This is one of the weaker Ruth Ware stories that I've read and I truly hated the ending. The events didn't make sense, plus there was just a lot of excess story lines. I look forward to better ones.

Another winner from the talented Ms. Ware. Best ending she has given us fans to date.

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"The Turn of the Key" reads more like the author's previous novel than her first three, but is presented and unfurls in a different manner than all of them. The murder doesn't occur till the end.

We readers are introduced to inmate Rowan Caine, incarcerated for the murder and writing to her lawyer to proclaim her innocence. Rowan tells her story through her letter: a London daycare worker who was hired as a nanny to four children and two dogs in an isolated Scottish smarthome with a 250-page manual, a maid and a houseboy.

Suspend belief, and enjoy this mystery that pays homage to the Henry James classic. Contemporary readers might liken this story to "The Darkest Secret" and "The Girl Before."

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Thank you to Scout Press and NetGalley for the ARC

3.5

I was beyond excited when I realized there was a new Ruth Ware book coming out. I’ve enjoyed her thrillers in the past, I find them very atmospheric and creepy. There’s a laid back quality to her stories and a twist that may make you think paranormal activity and keep you guessing as to what’s really going on.

If that sounds like something you are interested in, then I definitely recommend THE TURN OF THE KEY. This book creeped me out. Not only because of the danger and the plot but because of everything the author chose to include in the story. Our main character is a young woman who starts off this story writing to an attorney from jail hoping that he will take on her case and defend her. She’s being accused of the death of a child, one she was a nanny for. These letters to the lawyer explain everything that happened.

The house she goes to work at is in a remote location in Scotland. As soon as she takes on the job the couple that hired her have to leave for work and she’s left alone with the children in this super SMART house. This is where my creeped out feeling began. The concept of a smart house is obviously not new but I’ve always found it a bit intrusive in some ways and seeing things happening it just sent chills down my spine. It also constantly made me question what was really going on, and which child is ultimately the one that died.

My one complaint with this story is the pacing at first. It does take a while to suck you on and get you turning the pages, which made reading this book take a little longer than I was expecting. I have noticed some of that with other Ruth Ware books, she’ll take her time sucking you in. But once that happens you can’t read fast enough. This book definitely followed that formula.

If you are looking for a great pool side read that will get your heart rate going and looking over your shoulder, look no further. I literally couldn’t fall asleep one night. And I also didn’t have the twist in the end figured out. At all. So great job on surprising me in the end, even if maybe the ending wasn’t quite as satisfying as I wanted it to be.

Love this author! She is consistently solid and this book was no exception. Ware is a great writer. I will purchase and recommend this title.

Wow, this novel was so creepy and suspenseful! I absolutely loved it and couldn't put it down once I started it. I can't wait to read more of Ruth Ware's work.

Ruth Ware is my go to author when I'm looking for a good suspense read. This one may be my favorite of hers so far. I loved the creepy atmosphere, and I continued to question what was really going on right up until the end. A great spooky read.

This is a retelling of "The Turning of the Screw". It was fast paced and dove right into the creepy intrigue. It's not her best work, but is still a solid thriller for fans.

I don't particularly enjoy Ruth Ware or think she's doing anything novel or groundbreaking, but I do read everything she writes.

This book stressed me out from the first page on. Ruth Ware is a master of building suspense and taking the reader on a tense ride. Will happily recommend this book, along with her others!

Rowan, the nanny, is in prison following the death of one of the children in her care. But she insists her innocence and recounts what happened in this good ol’ twisty thriller!

Hmm, I kind of liked this one! I have to say, I only figured out one twist and that was right before it was revealed. I don’t want to reveal too much of the plot but this kept me turning the pages and I thought it much better than the other Ruth Ware I’ve read (In a Dark, Dark Wood). I loved the ending!

This is a good popcorn kind of read but nothing too fancy or mind-blowing.

3.5 stars

Absolutely love Ruth Ware and loved this book. Fast paced with plenty of twists and turns. Ruth Ware is the new master of mystery writing.

Well. Wow! Scotland. Ghosts. Ancient Victorian house that’s been upgraded to a Ray Bradbury technological nightmare. This latest novel by Ruth Ware has it all and I was thoroughly creeped out. A nanny sits in prison accused of murdering one of her young charges. The novel is framed with the letter she is writing to a lawyer she hopes to engage for her defense. The only thing that kept this from being a five star review was the ending, which felt rushed and just a bit of a let-down. However, I remained engaged throughout the entire read. Unputdownable

Just in time for Labor Day comes The Turn of the Key, a creeptastic new book from Ruth Ware—author of The Woman in Cabin 10 and The Death of Mrs. Westaway—that you’ll definitely want to read on the beach, in broad daylight, preferably with a cold dose of liquid courage in hand. If you’re spending your long weekend in an isolated country house or the misty Scottish highlands, give The Turn of the Key a hard pass.

In this bold contemporary reboot of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, Ware doesn’t so much turn the screw as remix it. She takes James’s young governess, troubled children, absentee parents, and sinister servants and transplants them to the twenty-first century, where, it turns out, they’re right at home. The governess is now a nanny, and technology haunts remote Heatherbrae House. The Victorian ruin has been fully renovated as a “smart” house, its lovingly restored period details bisected by a modern glass extension, “like a patient who looked well enough above their clothes but lift their shirt and you would find their wounds had been left unstitched, bleeding out.” If the heroine feels like she’s being watched or hearing voices, it’s because she definitely is; every room is equipped with surveillance cameras and voice-activated technology linked to “Happy,” an app that’s anything but.

Disgruntled daycare worker Rowan Caine’s new position—as the overcompensated live-in nanny to the four daughters of globe-trotting husband-and-wife architects—seems too good to be true, and it is. It’s no spoiler to say that one of the kids ends up dead; like James’s 1898 novella, the story is a “found” manuscript, recounted in flashbacks. The question that keeps the reader turning the pages in The Turn of the Key is: which kid? And how? Rowan is clearly an unreliable narrator, but is she a murderous one?

She’s certainly determined to ignore the kinds of red flags that sent the family’s previous nannies fleeing: creaking floorboards, eerie antique dolls, disappearing keys, a secret garden. “Having the bad luck to engage one nervous, superstitious employee seemed quite likely,” she muses. “Getting four in a row seemed . . . less so.” Nevertheless, Rowan insists: “I was not a superstitious person. And so the legends of the house didn’t bother me at all, in fact the whole idea of nannies and servants driven out by mysterious spooky happenings seemed more than a little ridiculous—almost Victorian.”

But as she navigates the transition from nursery to nannying, with all the intimacy and intensity that implies, Rowan experiences true horror in the form of the sleeplessness, messiness, occasional violence, and unending drudgery of round-the-clock childcare. “Being with the girls all day from sunup to sunset was exhausting in a completely different way to the nursery, a way I hadn’t fully anticipated or understood until now,” Rowan confesses. “It was the way it stretched, endlessly, the way the needing never stopped, and there was never a moment when you could hand them over to your colleague and run away for a quick fag break to just be yourself. I was never off duty here.”

The onslaught of mundane and seemingly supernatural evils is enough to drive anyone—the reader included—over the edge, but the true secret of Heatherbrae House’s staffing issues, when Ware reveals it, is at once timelessly banal and unexpectedly far-reaching. (There are echoes of The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, an excellent true-Victorian-crime book.) While James famously left his ghost story ambiguous, Ware wraps everything up neatly, in the classic Gothic tradition. All the bumps in the night turn out to have perfectly logical, if disconcerting, explanations. But The Turn Of The Key will keep you guessing until the devastating last page. And it’s as haunting as anything James ever conjured up.

Ruth Ware is one of my favorite authors. Her writing is so beautiful and her plots always intrigue me and keep me on the edge of my seat. I liked that this main character was kind of on her own. I find that sort of set up where she is facing things often alone more attention getting than where there is a group such as in The Lying Game by Ruth Ware. Even though Rowan does have Jack in this one somewhat, I liked that she was basically the only adult, alone. I also absolutely loved the setting. I have been to the Alnwick Castle's poison garden , so I was really intrigued by that portion. I will be buying this to put in my library and recommend it as I do all of her books!

Let’s make that 3.5 stars because it did keep me glued to the pages. This is a thriller, which is a shelf I rarely browse. We meet Rowan, a young London child tender and all the characters she encounters at her new nanny job in Scotland. There’s a bit of romance, but lots of fear, anxiety, and some downright terror. It has a chronological blip now and again, which was annoying, but probably was necessary. There are a lot of red herrings.

This was not one of my favorite books by Ruth Ware but I did find it interesting. I had some trouble getting into the book at first till I read a review that talked about how it was similar to The Turn of the Screw. It was overall a good book just took time to get into.

I thought the Turn of the Key was Ruth Ware's best so far. She writes a mesmerizing thriller full of unexpected twists and turn. She is a master of suspense and this one is truly a page turner. You won't be disappointed.

4.25 stars

There were twists that I didn’t see coming and some I figured out but boy was this a reading experience. I kept trying to figure out which child was the one who ended up dead (as horrible as that sounds) because it seemed like it could have been any of them. Even when it was revealed which one it was it was still slightly shocking. That big reveal at the ending was so unexpected as I felt we weren’t going to know what truly happened. Thankfully that wasn’t the case and I found myself going “oh, that makes sense” and feeling like I should have thought of that possibility. I totally see why people keep talking about Ruth Ware and telling me that “you have to give her a chance” after reading this book. She definitely knows how to write an atmospheric read.

Something that kept this book from being perfect for me but it’s not a big deal are the characters. It’s not that I have to like the characters in all the stories I read, but they have to draw me into the story. The main character is unreliable and unlikeable yet is telling the whole truth because she knows if she doesn’t she will lose her freedom. I was drawn into her story even when I wasn’t sure about what was being told to me. The others are also unlikeable or are meant to seem perfect from a distance. The house and its lonely, mysterious atmosphere is what drew me in the most. If I’m honest it’s what will stick with me in regards to this story more than the characters (and one had my name so for that to be the case isn’t great).

I think the last issue I had is a minor one. This book was leading me to believe that the story had paranormal elements in the story and I got excited about it. It's so hard to find a good paranormal story so the idea I might of found one was awesome. When that turned out to not be the case I was disappointed. The reading experience was a good one so I would recommend this to those who love stories with unreliable/unlikeable characters in thrillers that take place in older homes in isolated rural areas.

With all this being said, I will definitely be looking into more of Ruth Ware's other works.

The Turn of the Key starts as a letter from Rowan, writing from women's prison in Scotland, pleading with a lawyer to believe she's innocent and assist her. She recounts the devestating story that led to her incarceration. It
It all started with an ad. Rowan wasn't necessarily looking for work, but the prospects of this ad were too good to pass up: set hours, weekends off, above average wage, it almost seems to good to be true. And it is, the generous benefits are an incentive to keep a nanny for longer than a few months. They've gone through quite a few in the past year.
Rowan moves in and the parents leave without advance notice, leaving her in an unfamiliar house with children she's met once. Not a big deal, she is a nanny after all, and the house is all connected to an Alexa like app which can do everything from add milk to your grocery list to allow you to have a conference call in your shower, and everything in between.
Then the scratching, footsteps, and weird noises begin. The house and the grounds have a dark history and several stories pertaining to hauntings. Rowan doesn't believe in the supernatural, but she's pretty sure something is going on.
I've read all of Ruth Ware's books at this point, and I've enjoyed them all. This one keeps up with the well known pattern of suspense and mystery as all the rest. Ware is often compared to Agatha Christie, but this one gave me some serious Victorian Horror vibes. I'm not saying this is a modern take on "The Turn of the Screw," but it is reminiscent in more than just the title. I was also reminded of Shirley Jackson.
As far as the mystery itself- there were some nice twists. I had my ideas, and some of the more obvious of them were right, but I can definitely see the ending being a surprise for some.
I'd give this one a 3.5/5 and round up. Ware is always fun to read and this one did not disappoint.

Ruth Ware can always be counted upon to provide truly escapist literature. Her books are engaging and keep the reader turning the pages late into the night. The Turn of the Key is no different. Tired of the nursery at which she's been working, Rowan is a young woman in search of a new nanny position. When she stumbles upon an ad for a placement in northern Scotland, she thinks it must be too good to be true. The pay is outrageously high and it is in a beautiful home, allowing her almost no expenses. The only concern is that the last several nannies left after only a very short time. It is rumored that the house is haunted, but since Rowan doesn't believe in ghosts, she isn't worried. When a child dies, Rowan insists on her innocence, but there she has a lot of story to tell first.

Told in the format of a letter after the fact in hopes of securing an advocate in court, Rowan describes her situation at great length. It is an interesting device, but I kept thinking it didn't make sense that she would go into such detail in correspondence. There are lots of twists and turns, allowing the reader to think she has it figured out only to pull the rug out again around the next corner. This book was a fun read, especially if you don't over-analyze it. In these times when we all want a little distraction, this book could be just what you need.