Reviews

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware

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vacantbones's review against another edition

4.0

This was my first Ruth Ware novel, one of many that have been sitting on my TBR list for, quite literally, years. I was pleasantly surprised by this one!

I'm a sucker for big, creepy houses and dreadful family secrets long buried. The tone of this one was perfect for sitting down by a fire with a hot drink and getting lost in the mystery. As a thriller/mystery frequent flyer, I can't say I was too shocked with the end result of the mystery, but the

Spoiler

shuffling cup game that was the truth of Hal's mother's identity

was a fun twist.

As for Hal - well, I'm not the biggest fan. I'm not even judging her initial intention to engage in deception as a way of clawing herself out of poverty. We all have our own journeys, muddy as they may be. However, I feel like Hal was written in a way where we are meant to see her as an intelligent, scrappy young woman, and at times I simply could not believe that someone like her wouldn't be able to connect certain dots. She went into this mess intending on deceiving the family and coming out with a small inheritance, and never ONCE in the lead up to her arrival at Trepassen did she stop to consider how extremely odd of a coincidence it would be for so many mistakes to have been made in order for her name to appear in Mrs. Westaway's will. I understand that a mystery is shortened by a great deal if our protagonist is extremely intelligent, but I do feel like the initial portrait of Hal didn't match up entirely with how she interpreted information at times.

Overall, however, I really did enjoy this book! It could've been shortened a bit, but I'm not too mad at a long book when it captures this much of my attention. Now, to return to the other Ruth Ware books piling up on my list.

notsogreen's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

While this starts off slow and un thriller like, it certainly makes up for it in the end. It starts off as lit fic, becomes a mystery, and ends as a thriller, and while i wish this had started off a little faster, I loved it . I very much enjoyed the twists and turns in this story, even if I did predict some of them. 4.5/5

lauramcsherry's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

The Death of Mrs. Westaway

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Sometimes you just need a good mystery thriller when you’re between Libby holds! Ruth Ware is such an easy one to get into so I figured why not try another from her backlist.

Hal, a young woman barely scraping by, receives a strange letter telling her she has inherited something from an old woman’s passing. Almost as soon as she arrives she gets caught up in family drama. With almost no one being as kind as they appear, she must figure out her connection to this well off family.

I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook. Imogen Church does such good narration of Ruth Ware’s books! Definitely worth a listen if you like a slower mystery/thriller!