Since we last encountered Lo, a lot has happened, but nothing as terrifying as what occurred in The Woman in Suite 10.  Now living in NY, married with children, having published a book about her experience, Lo is ready to go back into reporting.  She and other reporters get invited to a luxurious Swiss hotel by enigmatic billionaire, Marcus Leidman.  Once there, she realizes that many of the other hotel guests were also on the boat where she had been kidnapped.  Hoping for an exclusive interview, Lo is excited but nervous when she gets a call from Marcus' room asking for her to meet him there.  Once there, she does not get to meet Marcus, but instead his mistress who needs Lo's help in her escape.

I only read The Woman in Suite 10 last month so I could prepare for this one and then waited a bit before I picked up Suite 11.  I liked the book a lot, maybe not to the level of full on love but it certainly and completely entertained me while I read it.  It was also super fun to relive the other book and revisit with the characters.  When I read the first I knew I was going to see Lo again soon, I'm curious how I would have felt reading it not knowing that there was a sequel.  I liked the characters of both books and I really enjoyed how Ware pulled it all together in the end.

3.75 stars

Thank you to Gallery Books and NetGalley for the ARC to review

Another dark and twisty novel from Ruth Ware! I really enjoyed returning to our character Lo, this time in a luxury hotel. All the hallmarks of Ruth Ware are there--characters on the edge of whether you want to root for them or not, dark & atmospheric scenes, great writing. Really enjoyed!

estselling author Ruth Ware makes a triumphant return, bringing back her resilient journalist, Lo Blacklock, in the highly anticipated sequel, THE WOMAN IN SUITE 11. Following the success of her previous work, The Woman in Cabin 10 (2016), which is set to debut on Netflix on October 10, 2025, featuring the talented Keira Knightley, readers are in for an exhilarating ride.

The Woman in Suite 11 serves as a sequel to her earlier book, The Woman in Cabin 10. The story revisits journalist Lo Blacklock, a decade after her traumatic cruise ship experience, as she gets caught in a new web of deceit and danger.

About...

A decade has passed since Lo Blacklock's harrowing experience aboard a Norwegian cruise, and she now finds herself attending the grand opening of a luxury hotel. However, her excitement quickly transforms into a gripping race across Europe, filled with suspense and intrigue. Who extended the invitation, and what ulterior motives lie behind it? What dark schemes are about to be unveiled? Has her past finally come back to haunt her?

As we delve into this sequel, we reconnect with Lo Blacklock, who narrowly escaped death during her previous adventure. Now happily married to Judah and the proud mother of two sons, she has penned a memoir titled Dark Waters, recounting her traumatic experience aboard the cruise ship Aurora. Lo is eager to reignite her passion for travel writing.

When she receives an invitation to the exclusive opening of reclusive billionaire Marcus Liedman's opulent hotel on the picturesque shores of Lake Geneva, she wonders if this could be her chance for redemption or if something more sinister awaits her.

Upon her arrival, she is confronted by familiar faces from her past, including fellow attendees from her ill-fated cruise, a renowned food critic, a photographer, and an ex-boyfriend she would rather avoid. As fate would have it, a late-night summons to Marcus's hotel room leads her to an unexpected encounter with a woman claiming to be his mistress, thrusting Lo into a perilous situation. (a shocker)

What ensues is a heart-pounding chase across Europe, compelling Lo to confront her own limits and question the trustworthiness of those around her. When a murder occurs, Lo finds herself ensnared as a prime suspect.

My thoughts...

Ruth Ware has once again proven herself a master of psychological suspense, ramping up the tension in this adrenaline-fueled thriller that will have readers glancing over their shoulders from start to finish. With a captivating, atmospheric narrative, Ware skillfully crafts claustrophobic settings and places her characters in morally ambiguous situations that challenge their integrity.

The luxurious hotel, with its hidden secrets, emerges as a character in its own right, while an exhilarating train journey heightens the sense of danger and mystery.

Lo Blacklock is an exceptionally well-developed character, navigating her roles as a wife, mother, journalist, and travel writer, all while grappling with life-threatening circumstances reminiscent of her past. Her complexity deepens in this installment, as she confronts the lengths to which individuals may go when driven by desperation and obligation.

Marcus Leidmann, a figure of wealth and power, wields his influence manipulatively, particularly over women, as the author showcases superb character development throughout the narrative.

The novel explores how the characters who survived the cruise ship incident have changed over the past decade, continuing the suspense that Ruth Ware is known for, exploring themes of trauma, guilt, and the complex bonds between victims.

In conclusion, the five-part structure and the interplay of multiple timelines create a palpable tension that enriches the storyline, exploring profound themes of power, trust, and moral compromise.

This compelling read stands as a must-read for anyone seeking a thrilling literary experience. While THE WOMAN IN SUITE 11 can be enjoyed independently, I highly recommend reading The Woman in Cabin 10 first for a fuller understanding of Lo's journey.

Recs...

For those who cherish Lo Blacklock's story, this sequel provides a gratifying resolution. Fans of Ruth Ware will appreciate her signature atmospheric style, along with readers who admire authors such as Lucy Foley, Lisa Jewell, Shari Lapena, Alice Feeney, Carol Goodman, and BA Paris, whose works often delve into the darker facets of relationships and concealed secrets.

Upcoming adaptation...

I am eagerly anticipating the release of The Woman in Cabin 10, set to debut on Netflix on October 10. The opportunity to see Hannah Waddingham portray Heidi fills me with excitement, as she stands out as one of my favorite actresses. Furthermore, I am hopeful for a sequel on screen, featuring THE WOMAN IN SUITE 11.

Thanks to Gallery Books and NetGalley for providing an advanced reading copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.

blog review posted @
JudithDCollins
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 5 Stars
Pub Date: July 08, 2025
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Funny how the two thriller authors that always publish in the same month both have less than mediocre books come out this year. Why did it take 47% of the way through this book for something even remotely interesting to happen? And then it became dull all over again after that. While I wouldn't say I loved the first book it was bounds and leaps better than this one. Lo was getting on my last nerves with how oblivious she was and where were all the twists and thrills? Not a single thing that happened shocked or surprised me, not even the ending.

** Thank you netGalley for and Arc of this book**

The follow up to the women in cabin 10 following lo blacklock 10 years after her terrifying experience on the ship!
Laura blacklock now living in America with her husband and children is invited to a grand opening of a brand new luxury hotel in Geneva but what seems like a great opportunity to get back into travel writing turns into another nightmare!

I was excited for another Ruth ware book but unfortunately like the woman in cabin 10 this was not one of my favourites, i found most of the characters unlikeable. Although the twists and turns were great I just wasn't in it and routing for Lo.

DNF at 50%. Clearly I WANTED to like this if I stuck with it that long, but this was SO. BORING. Also, the main character felt like a giant idiot. It's been years since I read the first, which I remember enjoying well enough, so I can't remember what she was like in that book. Nothing about this felt interesting or engaging.

Thank you for allowing me to review this book. I am giving my rating based on my own personal opinion and not that of any other party.

I did not remember enough about the first book. I do remember not enjoying it too much, so I didn't want to do a re-read. It was a little confusing when they referenced what happened in book 1, but after a few chapters, it was okay. I did enjoy this one and the mystery was well done.

This was a good continuation of a book I wasn't expecting to kick off a series!

I found the start to be a bit slow, but the second half really picked up. I enjoyed watching the main character be put through another crazy adventure with a character from the first novel and seeing how she was going to work her way out of it. I also really liked that this had a fun Agatha-Christie style twisty explanation at the end. I tend to enjoy Ruth Ware's works and this was no different!

Thank you to the publisher for sending me an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions remain my own.

I've never read this author and she came so highly recommended that I had to grab this book. I did not read the first book (The Woman in Cabin 10) and was still able to enjoy this story as they referenced the situation in Cabin 10 often enough that I kept saying (to myself of course) "Lady, what the ever living heck is wrong with you? Didn't ya learn that lesson the first time?" And this was early on in the story before all the serious crap started hitting the fan. I was ambivalent at first because I really wasn't loving Lo at first, BUT she won me over with her loyalty (however misplaced). I have only one question that never was addressed. "Why was Ben on the same train?" Not really germane to the story but feels like a dangling chad in my brain. In the end, I was drawn in and enjoyed the journey and look forward to reading more from this author.

"The Woman in Suite 11" by Ruth Ware is a gripping and suspenseful thriller that keeps readers guessing until the very end. Ware’s skillful storytelling creates an atmosphere of tension and intrigue, perfectly capturing the claustrophobic and mysterious hotel setting. The characters are complex and compelling, each hiding secrets that add layers to the plot. The pacing is sharp and deliberate, with twists that feel both surprising and satisfying. Overall, it’s a masterfully crafted mystery that fans of psychological thrillers will thoroughly enjoy.

This novel works perfectly well on its own, even if you haven’t read the first installment. There’s enough backstory woven in to keep you grounded in the plot, though it does give away the twists of the earlier bookso if you plan to go back, just know the surprises will be spoiled. Still, this is Ruth Ware in her element. Lo remains quick-thinking and sharp, sometimes a bit impulsive, but now, with motherhood shaping her perspective, she comes across as far more grounded and steady than before.

The narrative plays out with the careful detail of a police procedural, yet the momentum has the drive and intensity of a binge-worthy thriller. It’s addictive in the best way I devoured it in a single sitting because I simply couldn’t step away. The pacing makes the pages fly, pulling you deeper and deeper into the tension. Some moments are genuinely chilling, with scenes that left me holding my breath. Others slow down just enough to build the characters and explore the fragile dynamics of trust and deception. Underneath it all runs a haunting theme of betrayal, one that lingers long after the final chapter. This combination of suspense, atmosphere, and emotional weight makes it one of those rare reads that is both gripping and unsettling in all the right ways.

The Woman in Suite 11 is the follow up novel to Ruth Ware’s iconic mystery The Woman in Cabin 10. It’s the sequel we never knew we needed but I’m so glad she wrote. I really enjoyed the repeat characters and feeling of not knowing who to trust.

I am not always a fan of sequels and was skeptical at the beginning of this thriller, but the plan to help Carrie escape grabbed my attention and held it to the end through each twist of the story line. Classic Ruth Ware.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Lo is unwittingly reunited with some of the guests from the cruise that occurred in The Woman in Cabin 10. Again, Lo pairs up with Carrie and again Lo is left explaining her version of the story after a murder. This time, family is involved, and Lo has more to lose.

Sequel to the Woman in Cabin No 10 (which I did not read or couldn't remember). This does not matter as the basic facts from the first book are revealed at the beginning of the sequel. Like the author's other books, this is a fast-paced thriller which starts in New York, then moves to a hotel in Switzerland, then to a hotel in England. Lots of suspense and a few twists. Enjoyable read.

Ruth Ware has pretty much been an autobuy for me since The It Girl , which I believe is the first of her books that I read. I only read The Woman in Cabin 10, Ware’s second thriller and the prequel to this book, earlier this year. I still have two of her backlist to read and expect I will get to them sooner or later. None of Ware’s books have really knocked it out of the park for me, but they’ve been solid – all straight Bs or B+s, if I’m not mistaken.

I was anticipating The Woman in Suite 11 especially. I think this was because sequels are, in my experience, rare in suspense (unless it’s of the detective-mystery-series variety). I liked the protagonist, Lo Blacklock, pretty well in the first book. I generally find Ware’s protagonists a little bland. But in this case I liked the idea that I “knew” the character going in and could be plopped in the story without a lot of set up.

Lo is British but now lives in New York with her husband, Judah (her boyfriend in book one) and two young sons. It’s been 10 years since the events of The Woman in Cabin 10, but Lo is still occasionally beset by nightmares about her experience (which totally made sense to me; I don’t vibe well with stories where the main character is threatened and abused and walks away with no apparent mental scars). Lo wrote a well-received book about her ordeal. She is now trying to get back into the game as a travel journalist, which was her vocation before marriage and motherhood. Lo is finding that the current landscape for travel writers is fairly grim, post-pandemic and post-many-negative-developments for journalism as a career in general.

Lo is therefore intrigued and pleased to receive a mysterious invitation (which should have been her first clue; mysterious invitations never bring anything good in this kind of story). She has been asked to attend the opening of a luxury hotel near Lake Geneva. The Hotel du Lac is the cornerstone of a foray into the travel industry by the Leidmann Group, headed by mysterious billionaire Marcus Leidmann. Lo gets an idea – if she can get an interview with the reclusive Leidmann, and sell it to the Financial Times, she may be able to parlay this into an actual job offer.

Lo is nervous about leaving Judah and her children, but it’s also nice to get away alone, and going to an luxury hotel in a beautiful location doesn’t hurt. She plans to tack on a couple of days in England at the end to visit her mother. She’s a bit confused when she’s unexpectedly gifted an upgrade to first class on the flight over. That would have been enough to get my spidey senses tingling, if I were Lo.

There are more Bad Signs when Lo arrives at the chateau – three of the other journalist guests were also on The Aurora, the yacht in the previous story. Lo is disquieted by this seeming coincidence but forges ahead. She is pursuing her interview with Leidmann, but he doesn’t even appear at dinner the first evening. She gets to talk to his son Pieter, who strikes her as a pale imitation of what she imagines is a magnetic and charismatic man – Pieter himself seems very average and bit underwhelming.

When Lo goes back to her luxurious room after dinner, beset by jetlag, she is jolted by a note directing her to another room. She finds out from the front desk that the room is Marcus Leidmann’s, a realization that reinvigorates her. So she hies off, hoping her interview might actually happen. Instead she finds a woman, someone Lo knows. It’s then that things start to go seriously south.

I’m not going to identify the other woman, because the blurb doesn’t, but her identity may be obvious to anyone who has read The Woman in Cabin 10. I may already be saying too much! But it’s impossible to talk about anything beyond the 20% mark of the book without delving into spoilers a little bit.

Anyway….

The woman tells Lo that she needs her help – she has been Marcus Leidmann’s mistress for the past ten years. She alludes to dark secrets – Leidmann is apparently controlling and abusive. There are hints that he passes her around to friends to be sexually abused. The woman appeals to Lo because Lo owes her – literally, she saved Lo’s life once.

What follows is a foolhardy flight across Europe, an extremely ill-advised stay at another luxury hotel, this time in England, and Lo being accused of murder.

Again, a lot of this is hard to talk about without delving into spoilers. The murder mystery isn’t particularly interesting or surprising, and though The Woman in Suite 11 was compellingly written, I honestly spent most of the book thinking that Lo was being incredibly dumb. I get it that she doesn’t *know* she is stuck in another thriller, but she has gone through all this before. She is not nearly wary enough, especially of Marcus Leidmann, who she has been told is vengeful and violent, and who she very well knows is powerful and rich enough to interfere with her back in New York. Lo gives a lot of lip service to concern and worry about her young children, which makes her lack of care even odder. There are holes in the plan to help the other woman escape that you could drive a truck through. I can’t emphasize enough how much time I spent going, “seriously, Lo? Really?!”

However, it says something about my involvement in the story that rather than thinking the author was making Lo behave in ways that were extraordinarily dumb, I thought, “wow, Lo is behaving in ways that are extraordinarily dumb.” That is to say, the character came alive for me enough that I attributed her behavior to her rather than the machinations of the author. I’ll give The Woman in Suite 11 credit for that because it’s one of my standards that determines whether a book worked for me. And so I’ll say that I do think this book worked for me, but at the same time Lo’s character fell in my estimation because her behavior was so dumb. So dumb. Still, I’ll give this book a high B – it’s a very readable thriller about a very dumb woman.

Best,

Jennie

Ruth Ware is my go-to book recs for all books thriller related. I was very excited to read her newest book!

📖 Lo Blackwell has spent the last ten years since her "adventure" on the boat, creating a family and writing a book. She has enjoyed being a SAHM, but when the opportunity arrives to go back to Europe and get back on the working wagon... She takes it.

While there she ends up getting an invitation to the hosts room, which she thinks is for an exclusive interview. But when she gets there.... She is surprised to find the last person she thought she would ever see again.

Carrie is in trouble and needs help .. but will Lo be willing to put her neck on the line for her?

📝 This was a fun continuation of The Woman in Cabin 10 and I am glad Ruth wrote it! She did a great job of carrying on the story line and I thought the twists and turns were fun. I did predict most of them, but that's a me problem. I should have tried to just enjoy the moment. This has been one of Ruth Wares best books in the last few years! Also there is a movie coming out in October on Netflix, so get ready!

The Woman in Suite 11

...and the girl glued to her kindle. I have been a fan of Ruth Ware for a few years now, thanks to a book club with my girlfriends. Growing up I loved mysteries, especially Nancy Drew. Now, as an adult, nothing beats a good novel full of mysteries and thrills. We return to Lo Blacklock's life in this sequel to The Woman in Cabin 10. Like many of us after the pandemic of 2020, Lo's life looks very different. She's now a mum to two kiddos and a happily married American. That's right! Lo has left the UK in her rearview mirror. While trying to get back on the workhorse, Lo is unexpectedly invited to a luxury resort in the EU for a soft opening. What could possibly go wrong in this grand hotel with every luxury available? Also, who invited her? After all, at this point, Lo hasn't written a travel piece in a few years. In this economy, though, I can totally understand jumping at the opportunity. Ugh but from there, I only want to yell at Lo more and more. It's like when on screen the girl runs upstairs instead of through the front door while a murderer chases her and the whole thearter is yelling NOOOO. We, the reader, can see so many moments where Lo should have just said no. No is a complete sentence. Here we go again, Lo's past has resurfaced and is threatening to upend her life.

Although not my most favorite by Ruth Ware, this book kept me hooked until the end.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


I really enjoy Ware’s characters. She also has a way of really immersing you in the story. The plot moved at a nice speed. I like how at the end, you’re still not 100% sure whether you’ve figured the truth or not.

This book is a sequel. I feel like you can read it without having read the first, but she does reference the first quite a bit. There was a lot I didn’t remember from the book, so I would have enjoyed it more if I had given myself a refresher.