The Au Pair by Emma Rous

There is something niggling at Seraphine as she mourns her father’s recent death. She’s been perusing their family photos and as one in particular catches her eye – one with her mother and only one newborn when she’s a twin – it has made her question her identity, whether she is really who she thinks she is. As she digs a bit into her family’s murky past, she finds there is more uncertainty and confusion than she ever could have imagined.

It’s a bit hard to describe this novel – I sort of liked it until I didn’t…

There is a lot of trust necessary for the reading of this book. While we are told that Seraphine has been teased most of her life that she doesn’t belong, that she’s not really part of her family – we are not really clear why just this one photo suddenly triggers her sudden exploration of her past. But we go with it, we trust the author. We are not really told much in the way of detail about Seraphine’s life, what she does for a living even, and how she has the free time to do the stalking she does to investigate the details of her past. Again, we go with it. And her findings are just too clean, just too easy, in my mind. But ok, again, we go with it.

If we go with it, as we do, there is an actual build up of suspense. We do want to find out what is going on with her past. We get a double story, from her and then from the au pair who was witness to the events leading up to the birth of the twins and to what really happened with Seraphine’s mother, which is an essential element to the mystery. This creates a nice back and forth, a crescendo to the narration. We are waiting and want to know. We’re with the author on this one.

But in the final moments is where the author really loses our trust completely. The explanation, the pinnacle to the story, is so outrageously implausible, that it is just an outright disappointment. And even here, many of the details are obscured and lost to us.

So while there is some suspense, it is, on the whole, so deeply unsatisfying, I cannot in good conscience, recommend this book. Sorry!