Since I rely on a yearly entry from both Riley Sager and Ruth Ware, I went into her new novl with absolutely no information about it. Heck, even the title, The Woman in Suite 11, was a mystery to me until my sister had it sitting on our kitchn counter one day.
My first thought was, “hey, that sounds awfully familiar to The Woman in Cabin 10.” Well, it turns out this is a sequel almost ten years after the fact. I also can’t believe that first novel is almost ten years old! This time around, Lo is also ten years into the future, which means a lot has changed in her life since almost losing hers on the Aurora. She’s now married to Judah and they have two young boys. While Judah’s writing career is fourishing with a sweet work from home gig, Lo has been working as a stay at home mom since the pandemic.
Now suddenly she’s invited to the opening of a luxury hotel in the Swiss alps. Thinking this invitation was a mistake, it instead presents itself as an opportunity to get back in the travel writing game, so long as she can get a decent interview with the billionaire who owns the place, Marcus Leidmann. Already a little nervous about leaving her family for the first time in five years for a much needed break, her resolve cracks further when she starts running into her fellow cabin-mates from the Aurora. A person can heal a lot in ten years, but their appearance there seems diabolically deliberate.
The pieces start coming together when Carrie herself is in the suite just down the hall! Lo is a little scared, but also happy to see Carrie, but then gets thrown for a loop. I suppose if I were put into a situation as almost as impossible as this one, I might have ended up doing the same thing. Thankfully, I don’t know anyone in my life like Carrie, so I will never have to. Though for all intents and purposes, Carrie is still basically a stranger to Lo, so why she feels the need to risk her livelihood for her again is just testament to her loyal, and a little naive, character. Of course her decisions land her in hot water, but this time she’s not stranded in the middle of the ocean.
Antoher big difference this time around is that she actually has people in her corner. Not just her husband, but also the men on the Aurora that couldn’t be bothered to even remotely believe her back then. Things get complicated when the law gets involved. And even though people want to deny it, money can buy a lot of things. Admittedly, I remembered so little about the first novel, but that didn’t really seem to make or break anything that happened in this novel. I’m sure if I read them back to back it would have been a more exciting read, but nonetheless, I still enjoyed reading this one. Ware’s novels aren’t quite as good as her debut novel, but they always pass the time pleasantly.