Nanny Dearest
A Novel
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3.5 • 11 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
“A well-crafted debut . . . horrifying . . . Psychological thrillers fans won’t be disappointed.” —Publishers Weekly
"Unsettling, compelling, elegantly paced . . . A slick, contemporary novel that explores the wispy, nagging memories of childhood.” —Julia Heaberlin, bestselling author of We Are All the Same in the Dark
In this compulsively readable novel of domestic suspense, a young woman takes comfort in reconnecting with her childhood nanny, until she starts to uncover secrets the nanny has been holding for twenty years.
Sue Keller is lost. When her father dies suddenly, she's orphaned in her mid-twenties, her mother already long gone. Then Sue meets Annie. It’s been twenty years, but Annie could never forget that face. She was Sue’s live-in nanny at their big house upstate, and she loved Sue like she was her own.
Craving connection and mothering, Sue is only too eager to welcome Annie back into her life; but as they become inseparable once again, Sue starts to uncover the truth about Annie's unsettling time in the Keller house all those years ago, particularly the manner of her departure—or dismissal. At the same time, she begins to grow increasingly alarmed for the safety of the two new charges currently in Annie's care.
Told in alternating points of views—Annie in the mid-'90s and Sue in the present day—this taut novel of suspense will keep readers turning the pages right up to the shocking end.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of Collins's well-crafted debut, 25-year-old Sue Keller, who's been struggling with depression since her father's death in a car accident the year before, doesn't recognize Anneliese Whittaker, her childhood nanny, when the two bump into each other on Manhattan's Lower East Side. At parting, Anneliese says she'd love to see more of Sue. Sue takes comfort in reconnecting with Anneliese, with whom she bonded after her mother died of cancer when she was three. However, as Sue comes to rely on Anneliese, who has two current charges, to pull her out of her depression, she can't ignore her increasing suspicion about how Anneliese is treating the two children. When Sue at last uncovers genuinely criminal behavior, she returns to her childhood home to discover the truth about Anneliese's relationship with the Keller family and the circumstances of Anneliese's abrupt termination. Anneliese follows, and a horrifying confrontation predictably ensues. Much of this is familiar, but Collins does a good job building suspense by shifting between Sue's present-day narration and Anneliese's experiences back in 1996. Psychological thrillers fans won't be disappointed.
