Tag: Ruth Ware

Blurb Book Review: One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

Lyla is at a crossroads in her career as a virologist. Her post-doctorate research has ended and she might not have another contract right away. Plus, things are rocky with her boyfriend Nico, who is aging out of being a young actor.

Nico gets the chance to be on a reality TV show, One Perfect Couple, filmed on a beautiful desert island and wants Lyla to join him. Without her, he can’t go. She sees that this might be his last big chance at getting noticed for his acting, plus her work has dried up, so she reluctantly agrees.

They agree that she’ll sabotage one of the challenges early on so she can go home inside of two weeks, but the reverse happens. Nico is the first one sent home.

That night, a storm rolls over the island. The boat carrying Nico and the production crew doesn’t come back. In the morning, two people are found dead. Now, there’s only eight of them left, the radio is slowly dying, and they have limited food and water. Plus, there seems to be a killer among them.

The author does an excellent job at writing tired, hungry, stressed, and injured characters. This discombobulated state of mind is believable so when Lyla doesn’t draw connections to things right away, it’s easy to hand-wave it away as a reader.

However, there’s a teensy twist at the end, a page or two explaining why these couples were hand-picked for this reality show but I don’t think those breadcrumbs were given to the reader, making it very difficult to guess.

Having said that, the author holds the tension well throughout the novel. I was glued to it and found excuses to keep on reading. I’ve read a few other novels by this author and will likely keep looking for new releases.

Blurb Book Review: Zero Days by Ruth Ware (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

This author is really good at writing exhausted characters, this novel is no different.

Jack is a pen tester – penetration tester; someone who breaks into a facility at the request of the owner/CEO – and is caught just as she’s leaving her latest job. After explaining everything to the police, going back to retrieve her car, then driving home, she arrives to find her husband has been murdered at his desk. At first she’s questioned as a grieving spouse, but much too quickly, the evidence points to Jack ordering a hit on him.

The moment she realizes she’s a suspect she leaves the police station to try to find evidence of who actually killed her husband. In the process, she injures herself badly enough to cause an infection. Now she has to race against time to find the evidence before the infection takes over, all while dodging CCTV cameras and not using anything to digitally ping her location.

The novel is paced exceptionally well. As a reader I felt Jack’s exhaustion and desperation to find the killer. All the crumbs are in place for the reader to follow and figure out who was responsible for the death, and Jack not figuring it out quickly enough is believable because of the high-stress situation, lack of food, and growing infection.

My only nitpick is that a fair bit of information is repeated unnecessarily in the last quarter of the book. By the fourth mention of not having any bandages left, I was frustrated and wanted to tell the author to trust the reader to remember. That and other repetitive bits made the last few chapters a bit tedious. Otherwise, this novel is just as engrossing as the author’s previous work.