La Nounou

by S.L. Harker, Isabelle Wurth (translator)

Elle est chez vous. Et elle vous ment...

Lorsqu'Audrey engage Holly Goodwin, une jeune femme impeccable, comme nounou à domicile, elle est persuadée d'avoir trouvé la femme idéale. Mais alors qu'Holly se rapproche du fils et du mari d'Audrey, cette dernière ne peut étouffer la jalousie qui couve sous son apparence sereine.

C'est alors qu'Audrey est victime d'un harcèlement en ligne. Une terrible image photoshopée devient virale, mettant son entreprise en péril. De furieuses menaces de mort inondent sa boîte de réception. Même sa boutique de fleurs est vandalisée. Et tout a commencé lorsque Holly Goodwin est entrée dans sa vie...

Alors que la confiance s'effrite au sein du foyer, Audrey doit affronter ses peurs les plus profondes pour protéger sa famille. Elle se demande qui est Holly Goodwin. Et que cache-t-elle exactement ?

Genres: Thriller, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Amazon

238 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 6, 2023

About the author

Even as a young child SL Harker would conjure up stories to share with her family. That love of books and storytelling never went away, but her skills have improved since then.

As a lover of twisty fiction, her books are fast-paced domestic thrillers with a little spice added in.

Reviews

[Marie-Claude Gagné · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bon suspens. Les personnages sont quand même intéressants, ça se lit bien, et je dois avouer que je ne m’attendais pas à la direction qu’a pris l’histoire.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Beaucoup aimé

[Wiseask · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I begin a book I can almost always tell within a page or two whether the author — in this case, a she — knows how to write, whether she has an interesting (or even better: captivating) and entertaining story to tell, whether she knows how to tell her story, and unless I discover some unforeseen disappointment before reaching the end, whether I will enjoy reading it. All of this was evident at the start of S.L. Harker’s superb psychological thriller, The Nanny’s Secret, which in style, structure and substance nearly resembles the best of Daniel Hurst.

Audrey, in her forties, is the new mother of a six-month old baby girl named Lissa. She hired Holly, in her twenties, as a nanny to take care of Lissa while she returns to work at the flower shop she owns, now that her maternity leave is over.

Audrey is married to Rick, a handsome hard-working salesman. They also have a twelve year old son Jace. For years, Audrey and Rick had trouble conceiving another child, but shortly after a devastating miscarriage Audrey became pregnant with Lissa. She calls Lissa her rainbow baby. She and Rick seem like the perfect suburban couple.

They have neighbors across the street about their age, Elijah and his pregnant wife Emma, who already have four children, two boys and two girls. Elijah calls his next baby their tie-breaker. The charismatic Elijah, whose blue eyes we are told “are so piercing they brighten the space around him,” plays a major part in the drama as the story unfolds.

Audrey is the narrator for most of the story. Even though Holly came with excellent references, Audrey begins having misgivings about her, like how Holly seemed to want the job as nanny a little too desperately. Then Audrey is targeted on social media with a fabricated image of herself being cruel to a cat, costing her customers, damaging her reputation, and resulting in hate mail and even death threats. All of this coincides with the arrival of Holly.

Yes, Holly, the nanny, has a secret as the title implies, but so does Audrey and at least one other character I will not name so as not to spoil the story for you. I can tell you that by describing her book as “absolutely addictive,” the author did herself a disservice with her understatement.

The Nanny’s Secret is exactly what a psychological thriller advertising a “jaw-dropping twist” is supposed to look like. That’s because there is more to The Nanny’s Secret than just the nanny’s secret. It’s called payback.

[Marloes · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good thriller. It was kind of obvious the events started as soon as the nanny moved in, however, how it all connected remained unclear until the end and was nothing like I expected it to be. The main character was a little (too) jealous and judgmental, which was annoying at times. Also, the last 50 pages felt a bit unnecessary and harsh. But if you’re looking for a quick and enjoyable thriller, you should definitely give this one a try!

[Marie-Eve Anctil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ce livre m’a tenu en haleine du début à la fin. Un pur divertissement . Maintenant j’aimerai découvrir d’autre livres de cette auteure .

[Jessie Roussel · Rating 4 out of 5]

J’ai bien aimé ma lecture, un page turner. Je ne m’attendais pas du tout à cette fin!

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 ⭐️

The only good thing that I can really say about this book is that the writing style is simple & easy to get through, so I finished it within a couple of hours.

The author took a predictable trope - young nanny who appears to be acting suspiciously, jealous wife whose husband thinks that she’s simply paranoid - and tried to do something unexpected with it. Whilst I applaud the effort, the twist came completely out of left field and didn’t even make sense with the storyline.

The twist itself was pretty depressing and just left me feeling grim. The attempted drama & suspense that led up to it was tame at best and didn’t arouse any anticipation - I simply didn’t care what happened to the characters, which is probably the worst thing that a thriller can do to a reader.

[Marie-Noël Chenel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un bon petit livre à intrigue qui est pas trop long à lire! J’ai franchement bien aimé, c’était mon premier livre de cette auteure et je n’ai pas été déçu. Je ne m’attendais pas à la petite twist de la fin, mais je ne suis pas tombé en bas de ma chaise non plus, c’est pourquoi je lui attribut un 4⭐️

[Jessica Rolke · Rating 4 out of 5]

WOOOOOWWWWWWWW. Guess how much I paid for this book? $0! I got this book from stuff your kindle day and was really expecting nothing great from it cause the other book I got wasn’t good and it was part of a 7 book series with each book being about 200 pages.

I honestly love thrillers that are this length cause they need to get right into it and I felt like immediately I was throw into the mystery. Obviously I new something was going on but I had no inkling of what it could be that once the reveal came around I was shocked. And then the last 30 pages? I couldn’t put it down!

So surprised by this book and I’m glad I picked it up for free.

[Kelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Odd

This one seems really far-fetched. Just a little too weird for me. The characters made terrible decisions and the whole plot was just very gross. Audrey hires a live-in nanny to watch her pre-teen son and baby so she can return to work at a flower shop. But the nanny seems to have secrets, and Audrey is determined to expose those secrets. She is getting threatened at work, but is it the nanny? Or someone else? The answers to those questions left me rolling my eyes.

[Michelle Burnett · Rating 1 out of 5]

ridiculous

For some reason I read 75% of this book and then got rid of it. The writer doesn’t put any emotion into her writing. The characters say and do ridiculous things. If you just found your baby had been kidnapped you wouldn’t throw a glass at the wall. I will not be reading any more of her books. Very disappointed

[Maude Lemay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oups je l’ai fini samedi, mais j’ai oublié update! Je donne un bon 3.5 étoiles! C’était bon et très rapide comme lecture, alors on est toujours captivé! Par contre le fait que le livre soit court fait en sorte qu’on connaît moins les personnages et qu’il y a moins de contexte !! Je recommande !

[Janie Lapierre · Rating 5 out of 5]

J’ai adoré ce livre, ça se lit vraiment bien !

[Isabelle Rancourt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un petit roman intriguant que j'ai bien aimé.
Audrey engage une nounou, Holly, pour s'occuper de sa petite famille quand elle travaille dans son commerce de fleur.
Dès l'arrivée de celle-ci, il commence à avoir de mysterieuses choses qui se produit ...
Audrey se sent menacée et craintive et décide de mener une petite bataille avec caméra et sécurité.... mais elle n'est pas prête à ce qu'elle découvrira.....

[Léa Gagnon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bon petit livre rapide et facile à lire.

L’intrigue initiale n’est pas du jamais-vu, mais intéressante. Néanmoins la tournure des événements est imprévisible.

[Julie Patterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up to fulfill a prompt in a reading challenge I am engaged in and loved it! I was engaged from the start and was kept guessing as to where the plot was headed.

[Isabelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Une intrigue originale mais pas très prenante

[Juliette Sigouin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Je l’ai terminé juste pour savoir ce qui se passait mais avoir su je l’aurais pas commencé..

[Denise Meahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️⭐️💫

[Elise DeMoully · Rating 2 out of 5]

Actual rating: 2.5⭐️ it was just okay…the premise was weird and didn’t seem that well-written to me.

[Kayla Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was just okay. It was a quick read in between other books for me. The twist fell flat and I hated the sons story line.

[Sophie Bourque · Rating 5 out of 5]

J’ai adoré ce livre, du début à la fin ! Ça se lit bien et l’intrigue est intéressante 📖

[Brenda Kelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is just not the type of book I enjoy. It was easy to read, but not much depth to it. The story line could have worked, but the characters were too bland. I didn’t really get connected to any of the characters.

[Joana | lecturesdenana · Rating 3 out of 5]

★★★,5/5

Ce livre est disponible gratuitement avec l’abonnement @amazonkindle

❗️Avis sans spoil

Je n’avais jamais entendu parler de ce thriller mais j’avoue que la couv m’a attiré.

Pour être honnête j’ai bien aimé mais j’ai été un peu déçu, je m’attendais à mieux au niveau du plot, je ne m’y attendais pas certes mais je ne suis pas rester sur le cul non plus, mais bon, il faut dire elle passe après Freida McFadden reine des retournement de situation, donc j’avoue que je pense que cela a pu influencé ma note.

Je pense que ce thriller domestique sera parfait pour les personnes qui n’en lit pas et qui aimerais commencé, car il est assez court et tout de même très addictif.

Les +
La plume est très addictive, et je trouve que pour des premiers thrillers c’est très prometteur pour la suite.
Le suspense du début à la fin, on se demande tout le long du livre qui est le coupable de l’harcèlement d’Audrey et pour quoi.
J’ai trouvé l’intrigue et les personnages bien développées.

Les -
Le plot était pas si fou que ça.
Et quelques longueurs sur la fin.

[Josée · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellente histoire de suspense à lire.

[Marie-Christine Blanchette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent livre, bien écrit, suspense présent de A à Z.

[Maxime-Olivier Fournier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un suspense qui nous tient est haleine très rapidement. On a hâte de comprendre où l’histoire va nous mener et surtout de qui on doit se méfier.

[Carrie Shields · Rating 3 out of 5]

𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒕'𝒔 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒂 𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒋𝒂𝒈𝒈𝒆𝒅 𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒎𝒚 𝒇𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒄𝒓𝒖𝒎𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒂𝒑𝒔𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒆. 𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒂𝒎 𝑰 𝒈𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒑 𝒊𝒕 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈?

This is a difficult review to write because I love this author and found her other books to be very smartly written, but THE NANNY'S SECRET was somewhat of a letdown. It's coming in at 2.5 stars rounded up.

What I loved:
The signature, no exposition, "pulls you in fast" writing style.
Characters who were developed despite this being a short book.

What didn't work:
The 'twist' was SO easy to figure out that as soon as I entertained the idea, I shrugged it off.
I was right about the so-called twist.
The ending fizzled out and fell flat.
I *hated* the storyline with the pre-teen son. Everything about it was just ick.

I see this as just a bump in the road and anxiously look forward to this author's next release.

[Léa ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ma note : 3,5/5 ✨

Un thriller domestique addictif ! 🩵

Ce roman ce lit à une vitesse folle. Déjà, il est plutôt court (moins de 300 pages) et en plus, il est vraiment addictif. On a BESOIN de savoir ce qu’il va se passer et pourquoi il se passe tout ça !

J’ai adoré retrouver cet univers particulier des thrillers domestiques où on est prêts à accuser tout le monde et qui rend l’atmosphère plutôt lourde tout au long de la lecture.

En revanche, le plot twist ne m’a pas plus convaincue que ça, j’ai trouvé que c’était un peu sorti de nulle part et que ça arrivait comme un cheveux sur la soupe… même si j’avoue que les explications finales ont été vraiment bien amenées ce qui a rendu le tout plus acceptable ! 👀

Je pense que ce thriller est parfait quand on a besoin d’un livre qui nous tient en haleine et qui nous fait nous poser mille questions, au même titre que la protagoniste principale !

A lire si tu aimes :
- les thrillers domestiques 👀
- les romans courts et addictifs !

[Beth Casas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expected this to be very similar to The Housemaid, but it wasn’t at all!
Audrey and Rick have a mostly happy marriage. They have a 12-year-old son, Jace, and a 6-month-old daughter, Lissa. Audrey hires Holly, a 25 year old woman, to care for Lissa, while she returns to work at her flower shop. Lissa is their “rainbow baby”, born to them after a previous miscarriage.
Right away, Audrey begins to have suspicious feelings about Holly, but can’t quite put her finger on the exact reasons. She lies to her and builds an odd an odd friendship with Jace, but decides that Jace getting along with the nanny isn’t a bad thing. Lots of crazy things begin to happen that Audrey can only correlate back to hiring Holly, but she has no proof! In the end, Audrey’s intuition is justified, but not in the way she expected.
TOTAL SURPRISE!!!