Westaway by Ruth Ware will be released on May 29th 2018 and can be found on Amazon, Book Depository, and all good book retailers. If you are looking for a lighter suspense novel, that is bursting with family secrets and mysteries, then this novel is for you! This novel had everything I looked for in a mystery – great dialogue, great characters, relatable protagonist, and family secrets! This is the kind of book you want to keep reading just to find out more about these characters and how they came to be who they are. I read this book on an eight-hour flight, and I absolutely devoured it! I loved Hal as a protagonist, and I loved each character. The dialogue holds a majority of the story, rather than the story being set by description or thoughts from the main character, and I think that is my favourite thing about Christie AND this novel! firstly you should! And secondly, Christie tells her stories solely through dialogue between her characters.

If you haven’t ever read an Agatha Christie novel. The characters introduced later on all have such unique personalities and histories, and the dialogue was as if it was straight from an Agatha Christie novel. This may seem like I am giving away too much here, but that’s not the case!!! There is so much more to this story. The novel continues with Hal wondering if this was a mistake – could this letter be for a different Harriet Westaway? Or should she bite the bullet, go to the funeral, and get that money to pay for her financial woes? But how could this be? She has no family, and no friends – all she has are a mountain of bills, an unaffordable rent, and a dead-end job. A couple of chapters later, Hal receives a letter stating that her grandmother has passed away and she is now entitled to a large inheritance. Immediately you can tell that Hal is lonely, troubled, confused and lost when it comes to her personal life. A quiet, black-haired girl trying to live her life as best she can after experiencing a tragic loss. Shortly after, the first chapter begins and we are introduced to Hal. The book starts off with a 1994 diary entry from an unknown narrator. Westaway may be her best novel yet, and it’s most definitely my favourite Ware novel thus far. Her novels portray strong, independent female protagonists that are challenged by mysteries and thrilling situations. Ruth Ware is famous for her thrillers In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Woman in Cabin 10 and The Lying Game.

A dysfunctional family, a quiet troubled protagonist, a mystery ensuing, and secrets revealing – these are the makings of Ruth Ware’s newest novel.

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