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| ★★★ |
Synopsis: 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.
***
Review: I've read most of Ruth Ware's novels, and always found them to be what I would call 'enjoyed them at the time' novels. These are novels which I love the premise of, enjoy the reading of, but the ending lets the story down or the novel never seems to reach its full potential, or for whatever other reason, I wind up coming away with a lesser sense of enjoyment than I experienced during the actual reading. They're very common across all genres, which is why most of my reviews are three star reviews.
This one was much the same. I loved the premise, I loved how it started, and I loved the writing. The characters were a bit hit or miss - Rowan had absolutely zero cop on for a nanny, which I found irritating, but I have to say I hugely warmed to her later in the novel. The parents were very flat, and the children had no dimension to their personality other than to antagonize Rowan. Basically, I felt there could have been far more development here. Ware is definitely moving away from the classic template for horror/mystery novels and pinning her plots (particularly in this and "The Death Of Mrs. Westaway, which I felt very much the same about as this book) on characters which are quite human, and quite flawed. Unfortunately I just don't think she's quite hitting the mark with the character depth yet, but I love that she's moving in this direction and hope she continues to improve.
Plot wise, it's a very slow paced book, which is not necessarily a bad thing at all, and in this case only came to be placed in the negative column for me because there was so much potential plot that could have been expanded upon, particularly towards the end. It felt very rushed, and while I was genuinely surprised by what happened and actually loved a choice that Ware made about the ending which many readers didn't like (lack of full closure, essentially), I loved that aspect, and which it had had the full extent of the emotional impact I felt it SHOULD have had. But unfortunately, it fell a little flat.
That said, it's a very easy read, quick to get through, not particularly frightening if you want something soft for your Halloween read, and has enough unique elements to make it memorable in my mind. If you're a fan of Ware's other novels, you should get something out of this one too, and I'll certainly read her next offering.
Rating: 3/5
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