Skip to main content
  Log In
Menu
Displaying 1 of 1
One by one
Book
2020
Google Books Preview
Add to My List  
Share
Copies Available
Tags, Other Editions, Similar Titles
Author Notes
Ruth Ware grew up in Lewes, in Sussex. After graduating from Manchester University she moved to Paris, before settling in North London. She has worked as a waitress, a bookseller, a teacher of English as a foreign language and a press officer. In a Dark, Dark Wood is her début thriller.

Ruth's second novel, The Woman in Cabin 10, became a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller.

(Bowker Author Biography)

First Chapter or Excerpt
Chapter 1: Liz LIZ Snoop ID: ANON101 Listening to: James Blunt / You're Beautiful Snoopers: 0 Snoopscribers: 0 I keep my earbuds shoved into my ears on the minibus from Geneva Airport. I ignore Topher's hopeful looks and Eva, glancing over her shoulder at me. It helps, somehow. It helps to shut out the voices in my head, their voices, pulling me this way and that, pummeling me with their loyalties and their arguments to and fro. Instead, I let James Blunt drown them out, telling me I'm beautiful, over and over again. The irony of the statement makes me want to laugh, but I don't. There's something comforting in the lie. It is 1:52 p.m. Outside the window the sky is iron gray, and the snowflakes swirl hypnotically past. It's strange. Snow is so white on the ground, but when it's falling, it looks gray against the sky. It might as well be ash. We are starting to climb now. The snow gets thicker as we gain height, no longer melting into rain when it hits the window but sticking, sliding along the glass, the windscreen wipers swooshing it aside into rivulets of slush that run horizontally across the passenger window. I hope the bus has snow tires. The driver changes gear; we are approaching yet another hairpin bend. As the bus swings around the narrow curve, the ground falls away, and I have a momentary feeling that we're going to fall--a lurch of vertigo that makes my stomach heave and my head spin. I shut my eyes, blocking them all out, losing myself in the music. And then the song stops. And I am alone, with only one voice left in my head, and I can't shut it out. It's my own. And it's whispering a question that I've been asking myself since the plane lifted off the runway at Gatwick. Why did I come? Why? But I know the answer. I came because I couldn't afford not to. Excerpted from One by One by Ruth Ware All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
Large Cover Image
Trade Reviews
Library Journal Review
Ware pays homage to Agatha Christie with her latest, a tense, twisty, elaborate puzzle of a locked-room (or locked-chalet, rather) mystery set at an Alpine resort where a corporate retreat goes terribly wrong. The stakeholders in Snoop, a music-streaming app, have converged on a chalet to ski, eat and drink, and decide whether to accept a purchase offer. One founder wants to hold out and go public, the other wants to sell, and the rest of the votes shake out evenly. The deciding vote will likely come down to Liz, the CEO's dowdy former assistant who was given two shares of the company in exchange for investing a small amount of money early on. After an avalanche strands the group and people start disappearing or dying, the chalet's housekeeper, Erin, tries to suss out what's going on, but she has relevant secrets of her own. Imogen Church has the narrative range of a full cast, ably voicing not just Liz's and Erin'salternating points of view but also the large cast of varied characters. VERDICT Essential listening for fans of Ware, classic mysteries, and modern suspense.--Stephanie Klose, Library Journal
Publishers Weekly Review
Set in a remote chalet at an exclusive French Alps resort, this tempestuous locked-room mystery from Ware (The Turn of the Key) centers on the 10-person corporate retreat of social media company Snoop. Snoop's shareholders--cofounders and ex-lovers Topher St. Clair-Bridges and Eva van den Berg, coder Elliot Cross, comptroller Rik Adeyemi, and former secretary Liz Owens (all millennials)--bitterly disagree on whether to sell the business to investors or to seek additional funding and work toward an IPO. The group goes skiing to dispel tension, but then Eva fails to report for lunch. Before chalet employees Erin and Danny can arrange for a search, an avalanche eradicates the exit routes and knocks out power, internet, and phones. After another guest dies, the panicked survivors wonder whether there's a murderer in their midst. Liz and Erin share the narrative, which Ware rapidly cycles to accelerate pace and amplify suspense. A somewhat contrived denouement does little to diminish the thrill of this claustrophobic, adrenaline-fueled cat-and-mouse game. Agatha Christie fans take note. Agent: Eve White, Eve White Literary (U.K.). (Sept.)
Booklist Review
Ware follows her acclaimed The Turn of the Key (2019) with another fine crime novel in the classic tradition. This one is especially timely, given that the terror of isolation is at its heart. The eight shareholding employees of a breakout tech start-up are attending a corporate retreat in a luxurious chalet high up in the French Alps. They are not truly alone, but they are trapped with their coworkers and not sure they can trust one another. Investors are anxious to buy into the start-up, but only half of the employees want to sell. Most significantly, they are cut off from the rest of the world because an avalanche has trapped them inside the chalet, and they have no ability to contact the outside world. The irony is rich. These are people more skilled at online expression than interpersonal communication. How many of them will still be alive by the time the rescue team arrives? Will their two "hosts" manage to feed them and keep them warm--and keep them from killing each other? And then one of them turns out to be not who she says she is. This is And Then There Were None rendered for the twenty-first century, and David Baldacci is spot-on in calling Ware "The Agatha Christie of our generation."HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Ware is one of the hottest traditional-mystery writers at the moment, and her sure-to-be-heavily-marketed latest will only turn up the heat.
Kirkus Review
Our contemporary Agatha Christie offers up her version of And Then There Were None when 11 people are stranded in a ritzy ski chalet and begin dying one by one. By the numbers, the streaming app Snoop is devastatingly successful, and the company is on the cusp of a major buyout--if the shareholders vote to take this route. The founders, Topher and Eva, are torn, and the other three shareholders are being courted to choose sides. Most of the pressure falls on Liz, an awkward outlier when compared with the glamorous, beautiful people who head up the company. Though she doesn't work directly for Snoop anymore, Liz is included in the leadership retreat: It's her and eight other board members at a lush, remote French ski chalet for a little powder, a little pampering, and a little back-channel business. Erin and Danny, the caretakers of the chalet, notice tension among the members of the Snoop group from the beginning, but overall it seems like just another wealthy, entitled corporate gathering. The weather on top of the mountain grows increasingly dangerous, and when nine people go out to ski and only eight return, fear and suspicion begin to grow. Then there's an avalanche, and the chalet is cut off from contact with the outside world. Soon, another group member dies, apparently poisoned, and then another is murdered because of something she saw. The survivors must split up to search for help before there's no one left. Alternating chapters between Liz's and Erin's points of view, Ware does what she does best: Gives us a familiar locked-door mystery setup and lets the tension and suspicion marinate until they reach fever pitch. Another win for Ware and her adaptations of classic mystery traditions. The solution is maddeningly simple but the construction, simply masterful. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Summary
"The Agatha Christie of our generation." --David Baldacci, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"Diabolically clever." --Riley Sager, author of Final Girls

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Turn of the Key and In a Dark, Dark Wood returns with another suspenseful thriller set on a snow-covered mountain.

Getting snowed in at a luxurious, rustic ski chalet high in the French Alps doesn't sound like the worst problem in the world. Especially when there's a breathtaking vista, a full-service chef and housekeeper, a cozy fire to keep you warm, and others to keep you company. Unless that company happens to be eight coworkers...each with something to gain, something to lose, and something to hide.

When the cofounder of Snoop, a trendy London-based tech startup, organizes a weeklong trip for the team in the French Alps, it starts out as a corporate retreat like any other: PowerPoint presentations and strategy sessions broken up by mandatory bonding on the slopes. But as soon as one shareholder upends the agenda by pushing a lucrative but contentious buyout offer, tensions simmer and loyalties are tested. The storm brewing inside the chalet is no match for the one outside, however, and a devastating avalanche leaves the group cut off from all access to the outside world. Even worse, one Snooper hadn't made it back from the slopes when the avalanche hit.

As each hour passes without any sign of rescue, panic mounts, the chalet grows colder, and the group dwindles further...one by one.
Librarian's View
Displaying 1 of 1