🚢 The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware – Book Review
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐½ 3.5 out of 5 stars
Murder on the luxury fjord express… or is it just cabin fever?
⚠️ Spoiler Alert
Yup, I’m spilling the tea (and maybe some bloody mascara) on everything. If you haven’t read The Woman in Cabin 10 yet and want to stay spoiler-free, save this post and come back later.
📝 What’s It About?
Meet Laura “Lo” Blacklock. She’s a travel journalist recovering from a traumatic break-in at her London apartment. She’s got PTSD, insomnia, and a suitcase full of bad decisions, but that’s not stopping her from boarding the Aurora Borealis, a tiny, exclusive luxury cruise ship heading into the picturesque Norwegian fjords.
Lo is there to write a piece and hopefully score a promotion, but things go from spa-day to sinister pretty quickly.
She’s assigned to Cabin 9, and next door is Cabin 10, where a young woman briefly appears to loan Lo a tube of mascara (as one does). Hours later, Lo hears a scream, a splash, and sees blood on the veranda. But when she reports it?
“There is no woman in Cabin 10.”
“Cabin 10 was empty.”
“Have you been drinking?”
And just like that, no one believes her.
😵💫 Is She Going Crazy?
We start to wonder if Lo is hallucinating. After all:
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She’s traumatized from the break-in,
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Running on no sleep,
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Boozing heavily,
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And being gaslit by half the ship.
But Lo’s instincts tell her this wasn’t her imagination. Someone was in Cabin 10. And they’re gone now.
Of course, this wouldn’t be a Ruth Ware thriller if Lo didn’t go full amateur sleuth mode. Despite creepy notes telling her to “stop digging,” Lo does what any self-respecting crime fiction heroine would do: keep digging.
🔒 And Then Things Get Real
Eventually, Lo is lured to a lower deck and locked in a hidden room. Plot twist: it was the woman from Cabin 10—yes, she’s real—and her name is Carrie.
Turns out, Carrie is the secret lover of ship owner Lord Richard Bullmer, a rich, shady man with a very dead wife.
Carrie helped Bullmer dispose of said wife’s body so he could inherit her money (ugh, men), and now she’s stuck cleaning up the mess. She was never meant to be seen. But Lo saw her. Which is a problem.
💥 Escape, Karma, and the Tiniest Clue
Locked below deck, Lo does her best Stockholm Syndrome impression, building rapport with Carrie, reading Winnie-the-Pooh books, and gently trying to talk her into doing the right thing.
Surprisingly, it works.
Carrie lets Lo escape. Lo jumps ship in the fjords, is rescued, and reunited with her (confused but supportive) boyfriend.
Soon after, two bodies are discovered at sea:
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Lord Richard Bullmer, with a bullet to the head
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A young woman with a shaved head, presumed to be Carrie
But…
Just when Lo accepts that Carrie is gone, she finds a mysterious deposit in her bank account—along with a message:
“Tiggers bounce.”
😭💸
This callback to one of the books Lo read while locked up is the perfect mic drop. It means Carrie survived and is living her best post-murder life somewhere far, far away.
📚 Final Thoughts
The Woman in Cabin 10 had a fantastic premise and Ruth Ware’s signature eerie, closed-room tension. I loved the setting, I loved the paranoia, and I mostly loved Lo. But the characters didn’t always pop, and the plot twists—while entertaining—felt a little far-fetched in places.
⭐ Final rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
It’s like a psychological thriller had a baby with The Girl on the Fjord. Fun, but not a forever favorite.
🛍️ Buy the Book:
📘 Get The Woman in Cabin 10 on Amazon
🎧 Listen on Audible
📖 If You Liked This, Try:
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The Guest List by Lucy Foley – Murder at a wedding on a remote island
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Lock Every Door by Riley Sager – Another locked-in-with-a-killer type thriller
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In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware – Same author, same chills, more woods, fewer waves
Let me know when you’re ready for the next one—this has been such a fun lineup so far!
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