In a Dark, Dark Wood - Ruth Ware

Here's a good tip for some people, don't invite your friends to your "hen night" (bachelorette party) if you haven't invited to the wedding. And if you get invited to a "hen night" for a friend you haven't talked to in 10 years and have not been invited to the wedding, don't go.

Had the above been followed, all the mess in In a Dark, Dark Wood could have been avoided. That being said, the characters go through a big mess, but the book itself is well put together. Leonora Shore (Nora) has been invited to the a hen weekend for her childhood friend, Claire. Nora hasn't talked to Claire in 10 years following some unsaid teenage drama. Urged on by their mutual friend, Nina, Nora agrees to attend, even though she wasn't invited to the wedding (alert, alert). 

Upon arriving, the hen weekend party is rather small. Up in the woods of North Umberland, way from cell signals and modern comforts like coffee (British people drink coffee? I had no idea), Nora instantly regrets her agreement to attend. And as the reader, you agree with Nora's sentiments pretty quickly. 

The hen weekend attendees include Flo, Claire's college best friend who is painfully awkward and a little unhinged - think Single White Female - with someone who is not actually cool and calculating but bumbling and hyperbolic. When the group does a round of introductions telling a bit about themselves, Flo only talks about Claire without offering any facts about herself. (Alert Alert!).

The party also includes Nora, who lives a hermit-like existence in London as a crime novelist; Nina, a physician who suffers from a bit of PTSD from her time with Doctors without Borders (MSF); Tom, an actor who is friends with Claire from their theater connections; and Melanie, a new mom who spends most of the first half of the book trying to get a cell signal so she can check on her kid - I sympathize, but man is this lady a downer on a hen weekend. 

In any event, Nora meets up with Claire who informs Nora that she invited her to the hen weekend so she could tell her to her face that she is marrying Nora's ex-boyfriend, James Cooper. Nora is struck speechless. She's never gotten over James - see re: teenage drama. (alert alert).

So Nora then spends some more time regretting her decision to come. And the story starts to get darker and darker until someone is killed and all the hen weekend participants are suspects. 

The story is well done, the characters are well drawn and the suspense is really good. I listened to this on audible so I would be running and then say out loud "NORA DON'T GO IN THERE" and that kind of stuff. It was a quick read too, but thoroughly entertaining. I even picked up The Girl in Cabin 10, Ruth Ware's next book, on audible because I enjoyed it so much.

If you liked Girl on the Train (see that review here) or The Lake House (see that review here), you'll like this one too.

4/5 Stars.