Amazon Summary: 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.
***Author’s note: I think it’s fair to make it clear that this book is meant to be a modern retelling of The Turn of the Screw (a book which I have not read) and so I am basing this book entirely on its own merits.***
Rowan makes for a great protagonist, but in my mind Heathbrae House is the true star of the novel.
From the outside, Heathbrae is a dignified and eye-catching piece of real-estate with old Victorian aesthetic and flashy gadgetry.
The inside, however, reveals a much darker truth.
As Rowan notes, the house’s transformation from a run down Victorian into a modern home replete with fancy technology is not a smooth one. Rather than blending together to form a charming country estate, the modern amenities and old architecture clash with one another in garish ways. The house itself suffers from an identity crisis which is perfectly in keeping with the story’s themes, especially relating to Rowan.
Rowan has experience as a care-giver, however, it’s obvious she lacks a lot of the matronly appeal one in such a position is supposed to hold. She, herself, comes from a cold, loveless household and is desperately trying to find one of her own. She does her best to fit into the role but as the horrors increase, her facade begins to crumble.
I found Rowan’s struggle heartbreakingly relatable. She’s found herself in a difficult position, where all her actions can and will be monitored in a strange and new environment. I think all of us have found ourselves in such a struggle, so it was easy to route for her as she goes through all these trials.
It doesn’t help that she’s constantly second-guessing both herself and those around her as strange events keep occurring.
In spite of the fact that I’m a total scaredy-cat, most books don’t have the power to truly scare me. This is especially true when they take place in modern times. The suspension of disbelief in the day of iPads and internet streaming is so weak it can take a great deal of co-ercing to get me to go along with the program. However, The Turn of the Key literally made me afraid to turn the next page. I know, I know, it’s a cliché, but the environment Ware created was so creepy and foreboding, I genuinely dreaded turning the page. What was a I going to discover? A corpse? A murder weapon? A ghost?
It legitimately kept me guessing as to what was going to happen, even though I knew for certain a child was going to die at the end.
Speaking of the end…..
Perhaps it’s just me, but I was incredibly disappointed.
It didn’t seem to me that the twists worked very well as none of them were built up to.
The best kind of twists are the ones that make perfect sense upon second reading. All the clues are there but they are so innocuous you don’t notice them from the start. However, upon reflection it all makes perfect sense and you kick yourself for not recognizing the signs. In this case, however, I think Ware played her cards too close to her chest.
She gave away so little in the fear that her audience would figure out the ending that when the reveal happens it feels like she pulled it out of her arse.
For those that don’t want to the ending spoiled for them, don’t go any farther.
*********Spoilers ahead, reader beware***********
Okay, so I thought the twist that Rowan was actually Bill’s daughter was kind of….um…
Even after rereading Rowan’s first encounter with Bill, it still didn’t make sense to me.
When Rowan is describing Bill’s appearance she says she can’t tell how old he is, but she speculates he could be forty.
Rowan is in her late twenties.
That would mean her father would have been 12 years-old upon her conception.
To be 100% accurate, she guess-stimates his age from 40-60, but all the same. Why would she think he could possibly be 40?
Not to mention, there’s never any indication that there was more to the scene than what information we were presented with. If I went to all that trouble to find my biological father (stealing my roommate’s identity, uprooting myself from the country, and agreeing to live in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of strangers) I would be devastated to learn that he was a pervert.
Nonetheless, Rowan carries on as if it were nothing more than an inconvenience.
What makes this twist frustrating is I believe it could have been fixable if enough care was taken.
For instance, instead of saying “Sandra and Bill” in her narration, she could have said “Bill and Sandra.” A reader might question why she was putting Bill’s name before Sandra’s even though most of her interactions are through the matriarch of the family, but I doubt anyone would think enough about it to put two and two together.
As for the big reveal that it was actually Maddie pulling the strings all along…that’s fine…I guess…
Her motivation does makes sense and it’s easy to see how her father’s bad behavior could result in her acting out in a big way.
The problem with this revelation is I seriously doubt a child her age could pull off something that elaborate. This kid would have to be Hannibal Lector-level crazy. Think about it. She gaslighted Rowan, found out how to by-pass all the security (I know kids are good with tech but come on), snuck into a boarded up attic and a whole host of other things.
Let’s be reasonable here, this is all very, very unlikely.
The twist that Ellie accidentally killed Maddie was….okay, I guess.
It’s difficult to articulate why I was disappointed by this. Perhaps its my own personal hang-up with Scooby-Doo-isque endings where there’s always a guy in a mask behind everything instead of an actual ghost.
I get it.
It’s the 21st century.
We are supposed to be beyond superstitious nonsense, but come on.
Can’t it ever be an actual ghost?
Ghosts are fun.
Throw me a bone, here.
Overall, if Ware had just re-written a couple of things, I think she would have a first rate book on her hands. As it stands, I can’t give this book anything higher than a 6/10.
I won’t say the twists ruined it for me, but they did take away a lot of enjoyment for me.
The Crooked Pen 