Book Review: The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware
The Turn of the Key
Author: Ruth Ware
Narrator: Imogene Church
Published: August 6, 2019
Audiobook
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: November 1-12, 2020
Jessica’s Rating: 5 stars
Book Description:
When she stumbles across the ad, she’s looking for something else completely. But it seems like too good an opportunity to miss—a live-in nannying post, with a staggeringly generous salary. And when Rowan Caine arrives at Heatherbrae House, she is smitten—by the luxurious “smart” home fitted out with all modern conveniences, by the beautiful Scottish Highlands, and by this picture-perfect family.
What she doesn’t know is that she’s stepping into a nightmare—one that will end with a child dead and herself in prison awaiting trial for murder.
Writing to her lawyer from prison, she struggles to explain the unravelling events that led to her incarceration. It wasn’t just the constant surveillance from the cameras installed around the house, or the malfunctioning technology that woke the household with booming music, or turned the lights off at the worst possible time. It wasn’t just the girls, who turned out to be a far cry from the immaculately behaved model children she met at her interview. It wasn’t even the way she was left alone for weeks at a time, with no adults around apart from the enigmatic handyman, Jack Grant.
It was everything.
She knows she’s made mistakes. She admits that she lied to obtain the post, and that her behavior toward the children wasn’t always ideal. She’s not innocent, by any means. But, she maintains, she’s not guilty—at least not of murder. Which means someone else is.
Jessica’s Review:
The Turn of the Key is my favorite Ruth Ware novel! I hope she keeps writing novels like this one of the gothic suspense genre! This one had everything to love: a mysterious house with a past of its own that has been transformed into a ‘smart house’ that may also be haunted, someone accused of murder and telling their story, a picture perfect family that actually isn’t , and things that go creak and bump in the night! I started this one just after Halloween, but it would have been a perfect read to lead up to Halloween, especially with parts of Imogene Church’s narration. As mentioned in previous reviews, I adore Imogene Church’s narrations!!!
We start the novel with Rowan Caine in prison awaiting trial for the murder of one of the children. Rowan was the newest nanny, though the family has gone through four in the past year, Rowan had seen this as an opportunity to not pass by. Rowan is writing a letter to the man that she hopes will become her new lawyer as she is not happy with her current one. Rowan’s letter is the whole novel and she is telling the lawyer Mr. Wrexham her side of the story.
I did not know what to expect with this one. The hose was creepy in so many ways: its history and just being a ‘smart house’. I know after reading this novel I do NOT want to live in a smart house of any kind! I did not know what to really believe from Rowan, but had no idea how the story was going to end. And those last twists that happened: I NEVER would have seen coming!
This is a creepy, character driven thriller that will keep you involved in the story all the way to the ending!
The Turn of the Key is very highly recommended!!