The Au Pair

This <b>3 Star</b> thriller started out great the the ending was a bit of a let down for me.<b>SUMMARY</b>Seraphine is a 25 year old trust fund baby living in Summerbourne, her family's beachside estate which is about 3 hours outside of London. She LOVES Summerborne, not just for its serenity and magnificent scenery, but alse she and her two brothers were raised there. She has no desire to ever leave.Life has not always been easily for Seraphine and her family. The day she and her twin brother Danny were born, their mother Ruth jumped off a cliff into the ocean and committed suicide, leaving the twins and their older brother Edwin motherless.Throughout their childhood, the whole village told stories about Seraphine's family. One of the stories claims she and Danny were not the real "Summerborne Twins," but actually sprites traded out for the real twins. Although that was clearly just a tall tale, it hurt Seraphine's feelings and alienated her from her peers at school.While the sprite rumor was a bit wild, people constantly commented on the fact that Seraphine looks nothing like her brothers and that she is different in many so ways from the rest of her family.The villagers often speculated that twins could not survive at Summerborne. History seemed to give this theory some merit. Before Seraphine and Danny were born, their brother Edwin lost his twin, Theo, in a tragic fall off the same cliff from which their mother Ruth fell. Even before that, Ruth's twin brother Robin died in utero. Village legend tells a story of the Summerbourne relative who built the estate, one of his twins was taken from the estate, never to be seen again. It does seem being a twin at Summerbourne comes with a high risk.Now, to add to their family's troubles, their father recently fell from a ladder and died.Feeling lost and wondering if there is anything to the constant rumors, Seraphine begins to dig into her family's past. What she finds surprises her on many levels.<b>WHAT I LOVED</b>I loved the setting! I absolutely love Brit Lit, but this kind is my all time favorite, an old seaside family estate. LOVE IT!The plot started strong, a woman alone, wandering around a secluded estate which is rumored, at the very least, to be jinxed with bad luck. She starts digging into the family's past looking for secrets, all along mourning the loss of her beloved father and the mother she never knew. It has serious potential.I liked the way the story was told, alternating between the viewpoint of Seraphine, in the present, and Laura, the au pair in 1992. The translation were smooth and well timed and it gave the reader a wider picture of what was really happening.<b>WHAT I DIDN'T LOVE</b>There were many things the characters did that seemed weird and "off." I don't want to give too much away but I can say that certain 'couplings' seemed wrong and completely hard to believe. I just couldn't imagine how easily and thoughtlessly one of the couples fell into bed with each other. And with another couple, I couldn't believe no one else has any inkling of what was happening. They were so obvious!I also found it ridiculous that anyone would involve their au pair in the most personal aspects of their life, trusting her with life altering secrets. And I found what she did with that trust hard to imagine too. When I used to have a nanny, we NEVER involved her in our personal matters. She was way to important to our children to ever put her in an uncomfortable position. It doesn't feel realistic.There were so many holes in the story but I have to say, the biggest, most unbelievable part was the final twist near the end. I don't want to give anything away, BUT the final explanation about who is who was just way too much. I rolled my eyes so much I thought they were going to roll right out of my head. The final chapters were a disappointment. :-(<b>OVERALL</b>The best I can say is that I didn't hate it.

2 and a half stars for me .I think this author has talent but she needs to "polish " her craft. The storyline was very promising but the author tried to hard to keep everything a big mystery that she forgot to tell us the readers all the actual truth and facts at the end. It was a bit like working on a puzzle only to find out that a bunch of the pieces are missing and that you will never find them and that makes everything disappointing . As a writer it's your job to go back into the storytelling and make sense of the mystery and fill in all the mystery holes and it wasn't done to my satisfaction. This book left me feeling very unsatisfied. Too many unanswered questions for my taste. Again the author isn't a bad writer just not as thorough as a storyteller as I had hoped for .I needed this book to explain a lot to make the read even plausible, and it did not deliver that for me at all. Way too farfetched at times, to unexplained. You never really get to know the characters. You just skim their surface but everyone lacked character depth. So many unanswered questions again , I could list so many but I don't want to giveaway spoilers .If I could give the author advice I would say definitely keep writing but please remember that "thoroughness and plausibility are key and let us understand the characters better .I felt that I didn't know Dominic at all .Vera was a huge WTH character. Alex was so confusing, Ruth seemed like she needed more than just a babysitter. You just never get to the truth about any of these characters, Laura was the only one that you get some depth from and it's just not enough sorry to say.

What would make a mother commit suicide immediately after giving birth to twins? Therein lies the central theme of THE AU PAIR. Seraphine Mayes, after the sudden death of her father, finds a mysterious photograph while going through his possessions. The photo, taken on Seraphine’s birth day, depicts her happy family. But why is her mother holding only one infant, she wonders, and is it she or her twin brother?Thus begins the tale of family intrigue, most of which takes place on a large home by the sea. Will Seraphine’s discovery of Laura, the au pair, be the key to the mystery of the missing baby?Although this story is set only as early as 1991, it is reminiscent of Gothic fiction. The setting in Summerbourne, a massive seaside estate (as opposed to Winterbourne, the elegant London house), and the name “Seraphine”, together with hints of witches and faeries, are counterintuitive to a modern day mystery. I couldn’t get invested in the characters, who were largely unsympathetic to me. I was curious enough to read to the end, but I felt no empathy toward anyone.The character development is robust, and I like the writing style. The story, especially the ending, is too fantastical for me.

(no spoilers) I didn't SUPER hate the book but I didn't love it either. It's hard to explain what I mean when I say that I didn't love the fact that Laura's revelations were pretty unrealistic without spoiling anything, but if you've read this book you may understand what I mean. Just the way things "happened", if you will, didn't really seem realistic. Laura really got on my nerves by the end of the book. She pretty much ruined so many things for many people. Understanding to a point but I just saw her as being super selfish of a character. Although her chapters were far more engaging than Seraphine's. Also the family dynamic gets so confusing by the end; numerous times as I was reading I had to remind myself who was related to who, etc. It's just a weird situation. Definitely not a suspenseful read

I loved it. I’ve not read it, but it kept my wife transfixed for a few evenings and off my back. It must be a very good book as she’s not a big reader but she wouldn’t put it down.

Oooh, the intrigue !! So deliciously satisfying altogether. Secrets and lies, babies and affairs and murderation all thrown in together and most artfully untangled by Ms Rous, I have to say. She's done a superb job. It had me tied up in knots at time trying to piece together who was who, etc....so all credit to her for NEVER getting a character's name misplaced !! One word that sprang to mind reading this, if I needed to describe it in one only, was clusterfu**.......you know the one I mean !!It's mainly set in the early 90s and nowadays, although the 90s portions made me imagine it was a longer time ago. Seraphine managed to irritate me quite a lot, especially when she kept throwing away food down the waste disposal !! I thought little Edwin was just a peach. I did wonder at fireworks going off in the new year in 1992 as I only recall that being a 'thing' after 2000, however.There was nary a mistake throughout, either, making it even more of a pleasure to read. I only spotted a dropped hyphen (sonin-law) and disks used and not discs.I can't really say much more regarding the plot as it would give stuff away and I never do that. You'll just need to believe me, it's very good indeed, and she's an author to look out for.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. A perfect holiday book that I didn't want to put down. Definitely a must read for 2019!

I really enjoyed this book. It has an exciting intricate plot based around 2 main characters - like a modern day Agatha Christie mystery the author keeps you guessing how the story might unfold. A super entertaining read - I didn't want it to end!

I really enjoyed this book! Highly recommended. Definitely warrants a film adaption!