When Myriam, a French-Moroccan lawyer, decides to return to work after having children, she and her husband look for the perfect nanny for their two young children. They never dreamed they would find Louise: a quiet, polite, devoted woman who sings to the children, cleans the family’s chic apartment in Paris’s upscale tenth arrondissement, stays late without complaint, and hosts enviable kiddie parties. But as the couple and the nanny become more dependent on one another, jealousy, resentment, and suspicions mount, shattering the idyllic tableau.
The Review
I don’t think enough people talk about Leila Slimani.
In this book, translated in 2018, we meet Myriam and Louise. Myriam has hired Louise to care for her children.
The characters are extremely fascinating. It’s like watching strangers intimate details through a looking glass. And these specific characters are a little loosely built, admiringly nutty, and you’ll find yourself enjoying your time with them and wonder why.
The writing and craft in this psychological thriller is what is swift and unique as well as the tone and voice.
I recommend to readers looking for a unique artistic view through the lens of a thriller. Not all is what it seems.
Very good!
THE PERFECT NANNY…⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
In this twisty, mind-bending thriller from the bestselling author of Behind Her Eyes, Emma Averell worries that her crippling insomnia is a sign that she’s slowly going insane—like the mother she’s worked so hard to leave in her past.
Emma Averell loves her life—her high-powered legal career, her two beautiful children, and her wonderful stay-at-home husband—but it wasn’t always so perfect. When she was just five years old, Emma and her older sister went into foster care because of a horrific incident with their mother. Her sister can remember a time when their mother was loving and “normal,” but Emma can only remember her as one thing—a monster. And that monster emerged right around their mother’s fortieth birthday, the same age Emma is approaching now.
Emma desperately wants to keep her successful life separate from her past, so she has always hidden her childhood trauma. But then she’s unable to sleep, and now losing time during the day, also one of the first symptoms her mother showed. Is the madness in her blood, just as her mother predicted? Could she end up hurting her family in her foggy, frenetic state? Or is she truly beginning to lose her mind?
The Review
Sarah Pinborough can either be a hit or a miss with me and even when they’re a hit I can see why others may not enjoy them.
This one specifically was a lot of fun. In this book, we’re following Emma who is suffering from insomnia.
As the book progresses whatever she is dealing with starts to show itself in interesting ways making the book extremely bingeable and easy to get invested in.
The writing is fluid and easy to digest. Whenever you decide to pick this up be ready to finish it in one sitting as I read it over one afternoon.
The chapters are written with building anticipation inviting you to just read one more chapter and I love those kinds of books and experiences.
This one is out now.
INSOMNIA…⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“An Honest Lie is riveting suspense, but it’s also a scream of defiance, a howl of rage.” –#1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover“I’m going to kill her. You’d better come if you want to save her.”
Lorraine—“Rainy”—lives at the top of Tiger Mountain. Remote, moody, cloistered in pine trees and fog, it’s a sanctuary, a new life. She can hide from the disturbing past she wants to forget.
If she’s allowed to.
When Rainy reluctantly agrees to a girls’ weekend in Vegas, she’s prepared for an exhausting parade of shots and slot machines. But after a wild night, her friend Braithe doesn’t come back to the hotel room.
And then Rainy gets the text message, sent from Braithe’s phone: someone has her. But Rainy is who they really want, and Rainy knows why.
What follows is a twisted, shocking journey on the knife-edge of life and death. If she wants to save Braithe—and herself—the only way is to step back into the past.
This seething, gut-punch of a thriller can only have sprung from the fiendish brain of Tarryn Fisher, one of the most cunning writers of our time.
Looking for more great reads by Tarryn Fisher? Don’t miss The Wives and The Wrong Family.
The Review
In my opinion, this is not the worst Tarryn Fisher I’ve read but it’s close. It is by far the most disappointing.
Her plotlines read louder than her plot.
Like a literary siren, she draws me in, drowning me in the deep dark sea of nothingness.
In this book, we follow Rainey, who in the opening pages is being encouraged by her partner to join his friends for a weekend away. Peril ensues.
Interwoven between the scenes of this weekend of danger are flashbacks to when Rainey was younger. A lot of thrillers are doing this dual timeline pov and it might be time to move on to something else. There’s a craft to bringing the timelines together and still having a reader at the end that cares. I’m not sure it was successful on either the individual timelines or the summary.
But I can’t ruin this book for the lot so this one lands around the middle. I enjoyed parts of it and other parts felt overwritten. I think we could eliminate some of the persuading chunks of the book and live more in the action parts, which is what the book promised.
Thanks to Harlequin Trade Publishing, Graydon House, and Netgalley for this advanced copy!
Out April 26th
An Honest Lie…⭐️⭐️
