When Rowan Caine answers an ad and is hired to be a live-in nanny, she can’t believe her luck. Not only is she paid a generous salary, but she also gets to live in huge and beautiful “smart” house in the Scottish Highlands known as Heatherbrae House, and the children she is tasked to look after couldn’t be more behaved. But when parents Sandra and Bill leave for a work conference only days after Rowan starts work, she learns that not everything is what it seems. Strange things start occurring in the house, from Rowan hearing footsteps outside her room to the smart house malfunctioning and waking everyone up in the middle of the night with bright lights and blaring music. Keys and personal objects mysteriously go missing and the children are not as well behaved as Rowan thought as they conspire to get her in trouble with their parents. Combined with the ghost stories told by the children and the local legends about the former owner of the house, Rowan starts to think that something is not right at Heatherbrae House. Then the unthinkable happens and a child is killed and Rowan is accused of the murder.
This book is written as jailhouse letters from Rowan to her lawyer, Mr. Wrexham, recalling the events that led up to her incarceration. The letters seek to tell her story and to convince Mr. Wrexham of her innocence.
I loved this way this story is told. Even though the story is technically being told as a flashback, we are learning everything and seeing everything happen as Rowan does. All we know in the beginning is that Rowan is in jail for murdering a child but don’t which child she is accused of killing – is it Petra, the baby? Is it Ellie, the 5-year-old who follows her older sister around? Is it Maddie, the 8-year-old child who may or may not be haunted by ghosts? Or is it Rhiannon, a 14-year-old hellion?
As the letters go on, we slowly find out what happened.
I loved the atmosphere created by the author here. The setting of Heatherbrae House was perfect -an old home which has been remodeled to be a smart home. We get all the elements of an eerie old fashioned house including locked doors and a poison garden, combined with the elements of a smart home where all your actions can be controlled by an app and you have virtually no privacy. It was creepy in the way that old gothic houses can be creepy but sterile in a way that technology and AI can be at the same time.
Regarding the conclusion, I have to say that I was surprised and did not guess the reveal. I was still uncertain as to who had died until the incident occurred. I thought the ending was clever and I even went back and reread parts of the book looking for all the foreshadowing and clues. They were there, I just didn’t pick up on them I guess.
The pacing of this book was great until you hit the ending. The reveal happens in the last 10% of the book and once you find out what happens, the plot is kind of rushed and is pretty much over. I was disappointed because there didn’t seem to be any real wrap up and we don’t really find out what happens to Rowan or the other characters. Considering that the book was told as a letter to a solicitor, I felt the author could have thrown in a newspaper article or another letter from Rowan that occurred maybe 1 year later to kind of wrap everything up.
I liked this creepy psychological thriller.
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