I am fairly sure I got this paperback copy of In a Dark Dark Wood as one of the freebies at Noirwich, the Norwich Crime Festival in 2015/16. I checked my books as I packed them up for moving, which is why it was only put on my TBR in April 20. But still, it’s taken me far too long to get around to it. I’ll blame the competition with Elly Griffiths for my reading time! I must check out more of Ruth Ware’s books.
In a Dark Dark Wood
by Ruth Ware
Nora hasn’t seen Clare for ten years. Not since the day Nora walked out of her old life and never looked back. Until, out of the blue, an invitation to Clare’s hen party arrives. A weekend in a remote cottage – the perfect opportunity for Nora to reconnect with her best friend, to put the past behind her. But something goes wrong. Very wrong. And as secrets and lies unravel, out in the dark, dark wood the past will finally catch up with Nora. [goodreads]
My Review
An invitation to a hen party is not my idea of fun, nor is it Nora’s. Especially as she hasn’t been invited to the wedding, and she hasn’t seen her once best friend for ten years. Ten years spent getting over what they broke up over in the first place.
So arriving at an eerie, glass walled mansion in the middle of a forest in Northumberland in November, does not help cheer her up. She only knows one other person. In fact, oddly, it seems they are all strangers to each other, although they all know, or knew, Clare. And the organiser/bridesmaid, Flo, seems one step away from hysteria most of the time… and dresses just like Clare.
The atmosphere and strangeness piles up. The bizarre activities chosen for the weekend cause their own problems. I’m glad none of my friends ever held parties like that. Come to think of it, the reason I’ve never been to a hen party is mostly that my invitations to weddings were generally from my men friends’!
This is a really well crafted, and very twisty tale. The tension ramps up with an occasional flash forward to the present…where Nora is in hospital without much memory of why. Sometimes I wondered if this was overdone, but when we get to the hospital in ‘real time’ it merely complicates the question of what memories are real, and why are there gaps.
A delightful and very gripping read, and I’ll look for more of Ruth Ware’s books in the near future.
(Sorry ladies, another for your TBRs if she’s not already on it!)
Possibly too far on the thriller end for me, but dang, it sounds like a complex and intriguing plot! And I don’t recall any of my female friends having hen parties like that for their weddings, though I did once attend the “bachelor party” (which was just a round of golf, which I don’t play) for one of my male friends. Of course, you know my idea of a great few days away is always going to involve a bunch of hiking!