ARC received in exchange for an honest review ⛷️

I'm beginning to think Ruth Ware isn't the writer for me. The premise of her thrillers seem so entertaining (here we're seeing the aftermath of an avalanche in the French Alps in an isolated chalet where a social media company known as Snoop are being picked off 'one by one') but there's always something missing for me.

I think the main issue I had here was the pacing. It's very slow to start, with a major influx of characters right from the start that made it difficult to keep up with who was who. When people start getting killed off the pacing does get better, but then the story flatlines again before reaching a high octane finale. This constant rollercoaster of suspense, action and then back to moments of nothing made it very difficult to keep myself invested in the story as the momentum during the slow sections was almost nonexistent.

There's also a dual narrative, which doesn't really help with the development of the storyline as we often get the same scene played out twice from each persepctive. One narrator is Erin, hired to work in the chalet with a secret connection to one of the Snoop group. The other is Liz - the downtrodden former secretary to Snoop in its early days, who has been invited on the trip with alterior motives. While I enjoyed Erin's perspective, I really disliked Liz. She's an absolute wet weekend, who spends the first half of the book running off to her room or standing in the corner trying to stay invisible. There's no injection of personality. The other characters are all highly unlikeable, or we know too little about them to care.


There were some positives though. Ware's writing, regardless of pacing, always leaves me wanting more and her settings are always highly atmospheric. Having been to the French Alps, I could perfectly place the snowy dangerous mountains and this lonely chalet that exudes malice and tension. I'll continue to pick up her books for these unique environments she creates.

Great setting, highly atmospheric, but the characters and pacing were a little off for me.

I would like to thank the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy of this book.

Ruth Ware is one of my favourite authors and I was really excited to read her latest offering. I loved the setting for this book ; an exclusive alpine ski resort in Saint Antoine, but I really struggled with how many characters there were and found it hard to keep up at times. The book was atmospheric with plenty of twists and turns and an ever increasing body count. I did enjoy it, but nowhere near as much as I’d hoped I would.

*Many thanks to Ruth Ware, random House UK, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
I was a little disappointed with Ms Ware's previous book, but I decided to give her latest offering a chance. Unfortunately, I cannot say it was a winner for me. The idea taken from Dame Christie did not deliver as much as I had hoped it would. The sheer number of characters did not allow me to keep the tack of the story, and, to be honest, I started putting this book down more and more often. I finished it, but it was a struggle. II know I am in the minority here, but this is my honest opinion.

Ruth Ware's manipulation of her stories is great but One by One is just good.

The whole premise is good but that didn't catch my attention. Quite a classic mystery novel for me.

It is fast-paced though.

3.5 stars

One by One is classic Ruth Ware. It was such a fast-paced and entertaining read, especially after the first third. It starts very slow but when it hits the turning point it never stops. It wasn’t easy to put this book down, the tension was good and the writing style was like popcorn. As it always is with Ruth Ware’s books.

Despite this, I feel like this is my least favorite of hers so far. It’s like she went back to her roots, to the level of The Woman in Cabin 10, which was a good book but wasn’t as great as her latest The Turn of the Key. Something is missing here, which probably depends on the fact that the mystery wasn’t as intricate as I expected and the plot wasn’t super exciting. I mean, I predicted the killer a long time before the characters realized who it was and I’m not a good guesser.

I was sad to notice that the majority of the characters have little dimension. That ended up being a bit of a problem because I couldn’t keep them straight for a good portion of the book. Some characters like Tiger and Ani or Rik and Inigo and Carl were the same people to me lol.

The double pov from Erin and Liz’s perspectives was interesting because as a reader you can see more of what is going on on both sides. I liked it and it worked for a while, even if the characters sounded the same and I had to remind myself who I was reading from sometimes after the halfway point. However the last part of the book is maddening, the narration keeps switching between the two after only two or three paragraphs and I wasn’t a fan of that back and forth.

At the beginning of every pov there’s also info about the characters’ Snoop accounts. I think the app was a cool addition, it gave the book a new dimension and I really loved it. But do you really need to know that Erin has 10 subscribers for the entire book? And does it really matter when the chalet has no connection or electricity? I don’t think that header was practical or useful, it was redundant, especially because the info could have been easily inserted into the actual narration and it wouldn’t have changed a thing.

The ending was a little meh, and it makes me think again about the ending of The Turn of the Key. The latter was surprising and satisfying, the former missed its shock factor and seemed like it would never end.

Overall I really enjoyed this book, it was a ride, but I was expecting more from this author seeing the direction she was taking in her latest books. I appreciate the opportunity to read this book early though. It was one of my most anticipated books and it was a delight to read. I’m ready to read the next thriller by this author!

After a spate of reading books where snow is a claustrophobic factor I have now made the decision to never, ever go skiing or to any sort of winter lodge because quite frankly I think I’m taking my life in to my own hands.

This is my first dive in to the mind of Ruth Ware and I can honestly say I enjoyed it, One by One takes us to the out of the way Alpine resort of Saint Antoine and on to an even more remote luxury ski lodge which is only accessible by a funicular railway. It is the perfect bolt hole for a corporate retreat.

The chalet is run by Erin who is helped by Danny the chef, they are preparing to host Snoop, a music app company which is about to go stratospheric but that can only happen if the shareholders agree.

Snoop is run by a young and trendy crowd headed by Topher and Eva, the rest of their crew have titles like Chief Bean Counter and names like Inigo and Tiger and they are all privileged, private school education, moving in those every so important circles, they have all been there except for the odd one out of the group, Liz.

Liz is different, she is dowdy and self conscious, how on earth did she end with this shower of millennial show offs? Well she used to work for them, she was the efficient secretary and when the company was in dire straits she stepped up and invested making her a shareholder but then she left and now she has been dragged back in to the world of Snoop which is the last place she wants to be.

Told from the POV of both Erin and Liz, we see firsthand how Snoop is heading for the big time but like all good mysteries a large spanner is stuck in the works, actually several large spanner’s. With snow falling heavily and the threat of avalanches imminent, the group head out to the slopes but on arrival back at the chalet they discover one of the party hasn’t returned and just as they are letting that sink in, the worst happens and an avalanche hits the area and part of the chalet rendering them cut off from the outside world.

Left to their own devices the group start to quickly point fingers at each other and when they discover help might not be coming, things go from bad to worse especially when another body turns up, is there a murderer in their midsts?

There is definitely a hint of And Then There Where None about this book, the group from Snoop with the exception of Liz are all such shallow human beings, more concerned about money than a dead colleague, you don’t feel any sympathy for them at all. Erin and Danny are great, Erin is just seen as help so is able to blend in to the background falling privy to conversations she probably shouldn’t be hearing. They class differences are very apparent and they add to the way the story pans out.

One by One is a great thriller, it is pretty much on the go from the start until the final ten percent - the aftermath which didn’t feel quite as exciting as the rest of the book. It definitely has a creepy claustrophobic vibe to it which I definitely appreciate.

Thanks to Net Galley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Ruth Ware has long been hailed as a modern day Agatha Christie and in her latest mystery-thriller, One by One, she shows herself to be more than worthy of the accolade! Set in a luxury chalet in the exclusive alpine ski resort of Saint Antoine, One by One is a story of corporate greed, personal betrayal, and good old fashioned sleuthing worthy of the Queen of Crime herself.

British tech start-up Snoop is the hottest music app around. Faced with the prospect of a make or break corporate buyout, company directors Topher and Eva decide to take the key stakeholders to a luxury alpine chalet for a weekend of crisis talks and R&R. Reluctantly accompanying them is Liz, former PA to the company and a minor shareholder owing to a chance offer made to Topher and Eva long ago. Looking after the group are chalet host Erin and chef Danny, both experts in catering for even the fussiest of guests and more the prepared to handle the whims of Snoop’s somewhat eclectic senior team. As the buyout talks commence, tensions rise and the weather worsens. And then the avalanche hits and the first body is found…

Ruth Ware is an absolute genius at building tension. As I said in my review of The Death of Mrs Westaway, twists and turns are her forte and there were more than a few unexpected surprises in One by One that had me turning the pages frantically!

Unlike in Mrs Westaway however, I didn’t feel that this complexity of plotting came at the expense of characterisation. Despite their being a relatively large cast, I really got a sense of who each of the characters were and what made them tick. The Snoopers are, for the most part, the kind of characters that you absolutely love to hate – wrapped up in their million-dollar world of private-school networks, old-boy investors, corporate lunches and executive dinners, they have little understanding of the realities of life. As soon as I read that one of the Snoop job titles was ‘Head of Cool’, I knew that I’d have a kind of grim satisfaction in watching their privileged worlds fall apart once the avalanche hit and reality came to bite.

Contrasting with these largely unlikable tech types are narrators Erin and Liz. Chalet girl Erin and her friend Danny, the chalet’s chef, are down-to-earth and practical, although Erin is hiding a dark secret behind her cheery facade. Former Snoop PA Liz has always felt like a fish out of water. Educated at the local comp and with a wardrobe more Primarni than Armani, Liz knows she’s only been invited to the chalet as a pawn in the corporate battle of wills taking place between Snoop founders Eva and Topher. But as with Erin, there’s more to shy and mousey Liz than meets the eye!

Ruth Ware takes time to establish her cast and to set up the premise of Snoop and the corporate buyout, as well as to hint at some of the complexities behind the relationships of the key cast. These framing chapters can sometimes be tedious in a thriller but Ware does an excellent job of balancing the need for exposition with a mounting sense of unease and tension, using small incidents to develop the characters and show that all is not well beneath the glossy exterior of Snoop.

When the avalanche hits, the tension really ramps up a notch, with the characters suddenly thrown into an extreme situation made only more dangerous by the bodies that suddenly start appearing. As with Christie’s And Then There Were None, it becomes clear that someone in the chalet is a murderer. The guests seem to be being picked off one by one, with deliberate care and menace. But why? Answering that question, and discovering the identity of the murderer, will require the remaining chalet guests, along with Erin and Danny, to break out of their comfort zones, trust each other, and face some dark realities about their pasts.

As you can hopefully tell from my review, I really enjoyed One by One. Combining a good old-fashioned murder mystery (remote location, limited number of suspects, everyone has something to hide) with some thrilling set-pieces and an exceptional explosion of an ending, One by One shows Ruth Ware to be at the top of her game and is sure to delight both mystery and thriller fans this winter. If you’re looking for a page-turning read to curl up with on a cold evening, you’d do a lot worse than picking this one up!

This is a mystery/thriller set at a skiing resort. I have a bit of mixed relationship when it comes to Ruth Ware as I love her writing style and I find it easy to read but I also think her endings could be better.

I really enjoy the writing style. I find I can read it quickly and it flows well for me. In this one there are two main povs. One is Erin who works at the ski resort and the other is Liz who is one of the guests. I liked the characters, I thought they were built well, even if some characters were a little cliche. There’s also a gay character In this book and I liked seeing the representation. I also liked the mystery aspect, even though I predicted where it was going and I guessed right. If you have read the authors other books or other thriller books then I don’t think this will shock you as I saw what was coming easily. The ending was also pretty obvious and I found this was similar to In A Dark Dark Wood.

The setting was amazing and I really enjoyed the backdrop of a snowy mountain. I liked that it showed the dangerous side to the mountain with snow fall and an avalanche. It made it all the more creepy when things started to go wrong for the group. I also enjoyed the brief bits of skiing, although I’ve never tried skiing so I can’t say how accurate it is. I liked how things went wrong, a missing person, an avalanche, more murders, no electricity or signal. It really builds the atmosphere and I loved it.

Overall I did enjoy this but I found it to be a little predictable.

I have been loving Ruth Ware's books this past year. I have read everything she has written to date (you might be interested in my video in which I read her backlist and decide what my favourite is), so when I saw One by One up on Netgalley I had to grab it.

One by One is about a group of co-workers who go on a corporate retreat in the French Alps. There's an avalanche which leaves them stranded, then people start going missing or dying... one by one.

Ruth Ware is absolutely one of my favourite thriller writers right now! I'm not sure how anyone else can compare. She is so good at crafting suspense in her books and keeping me on the edge of my seat.

The setting in One by One was particularly standout and incredibly well done. Ruth WAre spent enough time describing the remoteness of the location (and any escape routes) and the icy cold that when the avalanche happens you feel the same isolation as the characters. The creepy atmosphere was so prominent throughout the book.

One by One is told from two POVs. Erin, who is one of the hosts at the chalet, and Liz, who is an ex-employee of the company. I really enjoyed Erin's point of view, as she was a very sympathetic and kind character with a mysterious past. I thought Ruth Ware was smart to use a character outside of the main affected group to tell some of the story, as Erin was able to discover things along with the reader. She didn't have any prior knowledge of these people which was important as she had no idea baout the company drama and the connections.

Also, having Erin be a host was a good idea as these rich people treated her as part of the furniture, meaning she was able to listen into conversations as though she wasn't there.

Liz was... an interesting choice. I had no idea what to think of her for most of the book. She's very awkward and has trouble picking up on social cues. The company employees spend a lot of the book ignoring her. To be honest, I didn't enjoy her point of view as much as I enjoyed Erin's, but I can see why it was necessary as Erin ad a limited perspective and Liz was one of the group. Kind of.

I got strong Agatha Christie vibes from One by One. It was quite cleary inspired by And Then There Were None. Ruth Ware managed to pull it off without it being a complete rip off. I also got some Gillian Flynn vibes from it.

I really enjoyed trying to figure out the mystery as there were so many possibilities. It was a lot of fun to read.

I think the main appeal of this book will be the dark atmosphere and the setting. That will be what makes it stand out from a lot of other thrillers out there.

I'm giving One by One by Ruth Ware four stars, as it is very well written and engaging, but not an all time favourite. At least not quite.

3.5
The first 75% of this book was just okay, I enjoyed the story but it was very basic and didn't blow me away but I did enjoy it none the less. Between 75% and 90% was great and really caught my attention but then the remaining 10% was unnecessary extra that just dragged till the end.

The characters felt very high and mighty and we're very shallow with not much explanation to them, they all merged into one.

However I did enjoy this story, especially the 15% that was really fast paced and thrilling. Just hoped for more.

A classic Ruth Ware book, interesting setting, engaging characters and a twisty plot. Sure to be another bestseller !

Riveting read. Seemed strange reading this book on a hot day but it did not spoil my enjoyment of it, I loved the suspense and the characters and the storyline. Ruth Ware does not disappoint.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

One by One is an enjoyable modern spin on one of my favourite tropes: a snowed-in group with secrets is under threat from an unknown killer. I’ve enjoyed several of Ruth Ware‘s books before (and particularly also recommend The Death of Mrs Westaway).

One by One has an atmospheric setting – an isolated luxury chalet on a stunning snowy Alpine mountainside, a good set-up – in-fighting colleagues with history and secrets, and mysterious, surprising revelations.

The story is well plotted, although moves a little slowly at a couple of points, and I was invested in Liz and Erin’s twin narratives. I liked how the mystery was unravelled – from tragic accident to ‘uh oh, it’s murder’ – and I did not guess whodunit.

I look forward to Ruth Ware‘s next book and I still have The Turn of the Key to read so that will keep me going. 🙂

Thank you to the publisher for my copy of the book.

Snoop is the new app everyone is talking about. With the offer of a buy-out on the table that divides the senior staff, they hope an off-site company retreat skiing will promote mindfulness and relaxation. Only an avalanche hits the idyllic resort, leaving the twelve people to fend for themselves. As they start to disappear one by one, panic rises amongst them. Who will be left alive when the snow clears.

This is my second Ruth Ware book following on from Turn of the Key. While reflecting on One by One, I have a hard time believing this is written by the same author. Perhaps most of the disappointment with this comes from its comparison to Agatha Christies 'And Then There Were None'. as this turns out to be a very shallow comparison.

One by One is told from two points of view. Erin is a young woman working at the resort hiding from her past. Liz is a former snoop employee with a 2% share in the company. Between these two viewpoints, it is very easy to deduce who the killer in this story will be. It only becomes more transparent with every chapter.

A problem with this book is that there are far too many characters. Ten snoop employees (half of which are irrelevant) and two resort employees. The characters could have been drastically cut leaving a handful of more distinguishable characters, instead, most of them drift around in the background and act as fleeting red herrings. Ware, however, goes to the extreme and with more than a third of the book left to go, removes all but two characters from the action until the very end.

Going back to the shallow Agatha Christie comparison, even with an abundance of irrelevant characters in the mix the promised suspense of them being plucked off 'one by one' fails to deliver. <spoiler> three characters are murdered with only two bodies discovered, and another just goes missing. That still leaves eight people in the mix </spoiler>,

Another criticism of mine would be the book dragged its heels in a lot of places. The (not so shocking) reveal of the villain is drawn out and borderline tedious. Then after the (sort of) dramatic conclusion, there are still plenty of chapters painfully and slowly explaining the fallout of the murder spree. I feel as though it could have been summarised a lot better and quicker.

A couple of good points though (it's not all bad I promise), I liked how the first murder was executed and how the killer covered their tracks. Also, even though I predicted who the killer was, I liked how one of the main characters slowly unraveled how the murder was committed. I enjoyed the idea of the snoop app, it was very believable and I think it's a positive from Ware how she can intertwine modern technology into her murder mysteries.

Overall, this book wasn't anything special. But it's not terrible. It reminded me of the Hunting Party by Lucey Foley. If you don't clock who the killer is early on, there will be more for you to enjoy.

Thank you to #netgalley for my ARC in exchange for this honest review of #OneByOne

A sincere thank you to the publisher, author and Netgalley for providing me with an ebook copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This is not my usual genre, I’m more into romance stories and literary fiction however I wanted to take the opportunity to read something from outside my norm. And I am glad I did!! Thank you for  opening up my mind to something totally different.

This is a first for me by this author. I am glad I chose this one! I really thought i was going to find the ah ha moment in this new telling of a clue mystery. I think it was fun and refreshing. I hated all the characters but it worked for this book. This was a good one. I read it in two sittings and it was good! I liked that it wasn't tied up in a pretty bow it ended in bloodshed and that's where it needed to be . I thought parts were a bit too drawn out for my own desires but other than that it was really good!

As a fan of Ruth Wares previous books, I jumped at the chance to read her new one and I wasn't disappointed.
First off I loved the setting. A ski chalet in France surrounded by snow? Count me in.
The story hooked me straight away and I found that the way the characters were written and their personalities made them feel like real people.
It felt to slightly drag a little about halfway through but then my goodness did it pick up.
A thrilling cat and mouse chase at the end had me turning the pages so fast, the dog was getting annoyed!

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book

I loved this book. Like a modern retelling of And Then There Were None.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the arc, which I have enjoyed reading.
One by One by Ruth Ware is a fascinating story and I found the whole storyline totally engrossing. Erin and Danny are the chalet maid and cook for the ski season. This weeks guests are the company members of Snoop, a new music app. They have been offered a substantial sum of money to buy them out but Topher, one of the founder members doesn’t want to sell. Ten guests start the week and only six are still alive by the end of the week.
Highly recommended

The book was very enjoyable. It was exciting to read. Lovely sounding location. Wished I had been there. Great storyline. Once I picked it up I couldn’t put it down. Didn’t want it to end