The Woman in Cabin 10

Title: The Woman in Cabin 10

Author: Ruth Ware

Narrator: Imogen Church

Format: 9 compact discs, 11 hours

Genre: mystery, thriller

Obtained: library





Summary: Lo Blacklock is a travel journalist who is assigned to write about a week on a luxury cruise on the North Sea.  When a masked man breaks into her apartment right before her voyage, she is traumatized, but still makes it onto the ship.  When Lo is woken up by a noise in the cabin next door, she believes the woman in cabin 10 has been thrown overboard.  The problem is that cabin 10 did not have any occupants and no one is missing from the ship, so nobody believes Lo's story.  Did Lo imagine this nightmare?  She knows the woman in cabin 10 exists.  How can she get others to believe her story?

Thoughts: This was a clever mystery / thriller with so many components of what makes a good book for me.  I really enjoyed the feel of this novel- scary, claustrophobic, and somewhat creepy.  The author did a great job of putting the story into the reader's mind.  I could both picture and feel what was going on.  The plot was a good one that kept me guessing most of the time.  The author is a skillful mystery writer.   She included believable red herrings.  She was also able to sneak clues in without making them scream "clue!".  Many authors just cannot do this.  It was a detailed story with so much going on and many questions to be answered.  I kept asking myself- Are things really as they appear?

I had some issues with the characters.  A couple of the characters were just not convincing at times to me.  One of the things that bothered me a lot was that the main character, Lo, went through some strenuous physical experiences and it was not plausible to me that she could have endured all of this.   She was like the energizer bunny.  She just kept going, and going, and going, no matter what happened to her.  I also just could not connect with Lo and didn't like her.  This did not spoil the story for me, but it might for some.  If you read The Girl on the Train, the experience of reading about Lo was similar to reading about Rachel.

The narrator did a really good job with this novel.  Her reading had great expression and she read clearly and at a good pace.  I didn't always know who was speaking just by listening to the voice, but it was clear when paying attention to the story.  I never got lost or confused.

This was one of those books that has to be read or listened to carefully so you don't miss anything. I liked this about it too.  The climax was a bit odd.  The rest of the book was detailed and drawn out and the climax was very quick.  Although I felt like some details were left out at the end, I was happy with how everything came together.  I didn't have any unanswered questions, just wanted to know more information.

Even though I wasn't totally pleased with the characters, all in all this was a great mystery / thriller.  Read it if the characters aren't the most important aspect of a novel to you.  If the characters are the most important- skip this one. This would make an excellent novel for a book discussion.  I can see readers both loving it and hating it. I'm sure some readers will miss some of the important details because of the author's writing style, and some will pick up each one resulting in an interesting and lively discussion.




                                                                     

Company: The Whistling Kettle

Tea: English Breakfast

Obtained: purchased










The Whistling Tea Kettle is an online tea store and retailer in New York. They have a tea room and cafe in both Troy and Ballston Spa, New York.  I love the story of how they came about which can be read by going to their website. They have a large variety of loose leaf teas along with tea ware and even some coffee.

I ordered the Breakfast Sampler.  It came quickly and was packaged very nicely.  The box the samples came in was very pleasing to the eye.  There were 6 different breakfast teas in the box.  The website states that the samplers brew 18-36 cups.  I tried the Ancient Forest tea first and loved it.  I got more than 6 cups from the sample which backs up the company's count of around 36 cups per sampler.

Today I tried the English Breakfast tea.  The sample came in a resealable bag that was good quality.  I really like that it had a description of the tea and brewing suggestions right on the bag.  The long black and brown leaves had a subtle woody scent.  I put two teaspoons of leaves into my tea ball and poured twelve ounces of water that had been boiled over it.  I let this brew for four minutes.  The liquid was a dark orange with a very slight earthy scent.  I was surprised at the taste which was slightly vegetal, yet also had a bit of sweetness to it.  It was a very different English Breakfast tea than I am used to.  It was not bold and robust like some, but still had that full body, rich feel.  The website said the caffeine content was "medium", but I could feel it kick in right away.  I added some milk to my second cup since the company stated it was "especially enticing with milk".  I had found the tea to be somewhat comforting, but found it even more comforting with the milk.

I would recommend this as a breakfast tea or pick me up tea for those that like their tea with or without milk.