My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Surprisingly, I hadn’t read the book that had catapulted Ruth Ware to stardom and a force to reckon with in the word of fiction. YES, and I would have surely given it 5 stars at the time it was published coz that locked room scenario kind of Christie magic has been wonderfully used by Ms. Ware. Nevertheless, I would still give it 4 stars for the addictive storytelling that the author conjures up.
This was once again my ‘don’t give up’ umpteenth time at an audiobook, and after 4 days of starts and stops, my patience at an end I finished it with an ecopy. 🙄🙄🙄 Ok, that’s another attempt gone down the drain.
The story narrated by Imogen Church brought out the exact feel of the claustrophobic atmosphere of the place. That sense of impending doom was so much on the surface that one could sense the vibrations of a disaster waiting to happen and for that, the narrator deserves a special mention. It is a talent to write stories luring the reader in but to give voice to that strangeness is brilliant.
As Leonora/Nora/Lee/Leo lies in the hospital with no memory of the immediate past, we get to see how she was invited to a hen-do of her school friend with whom she had no contact whatsoever for the last 10 years. In a Dark Dark Wood is quintessential Ruth Ware with the bleakness of the place and not a single good character to warm to, with no idea what is crazy and what is an illusion, everything going utterly crazy in a matter of a day or two. And that has become her trademark I believe; it captivates the reader so much that it was hard for me to find the patience to listen and thus grab the ebook copy and gobble it up as fast as possible.
It is easy to guess the perpetrator among the group of people stranded in by the weather conditions and I absolutely loved Nina. Who wouldn’t want a no-nonsense friend, even though half the time in the book is her being sarcastic and sardonic? The mystery of a heartbroken past that is alluded to by Leo, Nina, and Claire is never revealed until the end but once it comes into the open, I was like, huh, is that the central reason for all that mayhem?
If you are a first-time reader of Ruth Ware, I would strongly suggest trying The Woman In Cabin 10 or The Death Of Mrs. Westway. Honestly, though, I love Ruth Ware and can surely say that her books are definitely on the auto-buy list for me.
In a dark, dark wood
Nora hasn’t seen Clare for ten years. Not since Nora walked out of school one day and never went back.
There was a dark, dark house
Until, out of the blue, an invitation to Clare’s hen do arrives. Is this a chance for Nora to finally put her past behind her?
And in the dark, dark house there was a dark, dark room
But something goes wrong. Very wrong.
And in the dark, dark room….
Some things can’t stay secret for ever.
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