The Nanny

It’s the characters and locations that make this dark novel so slippery and claustrophobic that the reader is compelled to read beyond the melodrama and enter into a nightmare world. This novel is set in a world of privilege and one of loss, where the dangers lurk in recollection, and hidden motives.

The intriguing premise belays a darker world from the one that little Jocelyn first experienced as a child - her first experience of loss. She was seven when Hannah Burgess, her nanny vanished from Lake Hall, the estate of Lord and Lady Holt. All traces of Hannah’s existence vanished with her, leaving only a mystery and a memory – neither which should be trusted.

Moving on three decades, Jocelyn (aka Jo) finds herself with another loss, that of her husband in a car crash. She is forced to return from her adopted home in America, back to Great Britain.

Circumstance forces Jo to bring her daughter Ruby to Lake Hall, and in so doing, she must confront her past which may be at odds with her childhood recollections. She needs to rebuild her relationship with Lady Virginia Holt, her Mother, now also a widower.  However it is with little Ruby (her ten-year-old granddaughter) that Lady Holt bonds with; as the Mother and Daughter relationship remains strained.

Then the past bleeds into the present as bones; the remains from a dark past (or perhaps a secret), are discovered on the grounds of Lake Hall. A stranger appears, an echo from the past or is it something else, something more troubling.

The vividness of the characters in this thriller, one charting dysfunction in a wealthy family is what sets this novel apart from the pack. The reader’s loyalties are tested as they waver between Mother (Virginia), and Daughter (Jo) with Granddaughter (Ruby) trapped in the twisted bonds of family.

Then there’s the eponymous Hannah Burgess, the woman who gives this narrative its title; a young woman who vanished, and perhaps was part of the fracture of those days now passed - but who hangs dangerously, as more than a childhood memory.

The location, Lake Hall with the boathouse and surroundings seeped with the privilege of the British aristocracy, when coupled to the surrounding village - give this novel an expanse, but one that also provides a growing sense of claustrophobia. The pacing is measured, as it plays out in graduations allowing the reader to become embedded into this dark narrative, and at times confused like the police, and the characters that try to understand what is really happening.

As a psychological thriller, The Nanny is troubling, and the perfect read to pack for the summer. It provides distraction from the reality that surrounds us, again indicating that taking perceptions and recollections at face-value can be dangerous, so very deadly. Sometimes the truth requires uncovering, but what we find may well unsettle.

Highly recommended.