The Au Pair

October 15, 2018
An unfamiliar photo causes a British woman to question her identity and investigate long-hidden family secrets in this debut thriller.With her father recently having died in an unfortunate accident the day before her birthday, Seraphine Mayes is spending her compassionate leave going through his belongings at Summerbourne, the large Norfolk estate where she was raised. In his things, she finds a photograph she's never seen before: It shows her mother, father, and older brother, Edwin, with her mother holding a newborn baby. What's strange, however, is that Seraphine is a twin and there's no telling whether the baby is her or her brother, Danny. Also, mere hours after the twins' birth, their mother committed suicide by throwing herself off a cliff near the house. Why had she never seen this photograph, what did it reveal about her past, and who took it? As Seraphine delves deeper into the mysteries of her family, she finds more deaths, coverups, and mysterious disappearances than one ancestry should contain. At the center of all of this is one figure she's never heard of: Laura, Edwin's au pair the summer she and Danny were born. If she can just find her, maybe she'll discover the secret of her birth. Rous' debut novel is a whirlwind, twisting and turning with new revelations every few pages. Pinging between Seraphine's search in the present and Laura's experiences in the past, the reader is never entirely sure of what they know, as each chapter brings new information that may change previous certainties. The ambiance of Summerbourne and the family that inhabits it, from the folly to the gardens to the old gardener who speaks of fairies, adds that gothic touch to what might otherwise have been a generic family-mystery thriller.A modern gothic suspense novel done right.

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October 29, 2018
Seraphine Mayes, the protagonist of British author Rous’s atmospheric if muddled first novel, has so many questions, to which she despairs of getting answers, after her father’s recent death. Like why the 25-year-old barely looks like either of her brothers, or what drove her mother to kill herself at the family’s remote estate on the Norfolk coast the same day she and twin Danny arrived in July 1992. Then, while sorting through her father’s effects, she finds a snapshot, taken that fateful day, showing her proud parents and big brother, Edwin, with a single newborn—and resolves to track down the photographer, whom Edwin identifies as his au pair, Laura Silveira. Undeterred by pleas from her family to desist, as well as subsequent anonymous threats, Seraphine gradually teases open a dangerous Pandora’s box of secrets about her family and the au pair who became part of it. Rous ably interweaves accounts from dual narrators Seraphine and Laura to fan the suspense, but her plot-driven page-turner eventually founders after a few too many fantastic turns. Agent: Rebecca Ritchie, A.M. Heath (U.K).

December 1, 2018
Twins born on the Summerbourne estate never survive, at least according to local lore, until the births of Seraphine Mayes and her twin brother, Danny. However, just a few hours after giving birth to the twins, their mother, Ruth, commits suicide by throwing herself from the estate's high cliffs and perishing amidst the rocks and ocean spray below. Twenty-five years later, Seraphine begins searching for the truth of that mysterious day, beginning with the family's au pair, Laura, who fled Summerbourne on the same day of Seraphine and Danny's birth and their mother's death. The narration builds slowly and deliberately, switching back and forth between modern-day Seraphine and Laura's memory of the events that led up to the tragic incident. This tale pulls its readers in from the very beginning, with many secrets and surprises; it is as delicious and spellbinding as a soap opera, complete with the dramatic moments and outrageous twists. A promising first novel from Rous, The Au Pair is an absolutely absorbing and scandalous page-turner.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)