In a Dark Dark Wood.

In a Dark Dark Wood by Ruth Ware (@RuthWareWriter).

In a dark, dark wood there was a dark, dark house;

And in the dark, dark house there was a dark, dark room;

And in the dark, dark room there was a dark, dark cupboard;

And in the dark, dark cupboard there was ... a skeleton.

I was sent this great book by Alison Hennessey (@crime_queen) of Harville Secker and many thanks for that!

It has a disturbing and horribly believable plot.
Out of the blue Leonora (also known as Lee or Nora) receives an email, an invitation to a hen weekend, organised by Flo.

Nora has not seen her one time best friend for ten years and now Clare is getting married. Should Nora go? Should she just ignore the invitation?
(Hit the delete button! Hit the delete button!)

The hen weekend is to be held in a house in the middle of a forest in Northumberland (Flo's aunt's holiday home) with a collection of other friends. The house is ultra modern and my basic nightmare; huge expanses of uncurtained windows overlooking trees and of course an awful lot of darkness outside.

The moment by moment crawl through the hen weekend is interspersed with a parallel story. Nora is in hospital. Something terrible has happened. But what? Someone has died. There has been a car crash and an awful lot of blood. Nora struggles to remember. Old secrets are ready to be told.

No spoilers here at all but this book kept me gripped from start to finish. It superseded any other activity, and even saw me out of bed on Sunday morning at 05.30 because I needed to know what happened!

The publishing world has seen toxic marriages, unreliable narrators and this is the start of the latest trend of toxic friendships. Never surely was there a more toxic friendship than one portrayed here?

I highly recommend this to anyone who likes women's psychological fiction, tightly paced plotting and a clever and thrilling read.
The only other tiny comment I would make is I think this book deserves a different, punchier cover. While I liked it at first sight, having read the book, it deserves something better.

Thank you for the opportunity of reading this and I look forward to Ruth Ware's next book.