The vaguely familiar one

Serendipity. That's really all it is sometimes. A familiar seeming author's name in a bookshop. Aghast at the price, I went ahead and started reading the ebook version. I did wonder where I had seen the name Ruth Ware before because her best selling novel name 'The Woman in Cabin 10' seemed only fleetingly familiar. Imagine my surprise when my Goodreads account authoritatively informed that I had already read this book while the plot summary did not inspire me at all!

With my typical impatience, I abandoned this line of thought and dived straight into The Turn of the Key. The nanny heroine, the remote almost Gothic style atmosphere and the fairly creepy family intrigued me as always. Well paced, the book was a great midnight read. Not enough scary parts to put me off, the thriller kept me glued to the book till the very end. I could not put it down till I figured out what exactly was going on. And only the final climax could satisfy me and tie up the loose ends well enough for me.

The author frames the novel as a letter to a prospective barrister and while this little deception falls apart very quickly (it's a very long letter - who even writes like this anymore!), it still makes for an interesting read. Personally, I found it a tad awkward and the renewed pleas of innocence in the middle of the story irritated me more than anything else. It's also a strange device since the ending doesn't really jive well and feels really abrupt. But the style takes second place to the mood created and props for the author for such a tightly written thriller.

My own mystery of the other book is still on ice but I did go ahead and start the Woman in Cabin 10 - but that's a story for another day. Or a post for a different time, anyway.