Friday, July 31, 2015

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

Another writer finds herself in deep trouble in a rural area!  Leonora, a writer living a solitary existence in London, accepts an invitation to a hen party (what we would call a bachelorette weekend) deep in the English countryside.  Lee, or Nora, she went by both names at different points in her life, isn’t quite sure why she went.  True, her best friend was also attending, but she hasn’t talked to the bride-to-be, Clare, her former best friend from school, in ten years.  The party place is pretty odd.  It is a glass house in the middle of the woods.  As one of the guests comments it is like they are on the stage performing for an audience that they cannot see.  The attendees are an odd mix and things get tense until the unspeakable happens.  Someone ends up dead.  Was it an accident as it first appears?  Or was this weekend carefully plotted by a murderer in their midst?

If you enjoy psychological thrillers you have to read this one.  From page one the reader wonders, as the main character does as well, why she even attended this shindig.  And as details of the wedding emerge (including the major fact that she isn’t invited to the ceremony) and the back story of why Nora and Clare haven’t spoken in a decade, you get even more frustrated with Nora – why is she there?  But at the same time, curiosity did kill the cat, and like Nora we want to know why she was invited.  Even though you keep yelling at her to leave, it is understandable why she stays.  Peer pressure is a dangerous thing.  So is temporary amnesia as Nora begins to discover.

So who is dead?  Who is killer?  Why did they do it?  These are all questions that you start the novel with and don’t know the answers to for quite some time.  Thriller readers will definitely enjoy this book – would suggest it for those who loved Girl on a Train.