What the Nanny Saw

June 25, 2012
Filthy-rich Bryony and Nick Skinner wanted a modern-day Mary Poppins, but what they needed was a superwoman who could “tread on the map of family life without leaving a big imprint.” Twenty-one-year-old Ali Sparrow was perfect: eager to raise money to finish school, get away from a going-nowhere affair, and escape her own troubled family. London columnist and bestselling author Neill (The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy) concocts a darkly fascinating portrait of the stupid-rich, and the morally superior immigrant maids they press into service. In Ali’s case, it soon becomes clear that her real job isn’t just plugging domestic gaps in the lives of a banker and his wife, but rather “actually running the show,“ a tricky task involving needy five-year-old twins Hector and Alfie; insecure, anorexic 14-year-old Izzy; and moody, cynical 17-year-old Jake. But her hardest job by far will be keeping mum about the financial scandal that threatens to bring down the Skinners. And keeping her passionate affair with Jake, their son, in the dark will prove an even greater challenge. In this fast-paced, dishy morality tale, Neill also delivers a thoughtful dissection of how greed and hubris helped bring the banking industry to its knees in 2008. Agent: United Agents.

August 1, 2012
A university student gets an insider's look at the world banking crisis when she becomes nanny to a London financier, from the British author of Slummy Mummy (2007). In 2006, Ali Sparrow has mounting tuition debt and a rocky affair with a professor she would like to escape. To solve both problems, she takes a year off from university to nanny for the Skinner family. In the world of London nannies, populated by buxom Eastern European refugees, Ali is quite a find: Though without experience, she is legal and in possession of a driver's license. For her part, Ali has never seen such wealth. Father Nick is in charge of Lehman's London branch and Bryony runs a financial PR firm. Their Holland Park mansion is filled with art (Ali stashes her Francis Bacon poster in the closet when she notices the real thing is above the fireplace), a ridiculous pug, a Philippina housekeeper and four children. Jake is 17 and soon off to Oxford; Izzy is 14 and flirting with boys and anorexia; and then there are the twins, Hector and Alfie, Ali's primary charges. Ali's story--a bright girl from a fishing village making good, with a junkie for an older sister and an unspectacular love life--really plays second fiddle to the drama at hand: the rise and fall of the glamorous Skinner family. Nick is mysterious and perhaps guilty of insider trading, Bryony is intense and controlling, Bryony's father, Foy, is a fabulous drunken lothario, and the twins are a bit eerie, what with their secret language, empathic responses and refusal to be separated. It is all too much and not enough at once--a life lived extravagantly and shallowly, a series of parties, meetings and personal tragedies to schedule. Not much happens in Neill's novel, but her portrayal of the family is happily addictive and their greed-driven downfall a little bit delicious.

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July 1, 2012

In Neill's (The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy) second novel, Nick and Bryony Skinner built their fortunes on the economic boom that peaked in 2006. But spending frivolously, they see their world come crashing down with the financial collapse that ensues in 2008. Nanny Ali Sparrow, who immerses herself within this family to hide from her own, becomes privy to sensitive information and finds that there are secrets that, if ever told, would tear the family apart and even jeopardize her employment, where she has grown to love the four Skinner children. Ali also learns what some people will do in the name of greed and how unethical and immoral decisions seem to rule when better actions should prevail. VERDICT This biting drama is filled with tension and remarkably flawed characters. Neill's engrossing tale makes for an addictive read, and one can only keep turning the pages to get to the inescapable conclusion.--Anne M. Miskewitch, Chicago P.L.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2012
In this ripped-from-the-headlines novel, Neill (Slummy Mummy, 2007), a former journalist, uses the recent economic meltdown as fodder for skewering Britain's privileged financial class. Ali Sparrow, a college student taking a break from her studies, enters this unfamiliar echelon as a nanny for the Skinner family. The adults, Nick and Bryony, are typically career-obsessed and high strung; the four children suffer from a toxic mix of parental inattention and lofty expectations. Circling around the edges is Bryony's politically incorrect father, Foy, who dominates every scene he inhabits through sheer force of personality and his outlandish proclamations. They're all highly entertaining in a they did not just say that train-wreck kind of way. Ali, who begins her tenure as an arched-eyebrow observer, gradually grows to care for the Skinners, whose hubris masks untold insecurities. When their downfall comes, as a result of Nick's shady financial dealings, it feels vaguely bittersweet. Readers expecting a salacious, lighthearted romp, as anything with the word nanny in the title might suggest, will find that Neill has something more substantive and biting in mind.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)