The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware

What I once actively gravitated towards, and even went so far as to contemplate purchasing at what Costco and Wal-Mart consider "full-price," has now made me approach with trepidation; the newest Ruth Ware novel used to illicit a certain amount of readers' excitement from me but now just makes me want to read something else. Mysterious, overly-dramatic, and often with imagery that is a character all its own, what has promise of a decent premise is often overly padded with fluff then abruptly ended in an obscure, slightly disturbing way (*cough* The Lying Game *cough*). Ware's latest tale, The Turn of the Key, isn't as gross or as boring, but finding the point is an exhausting process.

Rowan Caine becomes the latest in a string of nannies to be hired for Heatherbrae House, taken in by the lush remote Scottish countryside and mountain views, the Smart house technology that puts everything at ones' fingertips, and the charming, though shy, little girls that are to be her charges. She quickly learns that four nannies before her have cut and run after they were taken in by all of the amenities, as well as the rumors of the mansion's supposed paranormal activity. The luster from Rowan's interview quickly turns sour as she's left alone on her first day for no less than two weeks, the girls turn nasty, and the pre-teen away at boarding school returns to wreck havoc. And now she's hearing footsteps pacing in the boarded-up attic above her bedroom.

What is, apparently, a retelling of The Turn of the Screw, Ware's The Turn of the Key is a modern take on ghost stories, replacing the ghouls and goblins of the childhood of yore with the legitimate fears of today's omnipresent technology. Ware bluntly underscores how the shine of new and innovative technology wears off pretty quickly. But as a story, the book is long and ultimately fruitless with some spooky moments peppered throughout what is mostly misadventures in babysitting, and gets a little Lifetime movie-ish. There is also an inordinate amount of focus on the architecture of the house, which does add an interestingly creepy element to the story, but with that amount of attention given to it, it's never really explained why. The ending does offer up some good surprises, though the second-to-last scene is a little obscure; it took me a minute to "get," you might need the collective brains of your book club to enlighten everyone.

The Turn of the Key is a perfectly fine read, though not particularly scary or interesting. ⭐⭐⭐/5 on goodreads.