The Woman In Cabin 10

The Woman In Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
Published by Harvill Secker
Hardback
Published 30 June 2016
352 pages
Library book

Connect with the author I read this for 2017 Popsugar Reading Challenge. The category is 'a book recommended by a librarian'. I picked this at random from Library Reads. WHAT'S IT'S ABOUT

This was meant to be the perfect trip.

The Northern Lights. A luxury press launch on a boutique cruise ship.

A chance for travel journalist Lo Blackwood to recover from a traumatic break-in that has left her on the verge of collapse, and to work out what she wants from her relationship.

Except things don't go as planned.

Woken in the night by screams, Lo rushes to her window to see a body thrown overboard from the next door cabin. But the records show that no-one ever checked into that cabin, and no passengers are missing from the boat.

Exhausted, emotional and increasingly desperate, Lo has to face the fact that her sleep problems might be driving her mad or she is trapped on a boat with a murderer - and she is the sole witness.

QUOTE

In my dream, the girl was drifting, far, far below the crashing waves and the cries of the gulls, in the cold, sun-less depths of the North Sea. Her laughing eyes were white and bloated with salt water, her pale skin was wrinkled, her clothes ripped by jagged rocks and disintegrating into rags.

WHAT I THOUGHT

The Woman In Cabin 10 was very slow at first and I wasn't sure I'd like it but really picked up after 50 pages or so. I thought the character especially Lo were great; well written, flawed and very human - the kind of people you can really root for. The truth about what Lo saw took me by surprise - it wasn't what I expected at all. I was impressed by this because I had no idea what was going on. I thought it would be a bog-standard murder on a cruise ship (is there such a thing?) but it's more twisty and complex than it would first appear. Scattered throughout the novel are emails hinting at future events - these were a work of genius and really added to the suspense and tension, I had to keep reading to find out when events hinted at in the emails happened. The Woman In Cabin 10 is a great read.

I'm thirty-five years old and live in Glasgow in the UK with my partner of ten years. I work in a support team for a call centre. I like reading especially Joyce Carol Oates and Stephen King. I write fiction and poetry. I enjoy watching TV (Grimm, Torchwood, Doctor Who, Lip Service, The L Word etc). I like to play video games and am a fan of survival horror especially the Silent Hill franchise. I like to watch movies especially horror and anything where someone dies. View all posts by pamelascott30