a breath of fresh reading air. Ruth Ware is always a good reading time investment.
Not genre-defining, and not quite on par as my favorite of hers, The Turn Of The Key, but certainly worth it as a fun read for those of us who love suspense. Recommended!
For release on Sept. 8, 2020.

Thank you Netgalley, the publisher and author.
What was suppose to be a great work/play retreat set in the French Alps turns into a nightmare.
Snow storm, avalanche, killer and one by one they fall.
Who is the killer among them.
Well written suspense novel.
Recommend.
4 stars