Christa starts a new job as housekeeper and nanny for the Mayer family in Austria. But she finds the role bizarre as the child is 15 year old Wyatt, she is banned from visiting the village and the last nanny disappeared in mysterious circumstances and has never been found…
The New Nanny is a psychological thriller about an American family and nanny, set in Austria.
Robin Mayer is recovering from a miscarriage. Her husband is a workaholic. Their son barely acknowledges either of them. There is huge tension and emotion in the house and they hire Christa to cook, clean and care for them all. Their previous nanny vanished and the police have been unable to find a single trace of her. But Christa has been keeping secrets too and the author drops hints about her past.
Most of the book is written from Christa’s first person perspective. There is a claustrophobic feel to the book as the characters are mostly confined to the house. A few chapters are written from Robin’s viewpoint in the present or as journal entries from the past. Paul’s character is very minimally involved and I don’t feel we got to know him at all.
Christa does manage to make one friend from the village but she is keeping secrets from him and I had the feeling that all might not be what it seems with him either. There are some big twists (one of which is revealed in the blurb below so read at your peril!) and I saw them coming but that did not spoil my enjoyment of the plot developments.
The New Nanny is an entertaining and tense psychological thriller and the next book in ‘The Lies We Tell’ series is out now!
THE NEW NANNY (THE LIES WE TELL BOOK 1)
A forged reference and a fake social media page is all it takes to convince the Mayers I’m the perfect person to look after their son Wyatt. Some people would be scared to move to a remote mountain village with a family they’ve never met, but it’s exactly where I need to be. Because Wyatt is my child…
My sweet little boy was taken from me. There are dark secrets in my past that will stop me from ever getting Wyatt back, but now I’m his nanny, I’ll finally get to raise him like he’s my own.
When I arrive at the Mayers’ house, I’m stunned by the striking glass family home and Robin and Paul’s lavish lifestyle, which I couldn’t afford in my wildest dreams. But Wyatt seems troubled. Robin claims he needs therapy, she says he barely speaks to her, and soon I realise that he’s rarely allowed to leave the house…
When Wyatt gives me a shy smile and begins to open up, it’s clear he needed me just as much as I needed him. We’re making up for the time we lost with long afternoons playing games and baking apple pie.
Everything finally seems perfect in my life. Until I find out what happened to his last nanny…
An utterly heart-pounding and nail-biting read that will have you racing through the pages. Perfect for fans of The Marriage, The Housemaid and The Family Upstairs.
Liz’s story began in a refugee camp in Angola, where she spent the first eight years of her life. After that, she spent some years in Namibia (her home country), South Africa, and Germany. She now lives in Vienna, Austria, with her husband and two children. Liz wrote her first full-length novel at eighteen and hid it in a box under her bed. Several others soon followed it. Her passion lies in writing edge-of-the-seat psychological thrillers that give readers the same rush they would get on a rollercoaster.
TRIGGER WARNING: miscarriage
