Jenn Delperdang
Ruth Ware is an international number one bestseller. Her thrillers In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Woman in Cabin 10, The Lying Game, The Death of Mrs. Westaway, The Turn of the Key, One by One, The It Girl, and Zero Days have appeared on bestseller lists around the world and have sold more than 9 million copies. Her books have been optioned for both film and TV, and she has published in more than 40 languages. Ruth lives near Brighton in the UK with her family. Welcome to The First Fifty Pages, Ruth.
Ruth Ware
Oh, thank you so much for having me. What a treat to be here.
Jenn Delperdang
We are very excited to talk more about your latest book, One Perfect Couple. And I had so much fun reading this book, you know, for a lot of reasons. But do you want to share with our listeners a little bit more about your latest book, One Perfect Couple?
Ruth Ware
When I try to say, "Well, my new book is about..." I tend to go in with my main character, who's called Lila, and she's a scientist, and she's come to a bit of a crunch point in her career. Stuff's not going so well. A big project that she's been working on has not worked out the way she hoped it would. And her boyfriend, Nico, is an aspiring actor, and he's also come to a bit of a crossroads. He's kind of, he's in his late 20s, and he's sort of getting to the point where he realizes that if he doesn't make it soon, he's probably not going to. So he comes home from work one day with, like, great news: "I've had this amazing offer to go on a reality TV show. It's gonna make or break my career. You know, it could turn me into a household name, just one issue. It's actually a couples TV show." And the show is One Perfect Couple, which is where the title of the book comes from. So would Lila like to go on this show with him? And as far as Lila is concerned, the answer is very much No. She doesn't want to leave London and fly to, you know, God knows where, and be filmed running down the beach in a bikini, but she wants to be a supportive girlfriend, so she says yes to Nico, and they fly off to this gorgeous desert island. There's like white sand and turquoise sea and, you know, little, gorgeous, little villas they all live in. And the reality show gets underway. Everything is a little bit, like the production values are a bit shonky. Some of the building blocks that were supposed to be there aren't there. You can literally still smell the wet paint. And eventually there is a huge storm on the island one night, and the contestants wake up the next day to discover that the boat with all the crew on it, who the crew are sleeping offshore on this boat, because there's not enough room for them on the island, their boat has been swept away, and there's no sign of it, so they wake up to like an island in ruins. There's debris everywhere. The desalination plant isn't working, so there's no fresh water. And at that point, that the reality show tropes and sort of roles start to play out for real, like for much higher stakes, for life or death stakes. And that's, yeah, that's basically the plot. The rest of the book is, who is going to survive this experience and at what cost.
Jenn Delperdang
So many moral dilemmas, right? But like I said, I had so much fun reading this book. I have a love-hate relationship with reality TV. From time to time, you find yourself sucked into one of these shows. And I usually when I'm in a reading slump, is when I find myself watching these. But then, you know, but then it's like you have to watch to the end of the season to see how it turns out. But, I found, you know, and I'm not usually satisfied, always, with the way things turn out in these TV shows, but I found with this book, the way that you crafted the characters to go back to characters again and laid out the story to just be fantastic. I I don't, I'm not going to give too much away, but I thought that the structure of the book, where you flashed to these radio calls, was just, you know, it really built the tension in the book and made me want to keep reading. And I was just like, "Oh, what's gonna happen?"
Ruth Ware
Oh, I'm so glad that worked, because that was technically quite tricky to write. The only way I can write a book, or the only way I seem to be able to figure it out is to write in exactly the same order that you read, because otherwise they sort of lose track of what the reader knows versus what I know. And so I wrote all of those radio calls as you read them in the book. So for people who haven't read the book, basically the first third of the book is Lila, kind of, and Nico figuring out how to get to this island, turning up, introducing themselves. But all the time you're sort of flashing forward to these interspersed radio calls that are coming from later in the plot. But of course, then when I actually wrote the scenes, I dated them. Okay, I've got to, whatever it is, I've got to make a radio call now. So it was sort of like writing checks that my future self had to cash. It was a very weird experience. And then the next third of the book is the same, but with diary entries, but sort of sometimes ahead of time, sometimes behind time. So that again, was, yeah, it was, it was a headache to write, so I'm glad you enjoyed it to read.
Jenn Delperdang
It was, it was, it was great fun to read. And I thought Lila was a great protagonist. She was easy to like, and she was relatable as this every you know girl next door person, but super smart scientist. So we love that about her. And you gave us plenty of characters to hate, too, so no spoilers.
Ruth Ware
I have to say I loved all of the characters, even the ones that you that are a bit detestable. I think that's the thing. I feel very protective of all of my characters, even the ones who end up being, you know, murderers and hateful people.
Jenn Delperdang
Well and you know, reality TV people, right? So at the beginning of the story, it's sort of, we assume that these characters are vapid and self absorbed and fame seeking narcissists, right? But by the end of your story, we find the humanity in them, which I think is great character development and made this book more than just a fun beach read to me, but also, if you're looking for a book to take on vacation, this is one to put on your list, for sure. But, Okay, so now a question, right? What does the research process for this book look like for you?
Ruth Ware
Well, so Lila is obviously a scientist, and that was a big-ish part of the plot. I mean, it's a huge part of her character. Her skills don't come in super useful on the island, or that there are times when she's sort of required to draw on her scientific training, but I wanted her to feel really real, and for her to feel like she had, you know, a depth of expertise and a sort of scientific mindset that was distinctly different to the way that I, or you know, someone else who's not scientifically trained might think. But fortunately, I was very lucky in that respect, because Lila's character is sort of based on my husband, who is also a virologist, and who obviously is very different to Lila, who certainly never got a reality TV show. But I think the way that Lila thinks of her sort of ethical duty to the world, so a big part of her character, is the... and actually as a sort of counterpoint to the whole unreality of reality TV. Because, you know, reality TV sort of is purporting to show the truth, but actually it's much more constructed than that. It's much more massaged. Everything's sort of, you know, sewn together in service of a narrative which is in some ways much more close to what I do. And Lila's perspective is completely the opposite. Her feeling is that her duty is to sort of look at the world as it is, ask tough questions, and be very truthful about the answers, even when they're not what she wants to hear. And I think that is a quality that I really admire in the scientists that I know, you know, obviously they have things that they would like to be true or, you know, professionally or personally, or whatever it is, but generally speaking, I think that they're good at trying to put those considerations aside and look at The world in a very sort of dispassionate way, and that is what Lila does. So yeah, so I had a head start with that side of it, but the other big part of it was obviously the reality TV show stuff about which I knew almost nothing, not least because I'm not a huge reality TV show watcher. Strangely, so I had to go back and do like, a bunch of homework in terms of, you know, watching episodes of various shows and and the funny thing was, because I was going back and watching them for research, rather than as a the way they were supposed to be viewed, I felt like I was watching them maybe much more as a producer might be, because I was sort of dipping in and trying to see, you know, how are these people being portrayed, what strands of the narrative are they pulling out here? And it was interesting as well, watching big denouements of old shows where I already knew the outcome, because it sort of made you see it in a very different way. So that was really fun. And I got to talk to a reality TV show contestant, which was really interesting, because there's quite a lot out there from the producing side. There's a really good show called Unreal, which several reality TV show producers recommended that I watch. Obviously, it's a very heightened version of what actually goes on. But they all said, you know, it's not, it's not that far off, like the basic sort of idea of how a show runs. It's not a million miles away. But I was very interested in what it felt like to be a reality TV show contestant, because obviously all the action that you see is through Lila's eyes. You don't see it from the point of view of the production company. So I got to talk to a contestant who'd been on The Traitors, who was absolutely fascinating. And I read a really interesting biography, autobiography, actually by a woman who had been on The Bachelor called, I Didn't Come Here to Make Friends, which was really funny, really bitchy. Lila was really frank about the industry. So, yeah, that was all. It was really interesting reading about it from the point of view of someone who was so different to Lila, because, you know, she, Courtney, is very aware of, like, the roles that the producers want her to play. She's very aware of how she's coming across on camera. And all of that is something Lila in the book really struggles with. She's constantly forgetting that she's on camera. And then, you know, she'll see everyone else acting up for the camera and be like, "Oh, shoot, I better do something romantic."
Kelsey Patterson
Yeah, you know, she's like, Oh, I better change my facial expression. Or when they yell at her to be like, "Could you stop looking at the camera?" Like, right when they get there, and she's like, "Oh, yeah, I suppose I shouldn't be doing that."
Ruth Ware
"Stop looking weird. What should I do with my hands?" And it would just make you feel much or self conscious.
Jenn Delperdang
You do feel like you're on a tropical island, you know, in this you know, just luxurious, elite vacation spot, until, you know, you can pull back the curtain and see some of the things. And did you get to visit anywhere exotic?
Ruth Ware
Well, so I sort of did, and I didn't. My husband and I had had this really long delayed holiday where we'd been trying to go to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. We were supposed to book it for our joint 40th birthday. And that was like, way back. And then stuff kept happening. Like, first of all, there were all these bombs in Sri Lanka, and then obviously Covid, and then Sri Lanka had a mini coup, and so that we kept rolling it over and rolling it over. Anyway, we eventually managed to go right at the end of me writing this book. So I think I'd, I was either editing it or I was on the very final chapter, I can't remember which. So I'd written almost the entirety of the book, and then went to the Maldives for five days and was almost slightly scared because I thought, "What if I've got it wrong?" But fortunately, I was actually all super close to how I'd imagined. Obviously not the, you know, the terrifying hurricane experience, thank goodness. I did make a few changes. One was that I originally had monkeys in the book because their screams are so terrifying. But actually there weren't any monkeys. And of course, that makes complete sense. I don't really know how monkeys would get to tiny, more remote, Maldivian islands, but what they did have, which was even more scary, was these absolutely enormous fruit bats that were like the size of Labrador puppies. And you would see them clumping around in the palm trees at dusk, just shuffling up and down their branches. And I never saw them fly. But honestly, if their wingspan would have been, I mean, it must have been like four foot, maybe more if they were, it was so scary. So I put those into the book, and I made Lila.... One thing that wasn't in the book when I wrote it, but I went back and changed it was one of the things that surprised me most when I turned up to the island was how incredibly warm the sea was. And you know, I live by the sea in the UK, and even on the hottest summer's day, the UK Sea is never anything short of absolutely bolting, you know, put your ankles in... Oh my gosh. You know it so to be in a sea that was actually warmer than body temperature was just crazy, and I just remember putting my feet in and having this absolute shock of like, "Oh my gosh. It's like being in a bath!"
Kelsey Patterson
Breathtaking in both ways.
Ruth Ware
When she gets off the island, she puts her feet in and she's like, "Oh my goodness, it's warm."
Kelsey Patterson
So in researching for this interview, we came across, you know, multiple times where you're referred to as a modern day Agatha Christie. How did you find your way into writing the story that you've become famous for?
Ruth Ware
So when I wrote my first book In a Dark, Dark Wood, I did not. I didn't have Agatha Christie at the forefront of my mind. I think I was channeling sort of people like Gillian Flynn and Erin Kelly with a really hefty dose of Wes Craven horror films, you know, like the sort of Scream or Nightmare on Elm Street. You know, that genre where there are scared young people in a house in the middle of nowhere. And the thing that I kept thinking of was that scene that you have in horror movies where the camera is in the eyes of the killer, and it's sort of circling the house looking for a way to get in. And you can see the shot of the, you know, the girl inside the house, and she's running around and she's closing all the curtains and she's locking all the doors. And I thought, what more terrifying place to be than in a house where you couldn't do that, a house that was entirely composed of windows with no curtains. So that is where the house in In a Dark, Dark Wood came from. But I did not have Agatha Christie at the forefront of my mind. And it wasn't until I handed the book to my agent, and she said, "Gosh, it's very like a modern day Agatha Christie." And I sort of thought, "Hmm, okay, well, I don't really see that. But anyway, moving on." And then after it came out, everybody else started saying the same thing, and all the reviews were like this, Christie-ish locked door mystery. And I sort of had to go back and think, okay, clearly they are seeing something that I'm not. Where did this come from? And of course, when I sat down and actually looked at what I was trying to do in In a Dark, Dark Wood, they were absolutely right. It was extremely Christie-ish. And I think it was because Christie was one of the first crime writers that I ever read. And, you know, I think she really imprinted on me the idea of what a perfect crime novel looks like, in terms of the whodunit, and the mystery, and the sort of click of the characters coming together at the end to solve it all. All of that I lifted wholesale from her without even really realizing it. So when it came to write my second book, The Woman in Cabin 10, I sort of had that choice to either pull away from the comparison or lean into it. And I think with Cabin 10, I definitely leaned into it. Thay's my most, you know, Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile sort of tribute book. And you know, I've gone back and forth, there's books that are not very Christie-ish, The Lying Game is not very Christie-ish, Zero Days is certainly not very Christie-ish, but some of my books really are. And I think what I the sort of click moment that I strive to give the readers at the end of the book, where all the pieces slot into place, that is very consciously, I think, the same pleasure that I get from Christie's, and that's what I'm trying to give to other people.
Kelsey Patterson
Well I definitely think readers get that from your books, regardless of whichever one they pick up. Is there something that they expect from the genre that you don't always commit to?
Ruth Ware
Well, so I don't know if this is genre specific. because actually I think I hew much more to the whodunit than some of my contemporaries do. But I think in terms of the genre as a whole, one thing which I sometimes provide, but is not, is not super high on my mental shopping list when I start to think about books, is obviously psychological thrillers as a genre have become very, very associated with the twist. And it's really fun when a book has a great twist. Some of my books have had twists. I think it can feel a little bit like, sort of, the whole plot is being arranged to make the twist work. In a sense, it can sometimes feel a bit sort of artificial. So for me, I tend to not worry about the twist. It's often not there. When I plot a book. Sometimes one will come organically while I'm writing, and I think, "Oh, that would make a really great twist!" And obviously that's like, you know, that's a gift from the heavens when it happens, and it's really amazing. But if it doesn't happen, I don't worry about it. And I feel that actually, what drags you through a book and what makes a book stick in your memory is much more the characters and how real they are and how much you care about them. And so that's much further up my priority list. I think my books do have big reveals, but I think that's a different thing to a twist.
Jenn Delperdang
And The Woman in Cabin 10 is probably the book that most readers know you from, and it's an excellent book. And we hear there is a Netflix movie adaptation coming, and someone very special has been cast in the role of Lo, which is very exciting. Do you want to, do you want to announce? I mean, you've already announced it... to our listeners.
Ruth Ware
Yeah! You know I'm probably not going to get this chance very often. Yeah, yes. So, it's incredibly exciting. It's been greenlit for Netflix, and Keira Knightley has been picked to star as Lo, which is just, I think, when I got the email, I was just like, "I'm sorry. What! The Keira Knightly?"
Kelsey Patterson
Is somebody prank emailing me?
Ruth Ware
So, yeah, I think, you know, she'll be amazing. I was thinking about all the films that she's done. I don't think she's ever been in a film that I didn't really enjoy. I mean, all of her pics have been absolute bangers, so she's excited. Can't wait to watch it.
Jenn Delperdang
Is there a book that you've written that you wish more readers would pick up? A hidden gem that you'd like to recommend to our listeners after they read One Perfect Couple, of course?
Ruth Ware
Oh, well, it's funny. I did a poll on my newsletter a while back where I asked newsletter readers which was their favorite one of my books. And I really thought there would be, like, a really clear winner, and I thought it would probably be The Woman in Cabin 10, because that's my best selling book. So I thought it was the one that most people would have read, and it was almost completely neck and neck. It was like, 16% 16% 16.5% 15.5% you know, it was like there was barely a percentage within them. It was pretty straight split, and the one that ended up winning was The Death of Mrs. Westaway, which surprised me, because it's not the one I would have thought, but I guess the people who love that book really love it, but again, only by like, you know, half a percent or something. So I don't think any of my books are sort of languishing, unsung in a corner. But I think people who enjoyed One Perfect Couple would probably also enjoy One by One, which is a sort of similar idea of a group of gilded but fairly unpleasant people having terrible things happen to them.
Jenn Delperdang
And The Death of Mrs. Westaway was actually the first book that I read of yours, and I really love the Gothic elements of that story. You know, in psychological fiction, thrillers, you know, can often have some of those elements. And I think, you know, really, your books are unique enough that readers are going to get something, you know, a unique experience from reading each one.
Ruth Ware
I think that's, I think they're all very different. So the people who love their own particular one, it's very, yeah, it's very split. But you know, that's the fun thing about writing standalones, is you get to reinvent the wheel each time,
Kelsey Patterson
If I can share my favorite one. So, you know, we're all talking about them, I distinctly remember when In a Dark, Dark, Wood came out, and I think we instantly had it on the shelf that day at the library. And I was like, okay, nobody else is grabbing this. Like, okay, I'm gonna check it out. And I'm pretty sure I stayed up till four in the morning, like, by myself in my apartment in the dark, you know, which is not great when you're reading psychological suspense, but I think my butt might have been dragging at work a little bit the next day, but I remember just being like, "Okay, what else has she written? I need to find everything else." Like, "What do I gotta do?" And oh, I loved it, and it's still one that I perennially recommend at the library. Of like, you may have read her newer stuff, like, go back to this one.
Ruth Ware
I love that. I love that that book's still finding new readers. It makes me very happy.
Kelsey Patterson
So we've talked about all of your great body of work, and we know that we can't possibly expect you to choose a favorite character that you've written. But is there a character you've created that you would love to meet in real life, or maybe have a pint with?
Ruth Ware
Yeah, so I can't. I'm often asked who my favorite main character is. I definitely can't choose between them. But I think my secondary characters are often the ones that I feel like I don't get a chance to get to know them quite as much. I really loved writing Nina from In a Dark, Dark Wood. She's really snarky. She gets to say all the things that I would like to say in real life, but I'm much too polite to say so she would be very fun to hang out with. Danny from One by One, who's Erin's co-worker. He's just like a really lovely... he's like the perfect colleague. He's the guy who's always got your back no matter what. And I just, yeah, I adore that about him. And if I had to pick One Perfect Couple's really hard, because there's some, there would be some really fun people to hang out with, but I think it might have to be Angel. I love Angel. She's so fun.
Jenn Delperdang
Uh huh, yeah, I can see that. Yeah, yeah. Um, as a reader, are you able to shut off your writer's mind to enjoy reading for pleasure?
Ruth Ware
Um, I am and I'm not. It's really, really difficult, particularly when I'm reading crime or psychological thrillers or anything that's too close to my work, really. I can't read sort of similar stuff at all when I'm first drafting, because there's always that, like trying to, you know, keep space in my own head for my characters. And if I'm reading something that's too similar, or worse, too good, you know, it makes you feel appalling. That can be very distracting. So I can't read at that sort of stage in the manuscript. Or I read stuff, but I just don't read stuff that's close to mine. And so what tends to happen then is, I get to the end of something, I rush out, read everything that's been kind of, you know, building up, and then I do find it really hard to switch off and read as a reader, because I'm reading so much, and I'm comparing it, and I'm thinking, how would I have done it? So sometimes it happens with a really, with a really, really absorbing book. And that's often the highest praise I can give to a crime novel is, you know, I read it like I just forgot I was a writer. But often I find it much easier when I'm reading other genres. So I love, you know, things like science fiction, I love historical fiction, I love nonfiction, and that is much easier for me to just read as a punter. And yeah, really. My one, not regret. That's a silly thing to say. But a lovely thing about being a crime writer is that I get sent an enormous amount of crime and psychological thrillers to read. I mean, like, seriously, about 50 or 60 a week. But I very rarely get sent stuff in other genres, and when it does turn up, I'm always so delighted. I'm like, "Oh, this is so exciting! A historical book about steam engines!"
Jenn Delperdang
Is there a book that is your go to recommendation for your friends? Or nosy librarians who like to ask this question?
Ruth Ware
Oh, I find that so hard, especially because as a writer, you always want to support other living writers, but then if you pick one, it feels like you're, you know, you're choosing, which out of your friends do you think is the best writer? So it's a real catch 22 situation. I think my go to recommendation in terms of, like, you know, people who want to find out more about the genre, or, you know, the sort of, where did psychological thriller come from. I absolutely adore Daphne du Maurier. I think she's just an amazing writer. And a lot of people have read Rebecca, but for people who haven't read it, I would recommend My Cousin Rachel, which I think is an absolutely banging psychological thriller and a really good example of playing with the reader's expectations and sort of pulling their heart and their suspicions one way or another. But in terms of my contemporaries, you know, I love people like Jane Casey, Erin Kelly, Claire McIntosh, Riley Sager, Megan Miranda, you know, there's just, there's so many excellent people writing in my bit of the bookshop at the moment. I think we are spoiled for choice.
Kelsey Patterson
So thank you for joining us today. Ruth, this has been a wildly, wildly fun time. One Perfect Couple is out now. Readers can find it at their local libraries or bookstores today.
Ruth Ware
Thank you so much for having me on, guys. This has been such fun.
Jenn Delperdang
Thank you. And best of luck with all that is to come, because we know you're going to keep writing great things.
Ruth Ware
Oh, I will. Don't worry, I can't see myself stopping anytime soon.
Kelsey Patterson
Well, that's good. As fans, we're very happy that we have plenty to look forward to.
