My Readers Guide for The Woman in Suite 11 will answer ALL your questions about this surprise sequel to the 2016 book The Woman in Cabin 10. Do you need to read that to understand The Woman in Suite 11? How similar are the books? Let’s discuss it all!
Readers Guide for The Woman in Suite 11
Table of Contents:
Jen’s Quick Take on The Woman in Suite 11
Character List for The Woman in Suite 11: Returning and New
Quick Recap of the Woman in Cabin 10
Plot Summary and Spoilers for The Woman in Suite 11
The Woman in Suite 11: The Ending Explained
Would you rather have all this in a PDF? You can download it here!
The Woman in Suite 11: Jen’s Quick Take
I scanned the Goodreads reviews and saw a lot of comments about this book: why is there a sequel when this not my favorite Ruth Ware book?
The answer is probably that there is an upcoming Netflix streaming series of The Woman in Cabin 10. A sequel serves to promote that series AND provide more plot if the series gets a second season.
SO, what’s the deal on The Woman in Suite 11? It’s a sequel to The Woman in Cabin 10, but with time progression, so the events of The Woman in Suite 11 take place about 10 years later, which tracks, as The Woman in Cabin 10 came out in 2016
BUT you really need to have read The Woman in Cabin 10, as there are returning characters and the plots connect. You don’t have to re-read, as I have a review here.
If you liked The Woman in Cabin 10, I think you’ll like this book, as they are quite similar. If you disliked it, well….
Release date: July 8, 2025 by Scout/Gallery./Simon & Schuster.
Character List for The Woman In Suite 11: Returning and New
If you have any questions before or after reading, leave a comment!
This is spoiler free so I will leave it out of protection!
Returning characters from The Woman in Cabin 10
Laura “Lo” Blacklock: former travel writer
Judah Lewis: Lo’s husband, New York Times writer
Ben Howard: Lo’s ex boyfriend who was a passenger on the Aurora
Alexandre Belhomme: food critic and travel writer, also a former Aurora passenger. Now a recipe blogger.
Cole Lederer: photographer and passenger on the Aurora
Carrie: the woman in cabin 10!
Rowan: Lo’s former boss
New characters:
Marcus Leidmann: businessman billionaire and owner of TLG (The Leidmann Group) and Grand Hotel du Lac
Published a book called Dark Waters about her experience on the Aurora in The Woman in Cabin 10
Had two children with Judah, Teddy and Eli
Became a dual US/UK citizen
Spoilers for The Woman in Suite 11
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Part One
Lo is trying to get back to travel writing after the pandemic and motherhood when she’s invited to a a press opening of a new hotel on Lake Geneva.
On arrival at Grand Hotel du Lac, Lo runs into Ben Howard, her former boyfriend, who apologizes for not believing her in the first book. Alexander Belhomme is also there and so is Cole. Weird.
After dinner Lo goes back to her room and there’s a note asking her to come to suite 11. It’s Carrie!
Part Two
Carrie says she’s in hiding. When she ran from the Aurora, she took passports, credit cards, and some Swiss bank account paperwork. She went to Switzerland and was able to access one of the accounts for a year.
Then Carrie met rich widower Marcus in a café in Basel. They became involved and she went to his country house in Belgium.
As it turns out, Marcus knew about the Aurora and that she was wanted by Interpol. Carrie definitely has a type: rich, controlling, violent men, as she’s become a sex toy for Marcus and his friends.
Lo asks Carrie why she didn’t turn herself in. Because she might be blamed for what happened on the ship. (To be fair, she did murder one person and dispose of a (possibly) dead body.)
But when she told Mark she wanted out, he said he’d kill her. She claims that Marcus invited Lo, Cole, Alexander and Ben to “send a message to her.” Okay.
She wants Lo to help her escape. Carrie says Lo, as a dual citizen, has two passports and Carrie can use her UK one to escape Marcus. Lo can’t decide what to do.
Marcus comes and offers her an interview. He compliments her on her book, Dark Waters and tells her the succession of his firm is not decided and that he likes to be private. He says the only thing important to him is power, which is a hard drug to give up.
Lo agrees to help Carrie, who says that they need to leave tomorrow. So Lo gets on the train! But where is Carrie?
Carrie shows up disguised as a pregnant woman. Then on the train and she disguises herself as Lo but she also thinks she saw Marcus’s henchman Heinrich on the train.
Part Three
For some reason, Lo and Carrie are staying together at a hotel in the UK I’m not sure why they would do this! Carrie is pretending to be someone named Angela Darnwell.
Lo gets a call that her mom has fallen. So weird! Even weirder? Marcus turns up at the hotel.
The next morning, Lo heard Marcus and Pieter talking in their room. She went to breakfast and saw Pieter there.
When Lo returns from breakfast, Marcus is dead in his hotel room, presumably drowned in the bathtub (like the cover!) Carrie acts surprised but is she?
Lo gets questioned by the police. They tell her they’re considering Marcus’s death as suspicious.
Part Four
Lo tries to call Jonah, but he’s busy with the boys. She and Carrie discuss if someone could drown in the bathtub. Lo mentioned that the hotel tracks key cards.
An Interpol officer shows up and wants to interview Lo.
Lo gets arrested and is interviewed again but the UK police. Because she’s innocent, she refuses a lawyer. (Oh, Lo!!)
The police confront her with a bunch of minor lies: her mum is not in hospital etc. When the police seem to suggest that she was having an affair with both Marcus and Cole, she finally asks for a lawyer.
Lo’s lawyer gets the police to let her out on bail, but she has to go back to the hotel. Lo is able to call Judah. She also asked her lawyer, Dan, for a printout of the key card information.
Lo goes back to her hotel room, which is completely empty. Carrie is gone and on top of that, took Lo’s suitcase because hers broke. She left a copy of Winnie the Pooh in the room with a blood splatter.
Part Five
Judah shows up. She tells him the whole story and he thinks Carrie is guilty. That the timeline is wrong.
Lo figure out how Carrie committed the murder. Lo feels convicted because she can’t tell the police without telling her how she smuggled Carrie into Switzerland.
But Jonah put AirTags in the family‘s luggage so they track Carrie to Brighton.
The Woman in Suite 11: the Ending Explained
Carrie and Pieter were in it together. Pieter tipped his father off so that he’d follow Carrie to the Old Manor. When Lo went to breakfast, Carrie left their room, leaving the door unlatched. She went to Marcus’s room and pulled him underwater when he was in the bath. Then Pieter faked a convo with his dad that Lo overheard and went to breakfast.
During that time Carrie used the phone in Marcus’s room to place a breakfast order that she’s recorded beforehand.
Pieter then collected the phone handset returned it and “discovered” the body.
Lo tells Carrie she’s ungrateful. Carrie says that Lo was supposed to have left the hotel. Lo can’t decide whether to believe her.
Carrie agrees to let Lo call Inspector Capaldi from Interpol who takes her away.
Dan calls and when Lo tells him the story, he says Interpol can’t arrest people.
Judah and Lo don’t know what to do because without Carrie, Lo is the number one suspect again. Lo also thinks that the Interpol guy looked familiar. She asked Cole to send her some pictures and she thinks he was their driver for the foraging tour.They fill Dan in, who thinks they’re insane.
Judah takes Lo’s mum to the supermarket. When Lo is home alone, a strange makes man shows up with a mask. She calls to report a home invasion and tries to run away. It’s Pieter who needs Carrie’s phone. Which is somehow in the pocket of one of Lo‘s coats.Judah shows up and there’s a gunshot. Pieter shot himself. Ok. They give the phone to Dan.
Lo decides that Carrie framed Pieter and ran off with Capaldi.
Questions? Think I missed something? Leave a comments!