The Librarians' Q&A: with Sunday Times bestselling author Ruth Ware

July 7th 2025

Like you, our librarians love to get the latest on upcoming new books, as well as dive into the minds of our favourite authors. Introducing The Librarians' Q&A, our regular news feature where librarians ask the questions!

Sunday Times bestselling author Ruth Ware returns with her long anticipated sequel, The Woman in Suite 11. She shares behind the scenes details and how the crime genre has evolved through modern storytelling.  

Your latest thriller, The Woman in Suite 11, will be published in July, and is a follow-up to your bestselling novel The Woman in Cabin 10 – picking up 10 years after the first book. Can you tell us a bit more about the sequel?

I’m returning to the main character of Cabin 10, travel journalist Lo Blacklock. Almost ten years on from the events in that book, she’s living in New York with her husband and small kids, and ready to restart her career after taking a break – so when an invitation comes to attend the opening of a luxury hotel in Switzerland, it seems like the perfect chance to get back on the horse, particularly if she can snag an interview with the hotel’s famously reclusive owner, billionaire Marcus Leidmann.

But when Lo gets a middle of the night call to come to Marcus’ suite, she finds not the hotel owner, but a woman who says she’s Marcus’ mistress – and that Lo is the only person who can save her life.

How does writing a sequel compare to writing a standalone novel?

In some ways it was a lot harder – I was very aware that I had to make this book work not just for the people who loved Lo’s first adventure, but for readers who’d never met her.

But I absolutely loved the chance to meet up with old friends again.

The Woman in Cabin 10  has been adapted into a Netflix film for release later this year – how does it feel to see your work adapted for the big screen?

Well I haven’t actually seen the finished film yet, so the real answer is I don’t yet know how it feels! But it’s been incredibly surreal and exciting to see everything come together. Watching actors embody characters who once existed only inside your head – that’s a “pinch me” moment for sure.

You’re known as a master of psychological thrillers and mysteries, and have written many novels now – how do you continue to come up with new, exciting ideas that will hook your readers?

Good question – it’s one I ask myself every time I start a new book! The truth is, I think, that most of my books are rooted in some kind of fear or paranoia of my own. So as long as there’s aspects of society I feel uncomfortable or uneasy about, I think I’ll always have material to work with.

Has the crime genre changed and evolved in the time you’ve been writing?

I think so – when I started out, psychological thrillers and domestic noir felt very much like the scruffy little sister to the more established police procedural side of the genre.

Yes, there were some very successful psych thrillers, but the established names in crime were still very much the long-running detective novelists/whodunnit writers. 

Now I think there are household names right across the genre, and writers are proving afresh what an extremely versatile and capacious genre crime can be – everything from spec fic, to historical, to horror-adjacent, right through to the cosiest of cosy crime.

I think there’s almost no subject you can’t tackle in crime writing, and the breadth of writing currently popular proves that. 

Are there any other authors who’ve particularly inspired you? What do you like to read when you’re not writing?

Right now I’m reading Jilly Cooper because I needed a break from crime! I adore reading crime, but sometimes it’s fun to immerse yourself in something completely different. But I recently adored Laura Shepherd Robinson’s new novel The Art of a Lie. When I need plot inspiration I tend to go back to Agatha Christie. She’s so good at misdirection, it’s like a masterclass in deceiving the reader. 

What’s your writing routine like?

I used to be a night-owl writer, but having small kids trained me to get all my writing done as fast as possible while they were at school or nursery, because I knew when they got back home, I would have my plate full.

My children aren’t that small any more, but I seem to have stuck with the routine. I try to get going fairly early, and get a good day’s writing in before lunch. Then in the afternoon I’m a bit less disciplined – I tend to spend a but more time noodling around the internet, doing admin, or just catching up with the business side of being a writer.

What was your relationship with libraries growing up? Do you think public libraries are important?

They’re simply crucial.

I spent a ton of time in libraries growing up – my mum was a library assistant before I was born, and later she went back to work for the library service as an accountant, which meant that we got the family perk of no late fees and an extra loan allocation on our library cards.

As a child I considered that pretty much the equivalent of being library royalty!

We went pretty much every single week, and I maxed out my card most times, reading all kind of books, both suitable and completely not.

Libraries are one of the few places where there’s really no requirement to spend money – and having that kind of freedom as a kid, just being able to choose whichever book you want, without worrying about the cost, or saving up for it, that was such a gift. 

The Woman in Suite 11 Lo Blacklock's all-expenses paid trip to a luxury Swiss chateau should have been the ideal return to work. But as her past catches up with her, the millionaire's mistress demanding that Lo help her escape, and a body turning up in the room next door, forces Lo to ask how far would she go to help someone she's not even sure she can trust... DISCOVER

Discover our Q&A with Bestselling Author Maggie Stiefvater READ NEXT

Back to news and blog...