The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware

The Death of Mrs. Westaway follows Hal, a twenty-something tarot reader barely scraping by in Brighton, who receives a letter informing her that she's inherited a substantial sum from a grandmother she's never heard of. Knowing it has to be a case of mistaken identity, but desperate enough to take the risk anyway, Hal travels to the crumbling family estate for the funeral, determined to see if she can talk her way into the inheritance. Once there, she's pulled into a household of wary relatives, old secrets, and a decaying manor that seems to be hiding as much as the family is. As Hal digs deeper into who her "grandmother" really was, she starts to uncover a connection to her own past that's far more real than she expected.

I'm a longtime Ruth Ware fan, so I went into this one with high hopes, and the setup didn't disappoint. The premise pulled me in immediately, and the atmosphere is where this book truly shines. Ware writes the manor and its grounds with such a moody, gothic heaviness that I could practically feel the damp in the air. Unfortunately, that atmosphere ended up doing most of the heavy lifting. The pacing slowed considerably once Hal settled into the house, and I never fully connected with the characters the way I wanted to. The suspense elements felt like ones I'd seen before, and I found myself predicting the "twists" well before they arrived, which took a lot of the tension out of the back half of the book. I like a mystery that makes me work for it, and this one didn't quite ask enough of me. Three stars for me.

I don't think this was a bad book so much as a book that didn't hit for me personally. If you love slow-burn, atmospheric gothic mysteries and don't mind a plot that unfolds at its own pace, there's a lot here to enjoy. For me, though, I needed a bit more of a mental challenge to keep me hooked, and I found myself waiting for the story to catch up to what I'd already guessed.

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