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

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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. stars! Ruth Ware in my opinion has the absolute best sinister, gothic, and enticing covers ever! They have always grabbed my attention and gave me that feeling that I just HAD to read the book. It is just too bad that my excitement didn’t follow through to the end of this story though. Hal travels to eerie Trepassen House, her “late grandmother’s” crumbling estate. She thinks that she is only going to inherit some money, but she soon learns that she has been left much more. At the estate, she meets her “uncles” and uses her keen observation skills to learn more about the creepy family that inhabited Trepassen. When Hal realizes that she has a legit family connection to these Westaways, she begins to dig for more information which leads her into grave danger. Here we have some discussion topics and questions for your book club. They’re not too specific, so as not to spoil any of the book for those who may not have finished it yet.

Something about Mrs. Warren seems to echo the classic gothic novel Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier; her hatred of Hal contrasted with her dedication and adoration toward the late Mrs. Westaway, the dead woman who seems to loom over every character, is not unlike the late Rebecca from the classic gothic novel. The Lying Game by Ruth Ware, book review: A plausible mystery". The Independent. 21 June 2017 . Retrieved 14 March 2018. The family she meets upon traveling to the Westaway estate, Trepassen House, is hella eccentric and it was a ton of fun watching the truth unfold. In the end when we all came together for our final discussion as we tried to piece everything together and our heads kept on spinning till one sister rescued us with helping us figure it all out. The Death of Mrs. Westaway lead to a fun, entertaining and interesting discussion and for that reason I recommend for group discussion. The Death of Mrs. Westaway is a cleverly crafted atmospheric mystery fueled by deceit. Since I was not a fan of The Lying Game, I was hesitant to read this, but I am so glad I did!

REVIEWS

When reading a thriller &/or suspense novel I like to be able to work out the why and how and be pleasantly surprised by the little pieces of puzzles that were left along the way that I either missed or didn’t think were important to the twists or reveals. I thought some pieces of that puzzle were left out here and in some instances didn’t match-up so therefore this novel just didn’t work for me. Ruth Ware presents another storyline showcasing a female main character at her wit's end as she did in The Woman in Cabin 10. I really enjoyed that one. The character of Hal, in this one, reflects more of an unworldly young woman who has been prone to bad judgments. Her mother was killed in a hit-and-run accident outside of their apartment building. It is her mother's Tarot cards and pier business that Hal steps into after her death. She seems to always be on the receiving end of the decisions made by others. There are several references to Agatha Christie’s work in the novel. Even the title is Christie-esque. Discuss the influence of Agatha Christie in this novel. 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.

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. stars, rounded up. Read with the Traveling Friends group, this made for a fun discussion as we tried to piece together the clues and solve the mystery.The Death of Mrs. Westaway is Ware’s fourth thriller, psychological thriller and suspense novel, and subject of my third Ware review. The book was published in 2018 and said to be her best novel (at least so far). I can agree with that, because I preferred this book over The Woman in Cabin 10 and The Lying Game. The reason might be, that The Death of Mrs. Westaway compounded (and answered) nicely both of my criticisms about the previous books, which were, that the storytelling was kinda uneven. In this book we get to know Hal extremely well, but beside that, there are many meaningful side characters, and precise description of the milieu itself. Overall the writing style suited me better. I’ve recently fallen into the terrifying and bizarre world of thrillers. I love a good horror movie, or even some suspense in a movie or book, so it should be no surprise that I started thrillers. A thriller I was seeing all over social media (especially BookTube) is The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware. One of my favorite book bloggers, BooksandLala gave the book 4.5 stars, so I had to give it a shot. She calls the novel cinematic and engaging, and the best of Ware’s books so far. But immediately, I can tell I'm not a fan of the way Hal's character is written. She comes across as confused, slow-witted, and completely unable to speak clearly. Her conversations are full of hemming and hawing, stammering, and waffling. For example, here is a conversation from her side: When Harriet Westaway receives an unexpected letter telling her she’s inherited a substantial bequest from her Cornish grandmother, it seems like the answer to her prayers. She owes money to a loan shark and the threats are getting increasingly aggressive: she needs to get her hands on some cash fast. In a Dark, Dark Wood (2015): New Line Cinema has acquired film rights. Reese Witherspoon's Pacific Standard is attached to produce. [29]

McNary, Dave (16 March 2017). "Ruth Ware's 'The Woman in Cabin 10' Adaptation in the Works at CBS Films". Variety . Retrieved 20 November 2017. Shortlisted for the 2021 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award at the Crime Writers Association Awards [36] The disappointing ending is unfortunate, because Ware is a gifted writer who can evidently create wonderfully spooky atmospheres within her books. The narrator is interesting and refreshing and the premise is intriguing. Despite its faults, “The Death of Mrs. Westaway” has some redeeming qualities.Hal’s stress has been growing. Colder weather is bringing the slow tourist season and a loan shark is after her. With little money and nobody to turn to, she’s running out of options. Then, one day, Hal receives a letter from a lawyer informing her that her grandmother has died, she’s been named in the will, and is set to receive a piece of the family estate. The trouble is Hal doesn’t have any family. She looks through all her mother’s papers, hoping for some kind of connection, but finds nothing. I especially love how the tarot aspect plays into everything, showing symbolism in everyday objects such as the four cups on the table. As Hal's mother noted, the cards are not magic or psychic, but they do have a way of pointing you in a certain direction, making you notice things you'd ignored before. It was very effective. Hal had the promenade to herself, the flashing lights of the pier the only sign of life, apart from the gulls wheeling and crying over the dark restless waters of the channel. (c) Harriet "Hal" Westaway settles into her small booth on the pier in Brighton. She palms the Tarot cards across the table for another customer. Truth be told, Hal eyes each individual for clues into their current situations. The future doesn't always come easy and the cards often set up in contrasting ways. Hal recognizes that long face of desperation. She sees it on a regular basis on her own. 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 finished this book last night. It was one of those books that I stayed up late on a work night to finish, because I was so invested in the story. Hal’s dilemma had me completely immersed in the book. I think most readers will find themselves wondering what they would do if they were in Hal’s position! One thing that Ruth Ware does so well in this book (and in her previous work) is to write about characters that are cut off from society in some way. Sometimes this is done through a setting or an experience, and other times it is done through their social predicament. Hal fell into the latter category, with a dash of the first. 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. As Hal begins her journey to Trespassen House, she finds herself in over her head. It’s one thing to imagine taking a bit of money from those with plenty, but it’s another to place yourself in the center of someone else’s grief. The other Westaways are real people. And yet, there are many secrets in the home. Hal finds herself wondering if she isn’t the only person hiding something. And what will be the cost if those secrets come out?

In a Dark, Dark Wood." Penguin Books, https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1099571/in-a-dark-dark-wood/. Accessed 8 Nov. 2017. We all started off intrigued and really liked our interesting main character tarot card reader Hal. Soon we grew to like housekeeper Mrs Warren who really gave a mysterious creepy feeling to the story as well for us. We soon meet the shady family members and that's when we started to go our separate ways on how we felt about the story. For some of us, our heads started spinning in confusion with trying to piece together who is who and who is connected to who. We were engaged enough in the story to hold our attention till the end, however, we just gave up trying to put the pieces together. For the rest of the sisters, they found it exciting and intriguing putting those pieces together and couldn't put the book down till they were done. Leaving them reading to the wee hours and feeling a little book hangover the next day. After “The Lying Game” which was a little disappointing to me, I was thoroughly thrilled and engrossed in this new book. Ms. Ware has again written a twisty, dark, atmospheric thriller, this time throwing family, inheritance and sibling rivalry into the brew. The novel opens on, well, a dark and stormy night as a lone young woman scurries her way homeward along a deserted seaside promenade. Harriet “Hal” Westaway is 21 years old. She never knew her father’s identity, and ever since the hit-and-run death of her mother three years ago, Hal has been eking out a living reading tarot cards in a seedy resort town on the English Channel. When she arrives in her chilly flat, Hal tears open her damp meal of takeout fish and chips and surveys the overdue notices that have arrived in that day’s mail. Two letters stand out in the pile: One is a threat from a loan shark she naively borrowed money from months ago. The other is a missive on heavy stationery from a solicitor’s firm in Cornwall, informing Hal of the death of her maternal grandmother and summoning Hal to a reading of the will. The tantalizing phrase “substantial size of the estate” During Hal's time at Trepassen she meets a whole host of a dysfunctional family, she learns more of the strange situation and the inheritance at the centre of it. Through out this book secrets are unpeeled and unveiled unto the last few chapters where all the pieces of the puzzle fits into place.

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