The Death of Mrs Westaway

The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware

Published by Harvill Secker

June 2018

When Harriet Westaway receives an unexpected letter telling her she’s inherited a substantial bequest from her Cornish grandmother, it seems like the answer to her prayers. She owes money to a loan shark and the threats are getting increasingly aggressive: she needs to get her hands on some cash fast.

There's just one problem - Hal's real grandparents died more than twenty years ago. The letter has been sent to the wrong person. But Hal knows that the cold-reading techniques she’s honed as a seaside fortune teller could help her con her way to getting the money. If anyone has the skills to turn up at a stranger's funeral and claim a bequest they’re not entitled to, it’s her.

Hal makes a choice that will change her life for ever. But once she embarks on her deception, there is no going back. She must keep going or risk losing everything, even her life…

I've read all of Ruth Ware's others books so of course when NetGalley offered up a copy of her latest novel I wasn't going to say no!  The Death of Mrs Westaway features an old country estate, a feuding family, dark secrets, and my favourite bit - tarot cards!  Harriet Westaway makes her living reading tarot cards for people on the pier in Brighton.  She is totally self-sufficient following the death of her mother in a hit-and-run accident some years earlier, and her father has never been made known to her.  One day she receives a letter from a solicitor to say that she has been named in her grandmother's will and must travel to Cornwall to find out what the bequest is.  

Hal (as she likes to be called) is somewhat sceptical, her grandparents are both dead, so surely the solicitor has made some sort of error.  However, with very little income, and a fierce loan shark on her back Hal thinks that she can probably scam the family into believing she really is the granddaughter they believe her to be.  After all she makes a living out of telling people their fortunes based on their appearances alone, so surely she can use this skill to her advantage?

Arriving at Trepassen House is nothing like Hal expected, and for the first time in ages, she is suddenly part of a family; albeit not an especially cosy one, but it feels right.  The housekeeper, however, seems to have taken an instant dislike to her and Hal isn't sure if she has already seen through her plan.  With trip wires, bulbs that are removed in the dark, and things that go bump in the night, Ruth Ware has conjured up a gothic style mystery for the modern day.  Families are never quite what they seem, are they?!

Happy Reading

Miss Chapters x