The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

If you want a book that begins with a terrifying event (home Invasion) and ends in murder and suicide than this is the book for you!  The heroine is Lo Blacklock, a travel journalist who drinks a bit too much and has the worst luck of any person you could imagine.  Just days after being robbed in her apartment she leaves for a cruise which is also a job.  How bad can a cruise on a luxury liner be as an assignment?

Lo knows several of the other guests, was once in a relationship with one of them, and is uncomfortable in her own soul, let alone in the assignment which she thinks will make a difference in her career. A couple of issues arise almost immediately though. First, she is claustrophobic and being confined to a boat with only ten cabins is probably not a great idea. Secondly, the first night after consuming alcohol she steps out on her balcony to clear her head, hears a splash, sees blood on the screen of the next door cabin and believes a passenger is in danger if not dead. Only problem, Cabin ten is unoccupied!

So many things happen to keep the reader guessing about the case or even if there is one. As the book progresses one can begin to figure out the mystery but you are still surprised with the outcome. Friends are enemies, enemies are friends. People who aren’t are and those who are aren’t. Without giving too much away, I like the way the book ends. I think everyone is given proper justice and Lo realizes that she is much more than she though.  She has hope for the future and looks forward to new beginnings.

Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly

I am beginning to enjoy historical fiction more these days thanks to the book club selections we have been reading. Lilac Girls is one such book.  Set during WWII, it is three stories of women who each play a different role during the war but whose paths are destined to coincide. Caroline Ferriday, an American socialite and actress works to find assistance for French refugees, especially children. Kasia Kuzmerick is a young Polish teen who so wants to do something important to help with the war efforts she puts her own life in peril. Herta Oberheuser is a young German doctor who wants to work as a doctor in a predominantly male world that she would end up doing horrible things just to keep a job. While they would not all meet, their lives were definitely interconnected.

Caroline struggles with the proprieties of the late 1930s and early 1940s. She is an older woman for whom maintaining virtue is still a problem and she walks a thin line between spending time with her love, a married French man and doing all she needs to keep the children safe and well accommodated.  I love her spirit and determination. I also love that she goes beyond convention to do what is right.

Kasia is a true survivor. I think her personality keeps her alive after her capture and internment. The surgeries she had to endure are indicative of the experiments we read about carried out during the war. She wanted to do more to help and in the moments before her arrest she saved the life of another. She lived to confront her demons, see her sister choose to stay in America, realize the life she wanted was there with the same young man for whom she took risks in the first place and to continue to question authority whenever necessary.

Herta is the hardest to figure out. I get it that she was protecting her own family by taking the job at the camp but to actually carry out the surgeries and to be responsible for the death of others when you are a doctor sworn to help, not harm is beyond me.  I also don’t see how she was able to go on practicing after the war instead of being tried for war crimes and executed.

The book is well written, keeps one interested and provides reasonable conclusions. Did it all play out as I would have liked? No, but then life rarely does. Well worth the read.