I’ve just finished “what the nanny said” by Laura Finch which will be released on the 16th of July.

This book being right up my alley Genre wise; thriller / mystery and true crime. The last one I don’t really get since it isn’t based on true events but still, this book was a page turner!

Lucy is a stay-at-home mom, taking care of two-year-old daughter Evie in a very luxurious home with the most extravagant communal gardens. That’s where she meets Taylor, a young woman and very easy to talk to. It’s like they’ve known each other for a very long time.

Lucy’s home live isn’t really something to write home about, Sam, her husband is a journalist for BBC and works and travels a lot. He likes to be in the Spotlight so when he’s home there’s almost always a work colleague with him, friends… Live can get lonely for Lucy.

With her and Taylor becoming fast friends and Taylor egging her on to go back to work and find her worth again, that being in family law: Taylor pitches the idea of becoming Evie’s nanny on Lucy’s work days, when everything is set in stone and Lucy has gone back to work, things seem to escalate pretty quick.

Lucy is quite the alcoholic and uses Valium to zone out. When Sam finds a stash of Valium and other pretty heavy medication, he draws a line. Surely, she isn’t fit and capable to safely care for their daughter? He asks her to leave, without Evie.

Within a short timespan Sam seems to be head over heels for Taylor who is manipulating him but he can’t see it. Things just keep escalating until one winds up dead and two seem to have vanished of the face of the earth.

The storyline above takes place in the year 1999, but there is also a present timeline happening where Evie is an adult.

When visiting her mom something terrible happens, Evie’s mom Mia complains of a headache and heads to bed for a lie-down. Not much later Evie hears a shrill scream and runs to her mother’s bedroom, but she’s to late. Her mom died of a severe stroke. Overcome by grief and sorting some stuff out, Evie finds a box with old article clippings of a murder that has taken place in 1999.

The article talks about a nanny who has been interviewed claiming she was there when it happened. The 3-year-old girl has vanished with what looks like one of her parents and the other has been murdered. Evie does the math; the little girl was named Evie as well and has the same date of birth. Vanished around the time that Evie moved to New Mexico with her mother Mia. Her mother never wanted to talk about Evie’s father or their time in London.

The only thing she can remember her mother saying to someone was ‘that was in my Melody era’ Melody being Lucy’s best friend… Was Mia ever her mother? She wants answers, so she’s going to London to find out what happened. Who is Mia really? And what happened to her father? Does she have living relatives?

Definitely a ⭐⭐⭐⭐,5 read!