Ruth Ware

Book Review: The Woman in Suite 11 by Ruth Ware

~ Book Club Mom ~ 31 Comments

The Woman in Suite 11
by
Ruth Ware

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

You may remember Ruth Ware’s 2016 bestseller, The Woman in Cabin 10, the suspenseful story about Lo Blacklock, a travel writer on an exclusive cruise, who witnesses a woman being thrown overboard. At least that’s what she thinks she sees. But she’s been drinking a lot and she’s suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. No one believes her.

The popular book was adapted into a Netflix film in 2025 and now Ware has written a follow-up. The Woman in Suite 11 picks up ten years later and follows a new plot in which Lo, now married with two children, attends a special grand opening of a luxury hotel in Geneva, Switzerland, hoping to get an interview with the Marcus Leidmann, CEO of the hotel’s owner, the Leidmann Group.

Everything seems great when Lo arrives at the Grand Hotel du Lac. What a strange surprise, however, to see several colleagues who were aboard the cruise ten years earlier. It took years of therapy to move past those tragic events and the last thing she wants is to rehash what happened with them. Still, a little networking after being out of the work force will be good. And even better if she sells her interview to the Financial Times.

But Lo is in for the shock of her life when she’s called into Suite 11 and sees the one person she hoped never to lay eyes on again. Get ready to watch Lo get pulled into a dangerous and twisty plot that places her at the center, fighting a murder charge, and hoping to get out alive. As you can see by the cover, the plot involves a bathtub with the water running. I’ll leave that to you to guess what it means!

As with the first book, Ware keeps the pages turning and I appreciated how she includes plenty of bad decisions and red herrings, wrapped up in conflicting loyalties and interesting moral questions. Lo knows that if she walks away from what she’s been asked to do, she could not live with herself. I also enjoyed reading about the luxury hotel, the beautiful setting, as well as a look inside a wealthy and powerful family and the inner workings of the Leidmann Group.

After ten years, I was pretty hazy on the details of The Woman in Cabin 10, but it didn’t matter. The author includes plenty of backstory in the second book, and even if you never read the first one, you will have no trouble following the story. Although I’ve liked some of Ware’s other books a little better,I found The Women in Suite 11 an entertaining and suspenseful read, something fun to look forward to at the end of the day.

Read my review of The Woman in Cabin 10 here.

And check out my reviews of these other Ruth Ware books:

The Turn of the Key
The It Girl
One by One

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Book Review: The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware

~ Book Club Mom ~ 40 Comments

The Turn of the Key
by
Ruth Ware

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

If you’re looking for a good scary read for the Halloween season, check out The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware. I’ve read three other books by Ware (see bottom of post) and this is by far creepier and scarier than the others! I love any story that involves an isolated house with unidentified noises and fans of this type of fiction won’t be disappointed.

Set in the Scottish Highlands, it’s a combination of mystery and thriller and begins with a desperate letter from Rowan Caine to Mr. Wrexham, a solicitor advocate. Rowan, in jail for murder, pleads with him to take her case. “I am the nanny in the Elincourt case, Mr. Wrexham. And I didn’t kill that child.” From there, she describes the strange happenings at Heatherbrae House.

Rowan couldn’t believe her luck when she found the job posting to be a nanny for the Elincourts. She needed a change from her job in London and the pay was excellent. When she arrives, Heatherbrae looks like a home with style and history and, as Rowan walks through the front rooms, she feels the warmth and comfort of a busy family. But the Elincourts, high-tech architects, have transformed the back of the house into a cold, ultra-modern, concrete and glass kitchen and living area. And the entire house is wired into the Happy app, making it a smart-house nightmare. Lights, door locks, and even the coffee maker and shower require confusing commands. Even worse, cameras, even in Rowan’s bedroom, give the place a Big Brother feel.

Despite years of experience in childcare, Rowan struggles with the Elincourt daughters. Fortunately Rhiannon, “fourteen going on twenty-four,” is off at boarding school, but eight-year-old Maddie makes it clear she doesn’t like Rowan. And the younger two, five-year-old Ellie and the baby, Petra make a fuss when the parents depart for a long business trip.

Rowan’s terror begins the first night when she hears creeping footsteps in the space above her bedroom. Maddie had warned her about ghosts when she took the job and she knows the house has a history of tragic deaths. Over the next days, the key to the mud room goes missing, alarms sound, and why does the handyman keep showing up when there’s a crisis? Night after night, the noises keep Rowan awake in terror, but she’s determined to make this job work.

What’s great about this story is that Rowan makes a lot of bad decisions and continuously rationalizes the sounds in the house, but as a reader you want to tell her to hightail it out of there! There’s a mystery about Rowan and why she jumped so fast at this job offer, despite many red flags. And why she stays.

I flew through this book and was engaged to the last page. Ware saves some terrific surprises for the ending and gives you plenty to think about. This is a great book club book.

Other books by Ruth Ware

The It Girl
One by One
The Woman in Cabin 10

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Book Review: The It Girl by Ruth Ware

~ Book Club Mom ~ 53 Comments

The It Girl
by
Ruth Ware

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I really liked this suspenseful mystery about a group of Oxford students whose tight friendship centers around April Clark-Cliveden, Hannah Jones’ rich and stunning first-year roommate. The group falls apart when April is murdered. Evidence points directly at John Neville, a creepy college porter who is ultimately convicted and sent to prison. Neville emphatically insisted on his innocence, but Hannah’s testimony removed all doubt.

Ten years later, Hannah is pregnant, married to April’s ex-boyfriend, Will. After years of media hounding and posts about the sensational murder, interest has finally waned and they are happy to move on. Everything changes when Neville dies in prison and a young podcaster looks into the case.

When the journalist contacts Hannah, she must decide whether to open up what Will calls a “can of worms.” The story jumps between these two timelines, filling the reader in on the dynamics of the group’s friendships, with the expected secrets. Turns out April has a bit of a nasty side. Is it possible Hannah got it wrong?

Ruth Ware does a great job helping the reader put all the pieces together, slowly, so you suspect several people for different reasons and think maybe Neville was indeed the murderer. I’ve said this many times, but I don’t like to guess what’s going to happen. I just like to go along for the ride and this is an excellent book for that experience.

I also liked how Ware uses the Oxford setting as part of the mystery. I enjoyed imagining the long history of scholars studying there, a place that sounds beautiful.

The surprise ending explains a lot of side comments and mysterious movements, dropped throughout the book, but disguised as unimportant. I love that!

Ruth Ware is a skilled writer of mystery/thrillers and I recommend The It Girl to readers who enjoy this genre.

I also liked these books by Ruth Ware:

One by One

The Woman in Cabin 10

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Book Review: One by One by Ruth Ware

~ Book Club Mom ~ 20 Comments

One by One
by
Ruth Ware

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

After reading a few long books, I was in the mood for a good thriller and One by One fit the bill. I’d read Ware’s The Woman in Cabin 10 a few years ago and thought it was a very readable suspenseful story. There’s something about the premise of a group of people stuck and alone in a dangerous situation that I can’t resist.

One by One takes place in the French Alps where ten members of a tech startup gather for a retreat. The company, Snoop, run by extremely hip twenty-somethings, owns latest music app that enables subscribers to listen in on the music other subscribers are playing, real time. The key players are Snoop’s co-founders, Topher and Eva. They come from money and privilege, as do Elliot, their programmer and Rik, their accountant, who both went to boarding school in England with Topher. These four own nearly all the company’s shares. The last two percent belong to Liz, a former employee who has been invited to the retreat. Liz is the opposite of cool. Shabby, frumpy and awkward, she didn’t fit in at Snoop and left the company. Added to the mix are Carl the lawyer, Miranda from PR and Tiger from marketing. As personal assistants, Inigo and Ani try to keep Topher and Eva happy.

Right away, tension is thick because, although the company is hot, it’s out of cash. Eva surprises the group with news of a lucrative buyout offer, but Topher is furious because he doesn’t want to lose control of the company. An early vote shows a 50-50 split between the four shareholders. Liz will need to make the deciding vote.

Warnings of heavy snow and avalanches prompt the group to get in one good day of skiing before they’re snowbound. But Eva, an expert skier, doesn’t return and then, as predicted, the avalanche hits, crushing the area and knocking out power. Then, one by one, members of the group turn up dead. Readers will need to sort out the details of Eva’s disappearance and of the other deaths. Snoop’s remaining members, plus the chalet’s employees, Danny and Erin, must all rely each other, but trust no one. Very loosely based on And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, Ware provides all the backstories that help you figure out just enough to take you to the finish, which of course, true to a thriller, is full of dangerous action.

I find that with thrillers, you need to be a little forgiving with loose details and accept them as a way of keeping the story flowing. I liked the high-tech aspect of the story and how Ware included details of what music the Snoopers listened to. I recommend One by One to readers who like suspense and intrigue.

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The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

~ Book Club Mom ~ 12 Comments

The Woman in Cabin 10
by
Ruth Ware

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Lo Blacklock has a lot of troubles. Her London apartment has been burgled. She takes medication for anxiety, tends to drink too much and can’t seem to get a good night’s sleep.

Getting away on an exclusive luxury cruise may be the answer, but this trip is for her job as a travel journalist for Velocity magazine. Her boss Rowan can’t go and Lo is under pressure to do a good job.

This was my chance to show I could hack it – that I, like Rowan, could network and schmooze and get Velocity’s name in there with the high fliers.

There is a lot of hype about the Aurora and its maiden voyage to see the Northern Lights. The boat is small, but extravagantly decorated. Lo is part of a select group of passengers who will occupy ten cabins:  photographers, journalists, investors, and Lord Richard Bullmer, the ship’s super rich and powerful owner.

Lo isn’t off to a good start. She arrives sleep-deprived and hung over and has barely read her travel packet. And a bad argument with her boyfriend the night before has left their relationship on the rocks. Drinks before and during dinner don’t help, either. When Lo finally passes out in her cabin, she hopes for a long sleep and a fresh start in the morning.

Awakened by a scream and a splash, Lo is certain the woman in Cabin 10 has gone overboard. But no one believes her story. Was she too drunk to remember the events correctly? As the ship continues its journey, Lo tries desperately to uncover the truth, but the other passengers seem to have their own secrets and motives. With no one to trust, and no internet, Lo is alone with her fears. Oh, and by the way, Lo is claustrophobic. Not a good thing when you’re out on a boat.

The Woman in Cabin 10 is very readable suspenseful story. Ruth Ware throws plenty of red herrings into the mix and sets Lo up in many frightening situations that make the reader wonder, is it just Lo’s unreliable reasoning that makes them so scary? Certain discoveries fool the reader into thinking the mystery is solved, a technique I enjoy, only to lead Lo into what seems to be inescapable danger. The story finishes nicely, with satisfying explanations, including several unexpected tie-ups.

I recommend The Woman in Cabin 10 to readers who like to experience the danger of exciting stories from the safety of a comfortable chair. I particularly like the author’s use of an unreliable narrator. Watching flawed character make mistakes is very suspenseful.

I’m the kind of reader who likes to go along for the ride, letting the plot develop. What kind are you? Do you like to solve the mystery before its finish?

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