My Year in Books 2023: November

Just one book on this month's list. Oops. Like last month, it was a bit of a busy time, so I guess that's my excuse!

In case you're interested, here are my reviews from the rest of this year: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October

The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware (2018)

This book was a library book, and it looked so interesting that I started it the day I checked it out (which almost never happens!). I’ve read one of Ware’s other books – One by One – and I quite enjoyed that one, so I had a rough idea what to expect. The thing that appealed to me most with this one was the setting: a creepy and dilapidated house in Cornwall. Hal Westaway is a young woman eking out a living reading tarot cards on Brighton Pier after the death of her mother. She receives a letter from a solicitor informing her that her grandmother, Hester Mary Westaway, has died and left Hal an inheritance. The problem is… Hal’s grandmother wasn’t called Hester. Hal decides to risk a bit of deception and, instead of letting the solicitor know they’ve made an error, she travels to Cornwall in the hope of passing herself off as an heir. What she finds at Mrs Westaway’s crumbling old mansion is a dysfunctional family with Agatha Christie levels of secrets and resentments, and a Mrs Danvers-esque housekeeper (it is Cornwall, after all). Hal is out of her depth. For all her claims of being good at cold reading, she misses various hints that would help her avoid trouble, and she frequently gives herself away by forgetting her cover story. The final revelations are quite easy to guess, and some of the characters are kinda OTT, but you cannot fault the eeriness and atmosphere of this one.