One by One is an entertaining, slow building thriller. We join Erin and Danny, the staff at a luxury skiing chalet in France. They have a corporate party coming to stay – the inventors and staff of hip startup Snoop – and the party consists of quite a mix of characters, almost all staff – apart from one, Liz. Why is she there?

As disaster strikes, the tension rises and we learn about secrets and surprises that suddenly make things feel very dangerous…

I have to say, the book starts a little slowly. I find this with a few of Ruth Ware’s novels, so sort of expected it. We get a slow build up of tension and are introduced to the many characters – not only Erin and Danny, who are relatively easy to remember as they’re the two staff members, but also the Snoop staff – all nine of them! I think there were nine, anyway – there were a lot of people to remember, and I found that at times I had to flick back through the book to remind myself of some of the supporting cast members. However, once I’d got to grips with who was who, I found myself drawn into the mystery and rooting for Erin and Danny to be OK – all the time wondering if everyone is quite as they seem…

The tale is told from two different perspectives – staff member Erin and guest Liz. I liked this dual narrative and as the book continues, it builds in momentum. There are plenty of twists to keep readers on their toes throughout. Some parts are a little predictable and some are a bit unbelievable, but it didn’t hamper my enjoyment. I wish some of the characters were a little more developed, as there are so many of them and some feel surplus to requirements, but overall this is a solid release from Ms Ware.

This is a gripping story set in an isolated ski-chalet. Ten people from a big tech company ('Snoop') rent it out for an intense company retreat where very important decisions need to be made. They're joined by Erin and Danny who live and work there. It's clear there are tensions between the employees as they split into opposing sides about the company's future. Shenanigans ensue and we're left trying to figure out who is the cause and who are the victims. I thought the writing was captivating - and I work in tech myself so loved the descriptions of how the app works!

One by One by Ruth Ware is a modern take on the mystery genre, very much in the style of Agatha Christie, and a very successful one at that. The book is set in an Alpine ski resort that has been booked out by up and coming social media success ,Snoop , a music app that has taken the world by storm. Using the ski trip as an opportunity to discuss the pros and cons of a potentially very lucrative buy out offer are the company founders, Topher and Eva as well as their most trusted high level employees, including Eliot the tech wizard, Miranda the social media maven , Rik the money man and Carl the legal eagle, plus various assistants and the one person who doesn't seem to quite belong, former employee Liz. It soon becomes clear that Eva and Topher are on opposing sides of the argument, and the decision lies in the unlikely hands of Liz, who only became a shareholder by chance. Also at the resort are staff members Danny and Erin, whose job it is is to keep the guests happy, fed and satisfied,  something that may be easier said than done with this group. When Eva goes missing on the slopes with a storm rolling in , Danny and Eliza decide that the best thing to do is get help but before they put their plan into action disaster strikes and an avalanche hits the chalet, trapping them inside , with no phone signal to allow them call for help. Trapped in a chalet with plenty of food and firewood might not seem to be the worst thing in the world, but when first one and then another of the group dies in suspicious circumstances it seems like there may be a killer on the loose , and nobody knows who the next target might be. 
The story is told from two perspectives, those of Liz and Erin , giving us a sort of upstairs/downstairs view of what is happening. Each of the women have an interesting story to tell , and as we learn more of their individual stories we gain a greater understanding of their place in the group as a whole. The alpine setting almost feels like another character in the book, so wonderfully has the author described the cold and isolation. The pacing is perfectly on point, fast paced enough to make you want to keep turning the pages but with enough time to get to know the characters and how they relate to one another. The plot is clever, and there are certainly enough twists and turns to satisfy any reader. Overall an excellent modern day mystery and one that I would recommend to any fan of the genre. 
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Many Thanks to Net Galley, Random House UK, Vintage Publishing, and the author for a chance to read and review this book. All opinions are expressed voluntarily.

Snow glows white on the mountain tonight
Not a footprint to be seen
A kingdom of isolation
And it looks like I'm the queen
 
Ever since I had read An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena, I have been waiting for a similar ‘all strangers inside a locked room thriller and ONE BY ONE, the latest from Ruth Ware is exactly that. 
Like the oft repeated mantra in my blog, have a cuppa and enjoy this atmospheric thrill fest. 
An exclusive French chalet in St Antoine nestled between the Dame Blanche, is cut off from the outside world by the blinding snow and an avalanche. The guests, all employees of a social media company called Snoop had come for an out of office business and pleasure get-together. As Erin and Danny, the chalet caretakers discover to their horror that there’s nothing pleasurable about Snoop.

The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside

The story begins with an introduction to the ABOUT team of Snoop, all 9 of them including Liz an ex-employee and shareholder of the company. As the story unfolds thru Liz and Erin, the reader is given tantalizing glimpses of the mini-camps inside the company and the underneath resentments that explodes out of the cauldron.

Now we are ten
Now we are nine
Now we are eight

Very soon a partner is missing as the avalanche forces everyone in close proximity and with no means of communication to the rescue team, pointed fingers raising suspicion and discontentment. As the mystery deepens and becomes more darker, someone is picking one guest after another for reasons unknown.

Let the storm rage on

Ruth Ware’s writing is effortless and the claustrophobic terror is conveyed wonderfully even though half of the things regarding skating and techniques were totally Greek and Latin to me. Those were the parts that I really wanted to skip and kind of reduced the panicky intensity in the story. What I absolutely loved is that the story adds to the drama even after the murderer is unveiled. The reveal, honestly feels a tad underwhelming after all that build-up of pressure. However, the final few pages with skiing and chasing had my heart galloping at a breakneck speed. 

Winter is almost here, many of the places in the world covered in a vison of white, and this book is the perfect pick for a snow-laden dark night, OK, even without any snow, like in India here, where the crazy weather is playing havoc with my reading thrill! LOL

This review is published in my blog rainnbooks.com; Amazon India, Medium.com, Goodreads and Twitter.

I read this book in a day! I picked it up and simply could not put it down. I loved the way that the employees of snoop were introduced to us as readers, like we were reading some 'super fun' small-medium business website that likes to list it's employees with irrelevant info like 'favourite chocolate bar' or 'favourite quote' to appear young modern and fresh (we all know at least one..). It quickly stuck in my head as a reader, which was great as due to the number of characters it could have been difficult otherwise! The story had me gripped from start to finish and I loved the descriptions, I could picture everything - and felt like I was down the slope in the chase!. My favourite characters were Danny & Erin without doubt; they reminded me of Inspector Barnaby and DS Troy from Midsomer Murders when they were trying to work out who killed who! A page turning thriller with lots of suspense and a host of really interesting characters.

I love a good murder mystery and have to say that Ruth Ware certainly does not disappoint when it comes to this genre. In fact if Agatha Christie was still to be alive, she would be giving her a run for her money!

The setting of a chalet in a ski resort was both wonderfully idyllic yet secluded enough to up the anti when it comes to the air of suspense. What starts out to be a great getaway mixing business and pleasure for the staff within the Snoop company, ends up being a deadly and dangerous one. There are quite a lot of characters so it did take me a little while to remember who is who. Most are more background characters though with the story flicking between Liz one of the Snoop members and Erin a member of staff who lives in to look after the guests.

Along with Erin we have Danny, another member of staff, whose character I especially loved. I enjoyed the working relationship as well as friendship between both characters. It’s obvious that Erin has something from her past that she is hiding, which added to the suspense of what was going on inside the chalet.

Tensions rise throughout the story when the group are cut off from the outside world. Its not long before its obvious that one of the people in the chalet is a killer but who? Well if you are an amateur sleuth, you are going to devour this novel. I was pointing my finger at everyone and getting it horribly wrong. This isn’t just about the who though, it also about the why and it makes for some compulsive reading.

One By One is the perfect title for this page turner of a read. I couldn’t help but thing of Agatha Christie’s ‘And Then there Was None’. The remote location with a small number of characters with murder in the midst. That’s where the similarities end though and Ruth Ware shows that she rightly deserves to be one of the leading names in this genre. The chapters are relatively short and the deeper into the story I got the less I wanted to get back to reality. Towards the end I was holding my breath as to just who was going to get out of it alive and it ended up being an edge of your seat read that had me feeling quite nervous in which direction the author would take me. A tense, nail biting ‘whodunnit’!

So grateful to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with the digital ARC of Ruth Ware's newest book 'One by One'. I have mentioned this before but Ruth is one of my favourite authors and it was her debut 'In a dark dark wood' that got me into reading, so when I received the approval notification, I was over the moon.

The premise of the book is super intriguing, a group of coworkers of a start-up company Snoop arrive at a beautiful chalet in France for their corporate retreat, but soon it becomes clear that there is a whole lot of tension among them and few of them have a hidden agenda for being here.

Soon an avalanche hits, and one of them disappears while skiing. The remaining co workers trapped inside the chalet with no electricity and communication to the outside world seem to be safe only until another one of them turns up dead and it becomes clear that a killer is hiding among them.

This is a classic locked-room mystery (which is my favorite kind of book to read) but with modern technology in the form of a Snoop app added to it which manages to intrigue the reader. Similar to her previous novel 'The Turn of the Key' where a creepy smart home system app named Happy was introduced, the Snoop app mentioned in this book is also quite eerie as it allows the user to spy/ listen to exactly what other people are currently listening to.
I honestly really like these fictional modern technologies Ruth has been using in her books to add a thrilling and sinister touch to the storyline.

Anyways, this superb mystery with its alternating narrators and suspicious characters is not only thrilling and but highly entertaining, keeping the reader at the edge of their seat from the very first page to the very last.
Talking about the ending, I definitely didn't see it coming and I must say Ruth Ware did a brilliant job at casting suspicion on each of the characters (they all have secrets of their own that they want to protect at all cost), confusing the reader to find the identity of the killer and then finally wraps up the book very cleverly.
I highly recommend this book. 5 stars from me.

Creative, deviously plotted and meticulously planned - 'One by One' is a return to form for me for Ruth Ware, as I wasn't a great fan of 'The Turn of the Key' sadly. This book however, is a crafted page turner and back to the tight plotting worthy (as many say) to the ingenuity of Agatha Christies' crime novels and their cat and mouse drama!

Highly recommended,

This tense locked room thriller by bestselling writer Ruth Ware locates techy corporates from a Spotify like company, Snoop, in a ski chalet and then strands them there with an avalanche. (Snoop is a great idea by the way...) Who kills the co-founder when she disappears whilst ski-ing? The hired hands, Erin and Danny, seek to find out which one of the (mostly unpleasant and self-pitying) millennial employees is the killer, as more bodies pile up, in a nice homage to And Then There Were None. This is a page turning and exciting mystery, highly recommended.

I loved this book!  A very clever plot, this really kept me guessing, and was a hard book to put down.  Yet another fabulous novel from this excellent author.

I found this very predictable, which ruined it for me. I've found I'm very picky about mysteries and this one just didn't work for me.

I really enjoyed this read. It was very different to Ruth Ware's other books, and I really felt the chilly atmosphere of the Alps during nasty weather. I did think the killer reveal was a bit obvious from earlyish on, but that didn't detract too much from the story as it was still a tense read.

I've read one book by Ruth Ware and even though I liked it I wasn't a fan.  I read The Turn of the Key  this year, and I found the story to be a bit boring. Some of the storylines were introduced and then abandoned straightaway and I didn't love the reveal. I actually wanted to give the ending of the book 1 star. Imagine, gothic horrors are my favourite genre….

Anyways, you're reading a review for One By One so let me tell you that I actually (surprisingly) liked it much more. I see some reviewers who prefer her gothic books, I think I'm not one of them. Instead I thought this book was deliciously thrilling. It kept me on the edge of my seat, and most importantly it kept me reading and fully enthralled with the story. 

It's about an off-site company retreat in the snowy mountains of the Alps. Snoop is company owned by millenials and the owners and co-workers try to make big decisions during this retreat. There are two hosts present as well, Erin and Danny. And then the chalet is buried by an avalanche. What is worse, the co-workers disappear one by one. 

The story is told through the eyes of Erin, the aforementioned host, and Liz, one of the shareholders. I thought this was clever because it didn't muddle or slow down the narrative too much. I think two characters' perspective out of the ten people present was plenty. 

I expected a whodunit, but really this a story about survival. It reminded me a bit of some of the scenes of No Exit by Taylor Adams. I liked the atmosphere, and I think it's a great read if you're wondering what to read now that most of the world is going into a second lockdown due to Covid-19. 

I'm now considering reading Ruth Ware's earlier works, if they're anything like this one I think I will enjoy them.

This book is obviously inspired by my favourite Agatha Christie novel 'And then There Were None'.  This new story is set in a beautiful alpine ski resort where a group of business types have gathered to discuss the future of a popular music app called Snoop.  Then the already dived group find themselves in some serious trouble when disaster strikes.   

I enjoyed this claustrophobic whodunit, and the wonderful atmospheric setting, but it isn't one of my favourite books by Ruth Ware (I've read them all).  I think maybe this is because the story is based on a book I love.  I appreciate the attempts to modernise the story with tech and twists but it didn't quite hit the mark for me. In addition, I have recently read a couple of other books with a similar setting.  Had I read it at a different time I would have probably enjoyed this story more. A case of wrong book wrong time for me I guess but it is an entertaining read that I would still recommend.

What a great read from Ruth Ware! I thought Dark Dark Wood was brilliant but this has slightly more edge. so much tension in the air of the chalet when the team and 2 chalet staff realise that people are being bumped off "One by One". Who is the murderer? Told from the aspects of Liz, an ex employee of the app company and also from Erin, an employee of the chalet business. 

The setting is just perfect, although a common occurrence at the time of reading, with a trapped audience to the murderer. Great description of tension in the chalet when they realise they could be next! You're right beside them thinking the same thing!

Possibly my favourite Ruth Ware book just after Dark Dark Wood.

One to sit and read by the fire with candles burning and a cup of hot chocolate (but will you drink it?)

So this is quite a hard review to right because I love Ruth Ware but I have found with the few I’ve read that some of them I can’t get into. I absolutely love her writing and the books are always fast paced! But for me this one was just missing something! I guessed the plot pretty early on and I guessed who was the killer, sometimes that doesn’t ruin it for me as I like to see how it pans out. But this just didn’t seem to work. I didn’t like majority of the characters & maybe that was the purpose? I liked Erin but that was probably it. 

I have been in a slight reading slump which probably did affect how I read so I will definitely read this again. I just felt like there was something missing and I wanted more from the book. But I do love Ruth’s writing and I’m such a fan of hers!

Ruth Ware is one of my favourite authors! Couldn’t wait to read this one! 

Snow is falling in the exclusive alpine ski resort of Saint Antoine, as the shareholders and directors of Snoop, the hottest new music app, gather for a make or break corporate retreat to decide the future of the company. At stake is a billion-dollar dot com buyout that could make them all millionaires, or leave some of them out in the cold.

The clock is ticking on the offer, and with the group irrevocably split, tensions are running high. When an avalanche cuts the chalet off from help, and one board member goes missing in the snow, the group is forced to ask - would someone resort to murder, to get what they want?

Ruth Ware never disappoints, this book was an absolute treat and I can’t recommend it enough!

I absolutely love Ruth Wares style of writing and haven’t missed one of her books. Thank you for the advanced copy of One by one. 

I have to say when I started reading the first few chapters I really wasn’t sure and felt a little disappointed.  There was something missing...... I’m not sure what. I just can’t put my finger on it. 

But oh my goodness it takes a turn and for the better, as all of Ruth’s books are outstanding so is this one. 

Setting the scene, a snowy start a group are stuck in a chalet... and the follows the murders one by one. 

Without being able to leave the chalet, suspicions rise amongst the group.  It’s edgy, and page turning as the narrators unravel their stories. 

It’s a cracking read. And true Ruth aware meets Agatha Christie. A cross between murder on the orient express and then there were none. Amazing.

This was my first Ruth Ware book and I was left feeling quite underwhelmed by it. For a thriller it was very predictable and slow paced but still engaging and kept me reading. The setting however was very well done and the feeling of isolation really translated well. I feel that this book was just overall let down by the characters and predictability.

What One by One does right, it does so well, but the parts that didn’t work for me, really didn’t work at all. And this is completely down to personal taste but I knew, almost instantly that I wouldn’t enjoy this book. I skipped large portions of it admittedly, so I won’t be marking it as read on goodreads and will class as a DNF. As soon as the company and the characters were introduced, or rather sort of dumped upon  us, I should have put the book down but I kept trying because I trust Ruth Ware to tell a great story and she has likely done that here but I am not invested enough to continue. Thank you so much for the advanced ecopy in exchange for an honest review. Sorry I didn’t finish it 🙈