My Head Is Full of Books: Review: THE TURN OF THE KEY (+Friday56)

"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend, inside a dog it is too dark to read!" -Groucho Marx========="The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." -Jane Austen========="I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book."-JK Rowling========"I spend a lot of time reading." -Bill Gates=========“Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.” -Jacqueline Kelly=========

Thursday, October 16, 2025

Review: THE TURN OF THE KEY (+Friday56)

Title: The Return of the Key by Ruth Ware

Book Beginnings quote:

3rd September 2017

Dear Mr. Wrexham,
I know you don't know me but please, please, [lease you have to help me.

Friday56 quote:

It was hardly a work of art, just stick figures and thick crayoned lines. It showed a house with four windows and a shiny black front door, not unlike Heatherbrae. The windows were colored in black, all except for one, which showed a tiny pale face peeping out of the darkness.

Summary: A modern retelling of The Turn of the Screw. Rowan Caine answers an ad to be a live-in nanny for three children living with their parents on an estate in Scotland. The home is a luxurious, smart house, with all modern conveniences. What Rowan doesn't know is she is stepping into a nightmare -- with ghosts (or rumors of them), poisonous plants, children who seem to be against her from the beginning, and house that seems to be haunted by its own technology. In the end, a child is dead and Rowan is in prison for murder.

Review: I read The Turn of the Screw last year for the first time. It is a chilling ghost story with a haunted manor house and two malevolent children, seemingly under the spell of the ghosts. Henry James, who didn't normally write horror, basically wrote the story that launched a whole oeuvre of stories involving creepy malevolent children. Think of Linda Blair in The Exorcist, the twins in The Shining, the devil boy in The Omen, and Children of the Corn. All of these creepy children were inspired by Henry James' book.

We selected The Turn of the Key for an upcoming book club meeting. Since the title alone hints at the retelling of the classic, I was expecting a governess (nanny), a haunted manor house, creepy children, and ghosts. Since it is modern I also expected cars, phones, computers. What I didn't expect was the smart house with its automated lights, showers, and alarms. So many things that could go wrong or become spooky! I think we will have fun comparing the classic vs the retelling at the meeting.

While James wrote a nuanced tale with several hidden themes -- repression, incest, and love scorned-- Ware's tale also has some surprising plot twists at the end of the mystery. It is not as good as the first -- are they ever?-- But a worthy second.

My rating: 3 stars.