Every Tuesday First Chapter, First Paragraph/Intros is hosted by Vicky of I’d Rather Be at the Beach sharing the first paragraph or two of a book she’s reading or plans to read soon.

This week’s book is The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware, one of the books for my 10 Books of Summer Challenge.

It begins with a dream

In my dream, the girl was drifting, far, far below the crashing waves and the cries of the gulls, in the cold, sun-less depths of the North Sea. Her laughing eyes were white and bloated with salt water, her pale skin was wrinkled, her clothes ripped by jagged rocks and disintegrating into rags.

and continues with

Part One – Friday 18 September

The first inkling that something was wrong was waking in darkness to find the cat pawing my face. I must have forgotten to shut the kitchen door last night. Punishment for coming home drunk.

Blurb (from the back cover):

This was meant to be the perfect trip. The Northern Lights. A luxury press launch on a boutique cruise ship.

A chance for travel journalist Lo Blacklock to recover from a traumatic break-in that has left her on the verge of collapse.

Except things don’t go as planned.

Woken in the night by screams, Lo rushes to her window to see a body thrown overboard from the next door cabin. But the records show that no-one ever checked into that cabin, and no passengers are missing from the boat.

Exhausted and emotional, Lo has to face the fact that she may have made a mistake – either that, or she is now trapped on a boat with a murderer…

What do you think? Would you keep reading?

I haven’t read any of Ruth Ware’s books, but I like the look of this book and the opening paragraph in part one amused me – if we don’t shut the bedroom door I’m often woken by the cat pawing my face … fortunately I’m not planning to go on a cruise!