THE TURN OF THE KEY
Their dream house will become her worst nightmare…
When she stumbles across the advert, she’s looking for something else completely. But it seems like too good an opportunity to miss: a live-in nanny position, with a staggeringly generous salary. And when Rowan 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 her in a cell awaiting trial for murder.
She knows she’s made mistakes. But, she maintains, she’s not guilty – at least not of murder. Which means someone else is.
Full of spellbinding menace, The Turn of the Key is a gripping modern-day haunted house thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.
“A superb suspense writer… Ware pulls out a stunner on the penultimate page that radically alters how we interpret everything that came before. Brava, Ruth Ware. I dare say even Henry James would be impressed.”
the washington post
Waterstones Thriller of the Month
Read the first chapter HERE
THE TURN OF THE KEY
Their dream house will become her worst nightmare…
When she stumbles across the advert, she’s looking for something else completely. But it seems like too good an opportunity to miss: a live-in nanny position, with a staggeringly generous salary. And when Rowan 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 her in a cell awaiting trial for murder.
She knows she’s made mistakes. But, she maintains, she’s not guilty – at least not of murder. Which means someone else is.
Full of spellbinding menace, The Turn of the Key is a gripping modern-day haunted house thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.
“A superb suspense writer… Ware pulls out a stunner on the penultimate page that radically alters how we interpret everything that came before. Brava, Ruth Ware. I dare say even Henry James would be impressed.”
the washington post
Waterstones Thriller of the Month
LISTEN TO A SAMPLE OF THE AUDIOBOOK
Location, location, location
‘The Turn of the Key’ represents a kind of full circle for me – because originally I wanted to set ‘In a Dark, Dark Wood’ in Scotland…
Smart home nightmares
The main character in ‘The Turn of the Key’ has a nightmarish smart house, and an all-pervasive home management app called Happy (slogan: Home is where the Happy is!) to contend with…
Five of my favourite haunted houses
One of the things I loved most about writing ‘The Turn of the Key’ was creating Heatherbrae House – a seemingly perfect house, with something seriously sinister lying just beneath the surface…
REVIEWS
“The Turn of the Key is a delicious read – a sympathetic but fallible narrator is accused of a terrible crime. The clever unfolding of her story will hold you captive until the brilliant ending. Vintage Ruth Ware.”
Shari Lapena, author of The Couple Next Door
“A ghost story for the twenty-first century, a propulsive gothic thriller with characters you’ll really care about. Creepy, engrossing and oh-so-hard to put down.”
JP Delaney, author of The Girl Before
“Ruth Ware just gets better and better. The Turn of the Key is her most compelling and addictive.”
Lisa Jewell, author of The Family Upstairs.
“Ware cleverly puts a high-tech spin on [The Turn of the Screw’s] gothic foundations of spellbinding menace set in a remote cavernous mansion with mysterious locked doors and a spooky garden… Ware’s James-like embroidery of the strange and sinister produces a Turn of the Screw with cellphones and Teslas that will enthrall today’s readers… it will not disappoint.”
BOOKLIST – STARRED REVIEW
“This appropriately twisty Turn of the Screw update finds the Woman in Cabin 10 author in her most menacing mode, unfurling a shocking saga of murder and deception.”
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
“If you’ve never spent a long weekend devouring a Ruth Ware thriller on a hammock, this is the summer to start. Her fifth novel, The Turn of the Key, is set in the Scottish Highlands and is as compulsively readable as you would expect a Ware book to be.”
CBS WATCH! MAGAZINE
“Ware’s mastery of the traditional mystery merged with the twisty psychological thriller never fails to impress! While Ware is known for her sudden reversals, I promise you that you’ll never see the end of The Turn of the Key coming. Which means everyone needs to read it so we can talk about that ending.”
LITHUB
“Ware hits another one out of the park. Fans of hers or anyone with a taste for the disturbing will stay up late devouring this.”
LIBRARY JOURNAL – STARRED REVIEW
“A classically spooky thriller involving a potentially murderous nanny and a smart house gone wrong in the Scottish Highlands. Ruth Ware is a No. 1 New York Times bestselling author, and her fans are legion and loyal.”
VOX
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When Lana and her three colleagues sign up for the "dark, complex and immersive" escape room game, The Masked Ball, they are expecting a fun day out of the office, full of team-building and camaraderie. But someone has other ideas, and as the group struggles to complete the room, it becomes apparent that there is a very twisted mind behind the puzzles and clues.
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