Ruth Ware


Ruth Ware, alias for Ruth Warburton, is a British psychological crime thriller author. Her novels include In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Woman in Cabin 10, The Lying Game and The Death of Mrs Westaway. Both In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin 10 were on the U.K.'s Sunday Times and The New York Times top ten bestseller lists. She is represented by Eve White of the Eve White Literary Agency. She switched to Ruth Ware to distinguish her crime novels from the young adult fantasy novels published under her name, Ruth Warburton.

Personal life

Ruth Ware was born in 1977 and grew up in Lewes. She studied English at Manchester University, where she developed a fascination with Old English and Middle English texts.
Before her writing career, Ware worked as a waitress, a bookseller and a publicist. She also spent time in Paris, teaching English as a foreign language.
Ware now lives near Brighton.

Early career

Before embarking on her writing career as Ruth Ware, Ware wrote five young adult fantasy novels under the alias Ruth Warburton, all of which were published by Hodder's Children Books.
In her crime books, Ware's writing style is often compared to that of Agatha Christie. Ware has admitted to being unconsciously influenced by Christie and other mystery novelists of that time. Ware's protagonists are usually ordinary women who find themselves in dangerous situations involving a crime. The first two of Ware's novels feature a murder mystery with a group of people trapped, or otherwise restricted from immediately escaping the dangerous environment. Christie was famously known for utilizing this plot device, in novels such as Murder on the Orient Express. Ware and Christie both choose settings and situations that foster the sense of dread that propels their characters to paranoia and often they react violently as a result. These environments create a sense of isolation for the events to unfold in. Ware's settings play a key role in drawing in the reader and are just as essential and integral to her story as the characters.

Works

Ware has written five psychological thrillers, as of 2019:
In a Dark, Dark Wood is about a woman who attends a bachelorette party of a childhood friend whom she hasn't heard from in years. The party takes place in an isolated glass house in the woods and takes a turn for the worse. By the end of the weekend someone is dead and everyone is a suspect.
The Woman in Cabin 10 is about Laura "Lo" Blacklock, a travel journalist who goes on the maiden voyage of the Aurora Borealis, a luxury cruise ship, for an assignment in the Norwegian fjords. Lo is on the trip to further her career, but everything changes when she witnesses what she believes to be woman being thrown overboard, yet all the passengers remain accounted for and no one believes her.
The Lying Game revolves around four girls who attend a private boarding school; they form a bond from a game of telling lies. The poor actions of the girls' boarding school days resurface years later when they receive a mysterious text.
The Death of Mrs Westaway is about Hal, a young tarot card reader, who receives a mysterious and large inheritance. When Hal attends the funeral of the deceased it becomes clear that she was not the intended recipient of the inheritance and that she has become involved in a dangerous mystery.
The Turn of the Key is about a nanny and four children, written as if updating Henry James's The Turn of the Screw in a 21st-century setting.
One by One

Film adaptations

Three of Ware's books have been optioned for screen.
Ware's novels have won or been nominated for a number of awards and end-of-year lists:
Reviews of Ruth Ware's psychological crime thrillers have been generally positive. The Independent named In A Dark, Dark Wood as "this year's hottest crime novel". The Guardian praised In A Dark, Dark Wood's "excellent characterisation" and called the book's ending "mesmerising".The Independent described The Lying Game as "gripping enough to be devoured in a single sitting," in a four-star review. In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews' writer said "cancel your plans for the weekend when you sit down with this book, because you won’t want to move until it’s over."