Thanks to Liz and Sophie at Vintage for the opportunity to read Ruth Ware’s ARC. This Ruth’s fourth novel published on 29th May 2018 available to pre-order here.
Amazon blurb:
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.
There’s just one problem – Hal’s real grandparents died more than twenty years ago. The letter has been sent to the wrong person. But Hal knows that the cold-reading techniques she’s honed as a seaside fortune teller could help her con her way to getting the money. If anyone has the skills to turn up at a stranger’s funeral and claim a bequest they’re not entitled to, it’s her.
Hal makes a choice that will change her life for ever. But once she embarks on her deception, there is no going back. She must keep going or risk losing everything, even her life…
My reading experience:
This has all the perfect ingredients for a sideshow freak like me – a tarot booth on the seafront pier, a mysterious old house, a room with bars, a case of mistaken identity, curious old photographs and a controversial reading of a Will. Essentially, I was hooked.
From the writer of In a dark dark wood, Cabin 10 and The Lying Game, comes a mystery thriller … I could feel the polar sensations of the tarot booth – the summer season sunshine and the dark side of emptiness and threat. I could sense the desperation of our protagonist Hal (Harriet) drawn to a funeral out of fear and curiosity.
Hal finds much more than the few hundred quid she was hoping for at the funeral, but often when wishes come true it’s a rollercoaster of emotions to deal with, and this is a story to prove that.
Ruth writes in such a way to keep the reader tantalised. There is so much more than a mystery to unravel, and the characterisation is such that the reader shares our protagonist’s fear and anxieties. As ever the author uses a light touch for the most part but as the secrets unravel, the writing becomes intense and leading, visceral description urging the reader onwards to the conclusion. In this tale, the old house in the photograph Trepassen, is a foreboding place, and even when you’re used to doing Tarot readings for punters, you sometimes get it wrong for yourself. Not everything is what it seems …
Highly recommend this read. There is no let up in the talent of this writer. I was pleasantly captivated and compelled again.
Appletree Books 