Published Date: April 19, 2016
Publishing Co.: Gallery/Scout Press
Pages: 308
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Leonora, aka Lee, aka Nora, has been invited to the hen party (British version of a bachelorette party) of her best friend from school. Whom, she lost connect with ten years ago. She thinks to herself that it’s weird that she’s invited and she shouldn’t go, but when a common friend decides to go, Nora makes the decision to as well.
The hen party is in a literal glass house in the middle of nowhere, surrounding by forest. If you’ve ever stayed in the middle of nowhere, you know how creepy the woods can be at night. Add a bunch of city folks, and the atmosphere is scarier when they all begin to share their feelings. Not just feelings about where they’re staying but their actual feelings about things that have happened in the past and the complicated present.
Complicated feelings that lead to lies and murder.
I liked it. It wasn’t near as spooky as I had hoped but it’s a pretty solid murder mystery. I won’t say that I completely understand the hype around this one but, I would say to give it a try. The big secret that Nora won’t talk to anyone about was less exciting than I had anticipated it would be so that was a let down.
I’m not good at reviewing mysteries. I’m so afraid to ruin plot points or twists that I avoid saying much at all.
cupcakesandmachetes 
♪Feelings….♪It’s all about…♪Feelings!♪
🙂
Anyway, glad you enjoyed this. I’m not much of a reader of modern thrillers, so this author has never appealed to me so I don’t understand the hype either. Maybe she’s just competent and people aren’t used to that? I don’t know.
I have a hard time getting thrilled about thrillers. But, I keep trying because once in awhile, one will really wow me. This was also a book club selection and the other options seemed worse. =/
Bookclubs, where the most strong willed and vocal get to bully everyone else into reading THEIR favorite book, that everybody else hates 😉
See, I could be a group person if I wanted to be. I’d fit right in! 😀
That’s not actually the case with our book club. We rotate who hosts each month and the host picks 4-5 books that the group votes on. Of course, that can still mean that the selection is lacking but I have read some really great books that I would not have read otherwise. I voted for this one but only because it was the ‘best’ of the options. If it were any other group though, I probably wouldn’t have stayed for the exact reason you mentioned.
Glad you’re not in a Tyranny 😉
This book suffers from the same thing all Ruth Ware books do: she throws on the breaks somewhere around the 80% mark. Right when things should really start moving, she slows everything down, making me want to quit. I haven’t quite a Ware book yet, though.
This was my first Ware book. I don’t know that I liked it enough to try another one. It wasn’t bad but there wasn’t really anything I loved about it.
I would argue they’re all fairly similar in feel, so if you didn’t love this one, I would chose another author. Have you read Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough? That’s a thrill that I simply adored. I listened to the audio book.
I have not read that but I’ve had a couple of people recommend it to me. I should check it out sometime.
I would definitely recommend the audio version. i was on pins and needles, and I liked that there were different voice actors for the characters; made it easy to keep the straight and really gave the characters more depth due to the poshness of the accents.
Yeah, I can see how it would be kind of tricky to review mysteries so you don’t give too much away. I think ya nailed it though! 😉
Thanks! It was also a ‘meh’ read and those are hard to write too.
It’s good this was a pretty solid mystery- great review!
Thank you!
I kinda like the term “hen party” tbh :p
Haha yeah it’s not a bad term. Now the question is, does the other partner have a cock party??
…I need to research this :p