One by One is Ruth Ware's latest thriller and I loved it! It was (is) more formulaic than some of her other novels but in this age of extreme uncertainty I found it an even easier read to sink into and I know library patrons are going to feel the same, especially as there's already a lot of fans anxious to read this. And I think that One by One will easily attract new readers as well, who have quite a treat in store when they dive into her backlist!

I’m a bit torn by this book; it’s not quite up to Ruth Ware standards as it wasn’t too hard to come up with the killer and there wasn’t a big plot twist (or really any twists), but at the same time I just had to keep reading. Every chapter pretty much ended with me need to read the next chapter to learn more and it was definitely enjoyable.

True to form, Ruth Ware immediately engages readers. However, the large cast of characters and familiar trope slow the pace of the plot mid-way through the narrative. While Ware does offer a fair amount of trepidation in this classic who-done-it, the allowance of excessive foreshadowing is anticlimactic for avid fans of the genre. Good for those newer to suspense. 3 stars.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC of #OneByOne which was read and reviewed voluntarily by #wayward_readers

Set in a remote ski chalet in France, this book succeeded in giving me chills at times! There's a huge cast of characters - any one of them could be a murderer - and that is part of what makes this such an immersive read. At about two-thirds of the way through the book, the suspense intensifies when two of the party are left alone in the chalet. Unputdownable, creepy, and satisfying - another pitch-perfect effort from Ruth Ware. Her readers should really enjoy this one, especially if they've also read And Then There Were None. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this early copy!

Unputdownable thriller!! Of this Author's books, this one is my favorite! I stayed up way past my bedtime for this thriller!

Bored to Tears!

One by One is a thriller/mystery about a corporate staff retreat at a ski chalet that goes horribly awry, resulting in members of the group being killed off “one by one.”

A group of technology executives arrive at a French Ski Chalet, but not all make it out alive. They are fighting to decide whether or not to sell the company. Alliances are formed, and the atmosphere is rife with tension. When a natural disaster occurs, the group must fight to survive, but there’s a murderer amongst them, making it difficult to do so.

Warning: Harsh review ahead.

I had a lot of issues with this book and was constantly questioning if Ruth Ware actually wrote it. I am going to limit my gripes to my top 5 issues.

Issue #1: The number of characters and lack of development. There are too many characters to keep track of, none of whom I really cared enough about to pay much attention. Some of the characters just fall off and are barely mentioned again, while others play a more prominent role. Some are only distinguished by hair color, others have no distinguishing qualities or features. Most of the characters are whiny and entitled, and I was hoping they would all die! Erin and Liz are the only two characters who were developed, but they both fell flat for me.

Issue #2: The narrative. Liz and Erin are the narrators. Liz, a former Snoop employee, now holds the power as her ownership of 2 shares in the company makes her the deciding vote on whether or not to sell. Erin is the chalet hostess, who is hiding from her past. We don’t know much about either one, except for their Snoop username and number of followers (who cares)! I didn’t find either to be a compelling narrator, but they had potential. Both constantly tell what was happening versus allowing the reader to see what was happening, which took away all the possibilities for tension and creepiness to develop.

Furthermore, nothing really happens. The plot is dragged out, andt even after the first major event, it continues to drag.

Issue #3: The abundance of superfluous details. Pages and pages are taken up with technological details about how Snoop functions, as well as on avalanches and skiing. These details don’t add much to the plot, they just added to my boredom.

Issue #4: The killer. It is way too obvious from the start who the killer is. I was hoping I was wrong and that there would be a twist, but no. I thought about DNF’ing, due to my boredom, but the possibility of a twist kept me going. I was sorely disappointed.

Issue #5: The ending. The ski chase showdown between the killer and the protagonist had me laughing inappropriately. After the killer has been identified and taken care of, the book continues to drag on. I didn’t get the final pages. Was the introduction of Choon supposed to mean anything sinister? I get the significance, but seriously, this is how this book ends? Pointless.

I have loved several of Ware’s books and had high expectations for One By One, but, sadly, this was a major disappointment.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I was given this book by NetGalley for an honest review. Honestly, Ruth Ware is hit and miss for me. My favorite by her was The Turn of the Key. She really channeled her inner Agatha Christie with this one. I thought it was going to have a similar plot and ending as And Then There Were None, but the end was although not shocking, a bit of a relief that it wasn't a copycat cop-out. I thought there was a shocking amount of avalanches happening throughout. Despite that, I did enjoy this one and was anxious to understand how it all played out. #NetGalley #OnebyOne

Ruth Ware is back with a dual-POV thrilling mystery that is going to make you never want to ski ever again. A corporate retreat goes south quickly when there's a surprise buyout offer, an avalanche, and then people start to die off...it gets dark QUICK but it's fast-paced and engaging through most of the end. 

Nine Snoop-ers check into a ski chalet in France, and things are quickly going to go downhill. Told in alternating POVs between Erin--one of the chalet workers--and Liz, a former Snoop employee, the reader quickly realizes that this company is dysfunctional in weird ways. There's Topher, the charistmatic CEO, and his partner who is actually a former-life partner, Eva. There are their assistants, Ani and Inigo, finance guy Rik, coder Elliott, Miranda, Tiger, and then Liz...it's quite a collection. Danny and Erin, the chalet workers, know these people are weird, but they don't realize how out of control things are until the group comes back from a morning ski minus one person. And then, an avalanche sends them into survival mode with no way to contact the outside world. But someone has to get to the police soon because....people are dying in the chalet. 

I really liked this book. I feel like it maybe was a little obvious what was up, but the pacing was really well done so I wanted to keep reading no matter what I suspected. It's kind of like what we all wanted Nine Perfect Strangers to be but mixed with The Startup and an Agatha Christie novel.  Both Liz and Erin are interesting narrators, and I kind of liked only getting the others characters through their eyes. Il earned a lot about skiing in this book...like I never want to do it ever again. For the record, the first time I ever skied, I broke my wrist less than 20 minutes into the activity and had to be taken down the slope (piste? lol) in one of those sled things. This book now makes me feel...lucky? 

Anyway, I really liked this book! The fast-paced nature was compelling, it had a unique cast of characters, and there were definitely layers to the mystery!

suspense/thriller fans will love this one, I've read all of Ruth Ware's books and this is my favorite! The story unfolds in a french chalet with caretakers Erin and Danny. This week, they welcome a group from a music start up company called Snoop. You meet Topher, Eva, Rik, Carl, Inigo, Liz, Tiger, Miranda, Elliot and Ani all in the first few chapters. I was a little concerned about how I was going to keep 12 characters straight but, that works out. Right from the beginning, you meet the players through their company website pages. Then, there's a headline, 4 britons dead in ski resort tragedy, it seems there was an avalanche and the power outage to the area that followed. The unfolding of the story of how this happened was a fun, suspenseful read, starting with the chapter title 'five days earlier...'

If you're looking for your next un-put-down-able mystery thriller, this is your book! I was hooked on the plot, the pace, and the setting from page 1, and read this book well into the wee hours of the morning with an insatiable need to know how it would all end.

The book takes place in an isolated ski chalet, reachable only by funicular, with a small, tense company team on a business trip. Bit by bit we learn about each of the characters, but point of view shifts between Erin, one of two chalet employees and with a traumatic past; and Liz, lonely, brooding, un-stylish, and an ex-company-employee. What begins as a company power struggle and a story of convincing a team to take a buyout vs. keep their company soon turns into a murder plot where all are trapped by avalanche.

Without giving too much away, Ruth Ware weaves an uncomplicated tale with the core foundation of Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None," but adds slight shifts to point readers in a few different directions before we find out the murderer. Some murder mysteries get bogged down by plot twists and millions of characters and setting shifts, but this book felt really masterfully contained and gave me the exact thriller experience I love to read. The setting is so expertly described that the reader truly feels the chill of the snow, the claustrophobia of being trapped and isolated, the growing cold of the house, and the growing desperation of the murderer.

This book is a contemporary murder-mystery rocket, showcasing Ruth Ware's talent as an author able to shift books from Gothic mystery to modern thriller with ease. With each book she writes, I feel her craft being honed and sharpened. Ruth Ware is quickly becoming a mystery/thriller author to eagerly follow.

One by one

Review: ⠀
When I first started reading this book I felt drawn in. The characters were vividly described, the scene was set well, the writing was fluid and I couldn’t wait to solve this mystery. ⠀
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I could tell a lot of research went into the writing because the descriptions about the chalet and it’s surroundings were perfect. ⠀
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Then I kept reading, and kept reading - waiting for something to happen. Let me tell you guys it takes awhile to get to the “meat” of the story. ⠀
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And the story if I’m being honest was kind of blah. Not what I was looking for. ⠀
So although there were good aspects to the book I felt overall disappointed 😔 by ONE BY ONE. ⠀
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Thank you #netgalley and #gallerybooks for this free ebook in exchange for my honest review! ⠀
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Ruth Ware has been really coming into her own over the last several years. After a successful debut and even more successful follow-up, Ware continued to get better and better. She really seemed to find her niche with modern gothic suspense. Ware returns to her earlier roots with One by One, a locked-room mystery, which seem to be gaining popularity lately. I love a good locked-room mystery, and have been thoroughly enjoying their current moment in the spotlight. Ware seems poised to handle it better than others, having previous trod this territory in The Woman in Cabin 10 to great acclaim. However, as much as I hate to admit it, she falls flat this time. One by One follows a large cast of characters, none of whom is really given enough time for the reader to invest in their story. The plot is still decent enough, with a snowed-in corporate retreat and a cutthroat environment dialed up to ten, who will survive and what will become of them? However, the main sticking point for me was the strange social media aspect of the story. Why am I supposed to be interested in an app that allows users to spy on celebrity's music? Why is that a thing that exists? It's very strange, and unfortunately a lot of the plot depends on the reader caring about the app. It felt silly and contrived, and took me out of the story. The book was still a pretty good time - not too slow-paced or ridiculous enough that I would quit reader, but poorly executed enough that I'll not recommend it freely to patrons. I'll still pick up the next Ruth Ware to see if she comes back to form, but this one is a miss.

As a fan of The Woman in Cabin 10, I was ecstatic to see another fun setting for Ruth Ware’s new novel. By the time I reached the second half of this story I couldn’t put this book down, as I felt like she did a great job of building suspense in anticipation of how the plot would play out. I decided to give this 4 stars rather than 5, only because I found the murderer to be fairly easy to pick out early on in the story. Overall, I found this book to be another exciting thriller read from Ware that I would definitely recommend to others.

Well-paced, engaging suspense. Well written for both level of character detail (sharing of enough personal quirks to make multiple characters memorable, albeit cliche) and selective reveal of plot points.

This is exactly the Ruth Ware novel that I've always wanted to read! She's truly the Agatha Christie of our age and to read such a beautiful homage to Christie's talent in Ware's style was a delight.

I was really hoping for more from this book! I didn't care one bit for any of the characters, I knew the "who done it" right from the start and felt the end dragged way more than it needed to.

One by One was my first Ruth Ware novel but I have heard wonderful things about her books. Doesn't a retreat in a rustic ski chalet high in the French Alps sound wonderful? (Especially right now...). Well, in true whodunit fashion, an isolated setting with many coworkers, each with their own problems, craziness and secrets is not the safest vacation!!

What starts out as a week long corporate retreat for Snoop, a trendy London tech firm, soon turns into a nightmare when a storm and avalanche traps all of them in the chalet, cutting them off from the world. As the hours go by with no sign of rescue, the group begins to disappear...One by One!

I had a lot of trouble getting into this book and keeping all the characters straight at first, But I do enjoy this type of mystery and will have to try some of the other Ruth Ware books. I thought I had the ending figured out - but I ended up being surprised.

The queen of “locked door mysteries,” Ruth Ware once again delivers another great story with “One By One.”

As 10 current and former employees of the music app Snoop arrive at a French ski resort for a corporate retreat, they never dream what is about to face them — isolation and murder. The group includes Topher and Evan, Snoop co-founders; Rik, the bean counter; Elliot, coder extraordinaire; Miranda, PR maven; Tiger, marketing; Carl, legal; Inigo and Ani, assistants; Liz, a former assistant; and two chalet employees, Erin and Danny.

Told from the perspective of Liz and Erin, “One By One” is an incredible thriller told in the vein of Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None.” As each character reels from the news of a possible buyout, evil happenings begin to take place.

Ware does an amazing job of leaving the reader guessing as to what’s going on, as the group’s number keeps dwindling. She also does a brilliant job of creating intriguing characters, each with their own past mistakes and mysteries.

One disclaimer, “One By One,” which is due out Sept. 8, does include a large amount of expletives, which is my one complaint of Ware’s works. Otherwise, she is brilliant in weaving together incredible thrillers, whether it’s a murder whodunnit, or a psychological wonder at why a character acts out in a particular manner or deed.

Five stars out of five.

Scout Press, a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster, provided this complimentary copy through NetGalley for my honest, unbiased review.

Getting snowed in at a beautiful, rustic mountain chalet doesn’t sound like the worst problem in the world, especially when there’s a breathtaking vista, a cozy fire, and company to keep you warm. But what happens when that company is eight of your coworkers…and you can’t trust any of them?

When an off-site company retreat meant to promote mindfulness and collaboration goes utterly wrong when an avalanche hits, the corporate food chain becomes irrelevant and survival trumps togetherness. Come Monday morning, how many members short will the team be?

This book was a little slow at first but once I got about 50 pages through, the story really started getting interesting. I love a good whodunnit type book and this one was definitely that. It kept me guessing through out. I figured out a couple parts but for the most part, I was surprised. This is the second book by Ruth Ware I have read and I’m looking forward to reading more by this author. If you love mystery/thrillers then I highly recommend this book. I gave it four stars. This book was given to my by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Not Ward's strongest mystery but still highly readable. A corporate ski trip gone wrong. How well do we know our colleagues. Atmosphere is well represented with the snow setting. And the characters are well developed. A predictable ending but more of a why done it with a dash of the me too movement.

Copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley