Title: ONE PERFECT COUPLE
Author: Ruth Ware
Narrator: Imogen Church
Read: July 2024
Expected publication: out now
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2
Book Description:
Lyla is in a bit of a rut. Her
post-doctoral research has fizzled out, she’s pretty sure they won’t extend her
contract, and things with her boyfriend, Nico, an aspiring actor, aren’t going
great. When the opportunity arises for Nico to join the cast of a new reality
TV show, The Perfect Couple, she decides to try out with him. A whirlwind
audition process later, Lyla find herself whisked off to a tropical paradise
with Nico, boating through the Indian Ocean towards Ever After Island, where
the two of them will compete against four other couples—Bayer and Angel, Dan
and Santana, Joel and Romi, and Conor and Zana—in order to win a cash prize.
But not long after they arrive on the deserted island, things start to go
wrong. After the first challenge leaves everyone rattled and angry, an
overnight storm takes matters from bad to worse. Cut off from the mainland by
miles of ocean, deprived of their phones, and unable to contact the crew that
brought them there, the group must band together for survival. As tensions run
high and fresh water runs low, Lyla finds that this game show is all too
real—and the stakes are life or death.
A fast-paced, spellbinding thriller rife with intrigue and characters that feel
so true to life, this novel proves yet again that Ruth Ware is the queen of
psychological suspense.
My musings:
It’s no secret that Ruth Ware is one of my
favourite mystery writers and that I love the slow-burning, simmering tension
that drives her stories. Initially, I was worried that ONE PERFECT COUPLE
seemed to be following a well-trodden path of other novels, but I should have
had more faith in Ware’s skill of brewing a cup of her own special magic. As
the story unfolded, it soon became clear that this was a very cleverly planned tale
of murder and survival that would break the mould and offer the kind of
surprising ending Ware is known for. However, the thing I appreciated most of
all was how each character came into their own in the course of the story: if I
had disliked just about every one of them when I started reading (hence my
initial doubts), by the end of the story I felt quite proud of the survivors.
Described by various reviewers as a mixture
between AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, SURVIVOR, and LORD OF THE FLIES, this
closed-door mystery did pack a lot of plots into its pages. I’m not one to
watch much reality TV, but ONE PERFECT COUPLE gave me more pleasure than any of
those type of shows ever have. I must also say that it was the perfect story
for an audio-book: read by the very skilled Imogen Church (who I think has narrated
all of Ware’s previous books), the visual scenes had me totally hooked and
really drove up the tension! My only little quibble was with the WHY reveal of
the story, which seemed a little far fetched even for an intended-to-be
unexpected plot twist – it just didn’t gel with what had otherwise been a very
cleverly constructed story (taking this opportunity to mention the diary
entries, which had me fooled the entire time).
Summary:
All in all, ONE PERFECT COUPLE was tense,
claustrophobic and atmospheric and made for captivating listening from
beginning to end, even if it lacked the Gothic vibes I usually look for in Ware’s
mysteries. I especially loved the character development and Ware’s keen
observations of people acting and reacting under pressure. Despite my initial
doubts I very much enjoyed ONE PERFECT COUPLE and highly recommend it to anyone
who is looking for a clever closed-door mystery.
No comments:
Post a Comment