In a Dark, Dark Wood
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press (August 4, 2015)
Ruth Ware brings us a mystery thriller in the vein of Gone Girl and this year's bestseller, The Girl on the Train. If you liked those two books, you will not be able to put this one down.
Are twisted mystery thrillers going to be the future? This is a book that just could not be placed down. It will have readers on their edge of their seat wondering what happened and how did we get to where we are?
The first book to be published by Scout Press, Ware tells us the story by way of narrator Leonora Shaw, a crime fiction writer. Shaw is on a getaway weekend with a childhood friend who she had not seen in ten years.
All we know in the opening pages is that there was a bachelorette party and the narrator soon ended up at the hospital following the weekend's events. But how did she get there and why? These are the questions that get answered as readers quickly make their way across the 300 plus pages.
Shaw had not seen Clare Cavendish in ten years when she gets invited to her hen party (British version of a bachelorette party?). In talking to another childhood friend, Nina, she decides to accept that invitation. They share a room in the cottage. Also invited were Flo, Tom, and Melanie.
When she wakes up in the hospital, she has two black eyes, a bandage on her head, and there's a police guard outside her room. This worries her not because of how she ended up in the hospital but because she wants to know what she has done.
In trying to remember what happened, Nora must revisit her past--a part of her life that she wishes to remain buried. It's essential for Nora to do this so that she can uncover secrets, reveal motives, but most importantly, find the answers to just how she got there and why.
Ware's debut is addicting and I expect that this is the first book in a long run of books.
The book has been optioned by New Line Cinemas and Reese Witherspoon will produce.
