#BookReview-‘The Turn Of The Key’ by @RuthWareWriter via @ThePigeonholeHQ

About the book…

‘The Turn Of The Key’ by Ruth Ware was serialised in daily staves earlier this year courtesy of The Pigeonhole which creates an immersive reader experience as you get to not only talk with the authors as you read on occasion, you get to chat to like minded people on a daily basis and share the excitement!
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.

This entire book is written in letters from a woman named Rowan to a solicitor called Mr Wrexham, from inside a woman’s prison,HMP Charnworth, claiming that the murder she has been locked up was not her fault. Dated from 2017, you are kept in the edge of your seat as you read letter after letter, not knowing who the murder victim was, or whether the unreliable narrator, Rowan, is even telling the truth.

By the end of Stave 1, you know that not only is she imprisoned for killing a child, it is a case with widespread public and media attention, so you are aware that she absolutely needs to hammer home her case in order to be listened to.

Rowan is a child minder who is not really happy in her position at a nursery called ‘Little Nippers’, and after taking a gamble on an advert requesting a nanny, she travels to Scotland to be interviewed by Sandra Elincourt(her husband Bill was absent from the interview process), but with a wage of £55,000, 8 weeks holiday and 4 girls to take care of-with one primarily at boarding school-Rowan senses the opportunity of a lifetime.

Meanwhile, the reader is sitting there thinking ‘This has GOT to be too good to be true!’ Heathbrae House is stunning and the girls are sullen but workable on, Sandra seems like a very invested parent, the conditions for career advancement are ripe. BUT. The previous nannies never stay long, the last one did not even manage a week. Why?

At this point you are torn between screaming at Rowan not to take the job because you know one of the girls is not going to make it to the end of the book,and wanting to find out which one. And they all seem adorable (except for the missing Rhiannon, she is currently an enigma), plus there is the eye candy of burly handyman Jack Grant.

All your spidey senses are tingling as things go quickly, and spectacularly awry. The whole house is wired up to an app, a ‘Happy Homes’ app so that the parents can actually ring the entire room that they want to connect with. Nanny cams are everywhere, including in the staff quarters, yes even in Rowan’s room! It takes helicopter parenting to a whole new level.

The app tells the children when to get up, there is an almost 200 page instruction manual that comes with the children on their likes/dislikes and it seems, with the exception of baby Petra, that 8 year old Maddie and 5 year old Ellie hate Rowan with a passion.

That Rowan has secrets of her own and is anxious about being underqualified for the job is set right from the start, but she tries to muddle her way through after being thrown in at the deep end and abandoned by the parents for a whole week -jeez the poor girl has barely unpacked!-and puts the moving items, strangely opened windows, unlocked doors etc down to being wound up too tight.

But when the girls and her become jeopordised by strange occurences and she discovers the sinister history of the house-complete with historically protected posion garden!-things get ramped up to ten and stay there to the very last page.

Whose footesteps can she here wandering around in the space above her bedroom in the attic?

Who keeps unlocking the back door?

What are the noises coming from the back of her closet?

‘The Turn Of The Key’ has so many levels to it, firstly I immediately thought of ‘The Turn Of The Screw’ by Henry James and was convinced there was at least one ghost prowling the corridors of the house. Then it refers to the quintessential locked door-sometimes they are locked for a bloody good reason! Also, who is locked in-or out-with whom? And finally, ‘The Turn Of The Key’ is the actual penny drop moment where the truth clicks that door open with a satisfying ‘Ahhhh so that’s what it was!’

”There was something…not quite powerful but at least an illusion of control-holding the key in my own hands.That door was locked and only I had the power to open it.”

What is so lovely about reading in a group is that you can leave notes on the page and chat to each other, it’s a very communal experience where you can type your thoughts into the book. Other people picked up on things that you might have missed, and there are names which become familiar to you along the way.

The battle between reading daily or saving them up to the end and bingeing is always a tricky one to navigate-I saved and binged-but I can 100% say that this is Ruth Ware’s finest novel yet, she keeps you absolutely on tenterhooks and even though there are 100’s of comments writing’ PLEASE NO ! I CANNOT WAIT UNTIL TOMORROW!’ the tension and buildup to the finale did not disappoint at all. She keeps you on edge without making you feel manipulated, you are just so damn keen to see what happens next, nor does she toy with you so that the ending is a let down. It is bloody brilliant, go read it and sign yourself up to The Pigeonhole because it honestly is a great way to experience books!

About the writer..

Ruth Ware grew up in Sussex, on the south coast of England. After graduating from Manchester University she moved to Paris, before settling in North London. She has worked as a waitress, a bookseller, a teacher of English as a foreign language and a press officer. She is married with two small children, and ‘In A Dark,Dark Wood’  is her début thriller.

Links-http://www.ruthware.com/

Twitter @RuthWareWriter

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