The Death of Mrs Westaway: A modern-day murder mystery from The Sunday Times Bestseller

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The Lying Game (2017) revolves around four girls named Kate Atagon, Fatima Chaudhry (née Qureshy), Thea West, and Isa Wilde who attend a private boarding school called Salten House. At the school, they form a bond from a game of telling lies. The poor actions of the girls' boarding school days resurface years later when they receive a mysterious text from Kate asking them to return to the mill where they hung out as teenagers. [19] [20] [21] [22] [23]

Review of The Death of Mrs. Westaway, by Ruth Ware. Publishers Weekly, 2 Apr. 2018, www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-5011-5621-2. Accessed 2 Aug. 2018. The Death of Mrs Westaway (2018) is about Hal, a young tarot card reader, who receives a mysterious and large inheritance. When Hal attends the funeral of the deceased it becomes clear that she was not the intended recipient of the inheritance and that she has become involved in a dangerous mystery. [24] Someone please give me a diagram of the tangled roots of this family tree. And a diagram of who murdered whom, please. I’m still a bit confused. We also are able to see actual glimpses of the past, and events that happened at Trepassen that help piece together everything a bit more. And Ruth Ware is able to add some really amazing, and really creepy, parallels that make you feel really unsettled while reading. Again, the atmosphere of this book is really well done, and I couldn’t help feeling claustrophobic in that attic myself.On returning to her stall, Hal, full of guilt from the reading, passes by a donation area for The Lighthouse Project, a drug and rehabilitation in Brighton. After seeing this woman falling behind on bills and trying to outrun debt, Hal shoves every bill from the woman into the donation slot: The Woman in Cabin 10 (2016): CBS has acquired film rights, and is set to produce the film with the Gotham Group. Screenwriter Hillary Seitz is attached. [30] Her hand shook as she counted out the banknotes, and then one by one, she shoved them into the slot of the ice cream cone, trying not to think of the shoes they could have bought, the bills she could have paid, and the hot dinners she could have eaten with the money” (Ware, 38).

In her crime books, Ware's writing style is often compared to that of Agatha Christie. [4] [5] Ware has said that some aspects of her writing are directly inspired by Christie. [6] Ware's protagonists are usually ordinary women who find themselves in dangerous situations involving a crime. The first two of Ware's novels feature a murder mystery with a group of people trapped, or otherwise restricted from immediately escaping the dangerous environment. Christie was famously known for utilizing this plot device, in novels such as Murder on the Orient Express. [7] Ware and Christie both choose settings and situations that foster the sense of dread that propels their characters to paranoia and often they react violently as a result. These environments create a sense of isolation for the events to unfold in. [8] Ware's settings play a key role in drawing in the reader and are as essential and integral to her story as the characters. What's not to love about old dark secrets, even older darker houses, and mysterious family legacies? Hester (at the top middle), Maggie, Ezra, Maud, Abel, Edward, Harding, Mitzi (from left to right, second row), Harriet, Richard, Katherine, Freddie (from left to right, third row) — Family tree made by using EdrawMaxIt didn’t take long for me to feel completely immersed in this haunting tale. The damp and dark weather. The old, crumbling mansion. The family full of lies and long hidden secrets. This is my kind of book! I have read every one of Ruth Ware’s novels and this is by far, my favourite! My sister is a huge Ruth Ware fan so I, of course, in true sibling fashion, had to decide I hated her on principal and avoid all her previous books. Okay, I'm joking, but that dirty wench spoiled most of the endings to the others so I have had to bag an arc to be able to read this spoiler-free. And I loved it! Such a delicious, hard-to-put-down mystery. I’m not going to hash out all the parts that confuse me, since that could simply be a bit of my fault with getting confused, but I did not find this instance to be that insightful of the novel as a whole, but it did seem to be a bit of a letdown from the eerie atmosphere being built around the family and the home itself. Once at Trepassen house, a falling down, once gorgeous estate, she discoveres that her inheritance is much more than just some money and her “uncles” are none too happy about it, with the exception of Ezra who seems to take her under his wing. The house lends a lot of creepiness to the story, including the terrible attic room which Hal is now sleeping in, with it’s bolts on the outside of the door and it’s message scratched into the window. Hal travels down to the English coast and meets her "family". She is taken to the huge, cold and gloomy Trepassen house-- a place that holds a thousand secrets within its walls. It soon becomes clear to Hal that something is not quite right, that she may indeed have a history entwined with the Westaways, and that someone in Trepassen house is determined to keep the past hidden, whatever it costs.

Ruth Ware does a great job of creating an engaging and intriguing story, and this story had all the elements to make it an interesting story for us all. We loved the gothic feel, the old mysterious mansions with creepy rooms that hold secrets, a shady family with an inheritance and one of our favorite characters an angry and unfriendly housekeeper. Lots of creepy good to this story. The Lying Game | Book by Ruth Ware." Simon & Schuster, www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Lying-Game/Ruth-Ware/9781501156007. Accessed 8 Nov. 2017. The duality in Hal was also a high point for me. Hal is physically meek, but she has an inner strength. The way Hal has learned to play weaker than she is, and then her shows of surprising resilience and bravery were so wonderful. Hal is an easy character to admire and to root for. Hal is someone who has been cast aside in every way, but she has never allowed it to diminish her. Hal is caring but self-preserving. Hal is honest but deceptive. Hal is calculating but impulsive. Gonzalez, Vilma. "Love in Suspense recommended read: 'The Woman in Cabin 10' by Ruth Ware." Happy Ever After - USA Today, happyeverafter.usatoday.com/2016/07/11/vilma-gonzalez-recommended-read-the-woman-in-cabin-10-ruth-ware/. Accessed 8 Nov. 2017.In best-selling author Ruth Ware’s fourth novel, The Death of Mrs. Westaway , a young tarot card reader in dire straits is unexpectedly invited to the reading of a will. Though she believes she has been mistakenly named a beneficiary, she decides to take advantage of the opportunity to acquire some much-needed cash. Principal characters Magpies are an omnipresent symbol in the novel. This begins with the book’s epigraph, where we find the old saying, “One for sorrow / Two for joy / Three for a girl / Four for a boy / Five for silver / Six for gold / Seven for a secret / Never to be told.” Discuss the significance of magpies in the story. I wanted to be pulled under by the weight of it and the story definitely did not disappoint in that regard. Nonetheless, Hal decides to attend the funeral and find out about the money. Through her work as a tarot card reader, she has honed her skills of reading people and their lives, without giving too much of herself away. Hal hesitates, not necessarily wanting to deceive strangers and commit fraud, but feeling she doesn’t have any other option to get some cash. Plus, she thinks if anyone can pull it off, it’s her. In the novel The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware, twenty-one-year-old Harriet “Hal” Westaway was struggling to make ends meet when she received notification she had been named as a beneficiary in Mrs. Westaway’s will. Even though Hal knew she was not the granddaughter of this woman, as the letter indicated, Hal decided to take her chances that her identity would not be questioned very closely and see what might happen. What Hal discovered as she became acquainted with the Westaways was both much better, and much worse, than she had ever imagined.