Death of Mrs. Westaway

This was a very compelling read; it was hard to put down! There was a moment in the middle that felt a little slow but Ruth Ware is an excellent writer! I’ll be interested to read more from her.

I recommend this book to anyone who loves to get lost in a suspense novel. Almost from the very beginning I was trying to figure out the big secret. Just when I thought I figured it out, she surprises you with another twist.

This book was the only one I had trouble with. It’s extremely boring. until the reader gets to more than 50% into the story. After that it’s much more a thriller with a bombshell ending.Ms Ware’s other books are more compelling and I suggest the reader start with those before attempting this book! Especially “the It girl” and the Woman in cabin 10.

This is now my favorite Ruth Ware book, by far (I’ve read and liked them all). It drew me in from the very first page and didn’t let me go. I tried to read it slowly — after pre-ordering and anticipating it for months — but ended up binge reading it.I won’t give major spoilers, I’ll just say why I found it so compelling:The suspense and subtle dread. I had to know what the next page held.The great character study. A classic whodunnit. Was it him? Her? Him? Who?! I truly didn’t know until the end. The twists and red herrings were perfectly done ... not exploiting the reader at all, but how the story moved organically. They made complete sense, and that’s rare nowadays in this genre. I also loved how, even though Mrs Westaway had passed on, her presence was still felt so menacingly and strongly. I mean, yes, the book centered around her actions ... but instead of her being a vague idea, this cloud of doom, I felt like she might actually come around the corner at any time. The housekeeper, of course, did do just that, often, and was quite the scary character! Not in a cheesy way, no, the tension and malignancy she brought was very well done. I love family sagas, especially about old English families and estates, and this certainly delivered that!The wonderful descriptions of the mood and setting. I felt like I was there, in that cold, drafty old house that held so many secrets and heartache. My only minor complaint about that — I would’ve liked a bit more closure regarding the attic room and how a certain someone in the past was basically held prisoner there.The emotions! Hal is so likable, so strong, yet vulnerable. I desperately wanted things to get better for her. I cheered her on and felt what she felt. And then the family — a mixture of both sympathy and, “One or more of you is the bad person(s) here, so I’m hesitant to like you or feel compassion”. It’s fun not knowing. Ms Ware shaped them all so well, letting the reader come to their own conclusions, nothing was overtly obvious. So many books in this genre fall into cliches; this one never did. And I like how the family grappled at first with embracing Hal ... this complete stranger thrust into their lives/complicated emotions regarding their mother, her death, and the house. That aspect was another so well done. I liked them all for most of the book, but again, knew evil lurked among them, and knew some of my sympathy would be wasted at some point.The side story with Hal and the loan sharks. Fear for her.The great research Ms Ware must have done, and included, about Tarot cards/readings. Not a subject I’ve ever believed or had much interest in, but wow, I really got into it more and more ... and the explanations of how Hal and her mother didn’t take it literally, but could read them figuratively. It was so fascinating to me.The ending was great. I won’t say more, just that it was satisfying in many ways. Again, rare for this genre. It makes me wish I was in a book club, I want to discuss this book with others!Thank you, Ms Ware, for such an entertaining book! It was well worth the wait. I’m just sad it’s over and that we won’t get to see how young Hal’s life turned out afterwards. I’ll miss her and the family (well, some of them). I highly recommend this book to anyone, not just psychological suspense fans. And I really think this would make a great movie!

Minor spoilers aheadI agree with other reviewers that this book was plodding, unnecessarily long and trying at times. I quit reading after the denouement and skimmed. I was surprised how much left there was to slog through! I really enjoyed the turn of the key and was hoping for more of the same here…but the former must have had a better editor. It was much tighter storytelling, much better pacing and most importantly lacked the verbosity and “telling” in this book. So much telling. “…she thought. But didn’t say it.” Yes, that’s what thinking something means. You don’t have to tell us it also went unsaid.There are other plot points that felt flimsy b/c they didn’t go anywhere…why create a loan shark subplot if you’re not going to do anything with it. Something that strong in the present needs to go somewhere. She also could have used some of the pointless telling in the book to flesh out the characters. The matriarch is a hardcore bitch for no reason, her faithful servant is too. Why? Why did they favor one child so much over the others?Ppl say this is a take on Rebecca, but the reason why the evil maid in Rebecca isn’t fleshed out is because the book isn’t about her…the message is bigger than her. She’s a conduit to personal growth along with building tension.With no bigger message here…the characters need to have their motivations. Only the flimsiest throwaway ones are given, if given at all, making this a very shallow read, that’s often boring. Sorry.

This is the first novel I've read by Ruth Ware, and if this is the standard I can expect then it'll probably be my last.I was expecting a mystery with a gothic feel. After all, a long-lost inheritance, a supposed scam, family secrets and a stately pile in Cornwall, complete with a sinister housekeeper sounded like Agatha Christie by way of Daphne du Maurier. Unfortunately, though, this is a book full of literary tropes and clichés, none of which are executed particularly well.If you haven't read this novel yet and don't want any spoilers, stop reading now.My first issue (which seemed like a recurrent problem) was how much repetition the author threw into certain parts. For example, she spends a long time establishing that Hal (the young woman who believes she's been mistakenly left in the eponymous Mrs Westaway's will) is a decent person but has fallen on hard times. There's the unpaid bills, threatening debt collectors, insufficient money for meals ... It seems that the early chapters are an attempt to establish how and why Hal decides to pretend she's Mrs Westaway's granddaughter, even though she knows she's not. And this theme resurfaces later on. And while I understand the author wants to paint the main protagonist in a positive light, it just felt too long and too laboured. It's the same with all the tarot readings throughout the book, which just felt like filler material. I got bored in the end by Hal's constant references to tarot.My next issue was with Trepassen House itself and the location. What a wasted opportunity. The author simply failed to paint a convincing or gripping enough picture of an old, decrepit home in a remote Cornish location. In fact, there was nothing of Cornwall about this novel at all - it could have been set anywhere. Apart from the odd reference to the sea or cliffs, or someone's Cornish burr, it just didn't work. It was woefully disappointing in this respect. What could have been dark, gloomy and sinister was simply droll. And the same goes for the housekeeper - there just wasn't enough done with the character. At one point, when Hal feels sure she's being spied on by her and that she may, in fact, be able to walk without her cane, my interest was piqued. However, this didn't really go anywhere - and it never was explained how the housekeeper had seemed to manage to move around easily after all.The plot itself is so predictable. At one point, where Hal is considering if it could possibly be true and she really was Mrs Westaway's long lost granddaughter, I actually inserted a note on my Kindle saying: 'no, you're her great niece'. And that was it, at 31% in (sooner, actually) I had the plot figured out. And, believe me, I'm not someone who's that great at working out plots. But this one was paper thin. The problem is, there's a relatively small cast of characters, you know there's a family secret, you know from diary entries that the person writing them is Hal's mother (and that she's a cousin of the Westaways) - and I also figured out that her father had to be one of the cousins (thus making her a niece and a granddaughter too). It wasn't exactly a knotty mystery.Really, I was glad to finish this book and move on to another. It felt formulaic, unimaginative and there just wasn't enough atmosphere or pace to it to make it a good read. The cover was fantastic though - just a shame the book itself didn't live up to that.

I didn’t enjoy this book at all. As others have said before, it dragged and plodded and seemed too,long, too slow and then rushed to conclude the pretty improbable story in the last 30 pages.My main issues were these: the characters was 2 dimensional and lacked any credible characteristics beyond broad stereotypes so it was hard to feel any interest, empathy or sympathy for any of them, including the heroine who was improbably called Hal.If you were being kind you’d say that the writer gives a nod to Daphne Du Maurier and Agatha Christie, if you were being less generous you’d say she plundered their back catalogues and cooked their style and plots except it didn’t work transporting the stilted dialogue to modern day. When reading how the characters behaved and what they said you’d be forgiven for thinking the book was set somewhere between the 1930s and 1950s not modern day, so when there is suddenly mention of people listening to The Pixies it jars completely.I also wonder why the writer decided to base the main part of the story in Cornwall, a part from the train going to Penzance there was absolutely no description of either the villages, scenery, cliffs, coastline or anything else. A few characters had a Cornish accent and that was it. This seems like a wasted opportunity. I wondered if the writer has ever been to Cornwall, even in bad weather it’s hardly going to take 3 hours to drive to Bodmin! The same criticism is true of Brighton where the book starts, apart from the West Pier there is no description of the twin or the sea or anything else to add atmosphere or tie it to the location.Finally, the writing. When the writer first describes Hal holding a suitcase in front of her “like a shield” I though it was a good description, the second time she is described as holding her suitcase in front of her like a shield I thought ‘oh dear’, the third time she held her dry clothes in front of her like a shield, I thought ‘surely not’, the fourth time she held a book in front of her like a shield I just laughed. It was just so lazy. I’m a big a fan as anyone of a good simile but you really can’t use the same one 4 times in one book!I thought the story was silly and the book lacked atmosphere, a sense of place and believable characters. I wouldn’t recommend it.

The Death of Mrs Westaway is not packed full of action, nor would I call it a thriller. It has quite a slow pace but it’s nevertheless incredibly engrossing and as the tension gradually builds up throughout the story, I felt I just couldn’t put it down. It’s an intensely gripping mystery that held my attention, kept me guessing and I devoured it in one day. The Westaway family has secrets like no other and I enjoyed trying to unravel them.I found this to be quite the dark and haunting story, set against the glorious and slightly creepy feeling of a neglected mansion. It oozes atmosphere and has that delightful gothic vibe to it. The immensely mysterious and character-driven plot full of intrigue had me completely enthralled from start to finish and Ruth Ware’s brilliant writing totally won me over.

I am always excited when a Ruth Ware book comes out - I’ve been hooked since Dark Dark Wood, but I was beyond disappointed with this one. There was too much internal dialogue with Hal, and too much unnecessary, repetitive text convincing us she’s a good person. The plot was a good one but it just lumbered on and never really went anywhere. I was irrated by Hal in the end and lost interest in the outcome of her story.Ruth’s passion for research comes across in bucket loads. The beautiful way she described the individual tarot cards was almost spellbinding but the story just didn’t have enough balls for me.

The story follows Hal, a meek 21 year old fortune teller who lost her mother in a car accident three years ago. Since her mother’s untimely death, Hal has struggled to pay her bills and keep food on the table. We soon learn the extent of her financial troubles when we are introduced to a loan shark harassing Hal, threatening to kill her if she doesn’t pay up.Then, on a day like any other, Hal receives a mysterious letter from a solicitor wherein she is told she is to inherit a substantial bequest from her Cornish grandmother, Mrs Hester Westaway. The letter has seemingly been sent in error as Hal’s real grandparents died over 20 years ago. But, given her money problems, she wonders if she can con her way into getting the money.On a cold and gloomy day, Hal makes her way to Mrs Westaway’s home for the funeral and to meet her “family”. But, once there, it becomes clear to Hal that something is not quite right and that she may, in fact, be entwined in the dark history of the Westaways; a history which someone appears adamantly determined to keep hidden, whatever the cost.I liked the overall premise of this book and initially found the storytelling highly atmospheric and exceptionally compelling. The writing was nicely paced and I was rooting for Hal throughout. But, sadly, about a quarter into the book, I guessed a few of the main twists and found the text repeating itself without adding anything further to the story. Overall, an OK read, but nothing mind blowing.