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  • In a Dark, Dark Wood

  • Written by: Ruth Ware
  • Narrated by: Imogen Church
  • Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (402 ratings)

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In a Dark, Dark Wood

Written by: Ruth Ware
Narrated by: Imogen Church
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Publisher's Summary

A weekend away deep in the English countryside takes a sinister turn in this suspenseful and compulsive debut psychological thriller.

Sometimes the only thing to fear...is yourself.

Leonora (Lee to some, Nora to others) is a reclusive writer, but when an old friend unexpectedly invites her to a weekend away in an eerie glass house, she reluctantly agrees to make the trip. But a haunting realization creeps in to the party: they are not alone in the woods.

Forty-eight hours later, Nora wakes up in a hospital bed with the knowledge that someone is dead. Wondering not “what happened?” but “what have I done?” she tries to piece together the events of the past weekend. In order to uncover secrets and reveal motives, Nora must revisit parts of herself that she’d rather leave buried where they belong: in the past.

In the vein of The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl, this gripping thriller will have listeners on the edge of their seats until the very last sentence.

©2018 Ruth Ware (P)2018 Simon & Schuster Audio

What listeners say about In a Dark, Dark Wood

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Boring and Predictable and Now I'm Blind

This book might be good, if you're a gullible little baby. This book isn't suspenseful at all. This book is an exercise is frustration because it makes it so obvious who the bad guy is and every other twist and turn is as thinly veiled. I was a few hours ahead of almost every major twist. Oh, you're probably wondering about the blind thing in the title. Well my great grandson is writing this because the plot was so predictable and the main character was so gullible and obtuse that at some point, when i was buying flowers, my eyes rolled right out of their sockets. They rolled onto the table and onto the floor and then my poor eyeballs rolled out of the door. They'd been rolling, twisting and turning ever since I started the damn book, but I ignored my intuition and listened on.

Anyways, back to the book. I feel like dramatic irony only works when the reader gains information that the protagonist doesn't possess. In this stupid book, the main character has all the information I have but can't put two and two together (for those who enjoyed this book, its four). I was legitimately walking my commute looking like a crazy person because I kept making "wtf" motions with my hands. ***spoilers dumb ending up ahead*** The protag is so unbelievably dumb that she drinks tea made by her murderous friend who tried to frame the murder on her. Not only that, but the tea tastes off and she never considers it a problem and just believes her killer friend. Like what the hell my dude. How am i supposed to cheer on somebody who acts like a complete moron. Plus she's so pathetic. Half the lines are "OMG I GOTTA GET OVER JAMES WHY AM I SO PATHETIC"

Anyways my four grand cousins just located my eyes and are working them back into their sockets. Nimble little fingers, y'know? Don't read this book if you're capable of basic problems solving .

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Disappointed

Given the tag line on the cover by Reece Witherspoon - “prepare to be scared... really scared” - I was anticipating a much more gripping and eerie thriller. As it was, there was nothing scary about it and I had a lot of the story (ie what originally happened between James and Nora, and the whodunit part) figured out just after halfway through the book.

As a protagonist, Nora’s reluctance to share her thoughts with others - or really to even have any particularly deep thoughts or personality - was frustrating. I also had a difficult time comprehending how her character continued to harbour such deep feelings about James (to the point they impeded any other potential relationships) 10yrs after they broke up. Particularly considering that A) they had only been together for 6 months as 16yr olds, and B) she had made zero attempts to contact him over all those years. I just don’t buy it. There needed to be a bigger story here to support this apparent obsession.

The narration was not bad, although I found myself irritated by the lack of consistency in the characters voices - most notably Nora (which would go back and forth between higher- or lower-pitched compared to the narrator’s voice throughout the book) and Flo (who it seemed the narrator couldn’t quite decide on a particular pitch or accent and so she was a motley crew of different inflections).

Overall, it was a decent listen that kept me engaged, but unfortunately lacked enough suspense and left me feeling a bit cheated at the end.

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5 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

A slow start...but hang in there !!!

The narration is top natch and I would like to hear more from this narrator...it was definitely well done !!!

Once I started listening it was hard not to keep going, even though I had some concerns. I certainly enjoyed parts of this story but there were chapters that were hard to get through. I found many areas that just didn't hold my interest and are way too wordy. Also the story became very confusing and I found it difficult to follow who did what. I managed to finally finish .

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Not for seasoned mystery readers

The set up was interesting and the story well told, but the solution to the mystery was so blinding obvious that I guessed it the moment after the crime was revealed. the authors attempts to throw in red herrings didn’t help matters. Usually when this happens there are parts I can’t guess to keep it interesting, but not in this case at all. Also the fact that none of the characters can see the obvious makes them much less sympathetic, a shame since I rather liked them until that point.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Georgie's Review

Excellent book and narrator. Well written keeps you on your toes. The narrator I am familiar with I have a couple books of hers and the variety of voices she uses is amazing.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Suspense fuel

I could not figure out what was coming next in this book and I could not stop listening. The audio performance was excellent but even more so the writing fully absorbed me.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Exciting and engaging

Had no idea where it was going until it all started to come together towards the end. Very clever and hard to put down.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Good performance, predictable story

It’s kind of obvious what’s going to happen and who the bad guy is. I basically listened to the last half because I kept hoping I’d be wrong and that there would be some sort of twist. But there wasn’t so it was slightly boring once you figure out the story

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Great narraration, meh story

story is kind of predictable but still worth a read/listen. the narraration was excellent

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent narration

Loved this book. Great twists. The narrator did an excellent job. I felt like I knew the characters.

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  • Amazon Customer
  • 2019-09-02

The narrator was fantastic. Good story.

The narrator did a great job what is each character's voice. The story was a little slow at first but the second half things got interesting and I was on the edge of my seat.

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • SheilaG Kitchener
  • 2023-11-12

Great listen!

Hard to pause this book.. ever! Very well done. Will recommend to others to enjoy as well.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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  • Leslie Chisholm
  • 2021-05-20

Meh

I was so bored up to chapter 20 I almost asked for a refund. Way way too much use of the f word for my taste throughout the book. The detail was eye-crossing boredom at times the first 20-22 chapters. The ending was meh. Just not a book I really loved but the last 15 or so chapters kept me going I suppose.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Heather
  • 2019-12-02

Suspenseful!

Kept me guessing til the end. I could not put it down.
A five star listen.

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