What the Nanny Saw
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4.1 • 13 Ratings
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
A gripping exploration of life behind closed doors from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Good Girl and The Betrayals
Nanny required to take care of needs of busy professional London family
When penniless student Ali Sparrow answers Bryony and Nick Skinner's advertisement her life changes overnight.
She is catapulted into the privileged and excessive world of London's financial elite. At first everything is overwhelming - from twins who speak their own language to a teenage girl with weight issues and a son almost her own age. Then there is Bryony, who has one eye on her dazzling career and the other on Ali's failings.
When boom turns to bust and a scandal erupts that suggests something corrupt has been hatched behind the Skinners' front door, their private life is suddenly public news. And as Ali becomes indispensible, she realizes she's witness to things she probably shouldn't see.
But is she principled enough to keep the family's secrets when the press come prowling for the inside scoop? Or will she dish the dirt on the family who never saw her as anything other than part of the scenery?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Filthy-rich Bryony and Nick Skinner wanted a modern-day Mary Poppins, but what they needed was a superwoman who could "tread on the map of family life without leaving a big imprint." Twenty-one-year-old Ali Sparrow was perfect: eager to raise money to finish school, get away from a going-nowhere affair, and escape her own troubled family. London columnist and bestselling author Neill (The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy) concocts a darkly fascinating portrait of the stupid-rich, and the morally superior immigrant maids they press into service. In Ali's case, it soon becomes clear that her real job isn't just plugging domestic gaps in the lives of a banker and his wife, but rather "actually running the show," a tricky task involving needy five-year-old twins Hector and Alfie; insecure, anorexic 14-year-old Izzy; and moody, cynical 17-year-old Jake. But her hardest job by far will be keeping mum about the financial scandal that threatens to bring down the Skinners. And keeping her passionate affair with Jake, their son, in the dark will prove an even greater challenge. In this fast-paced, dishy morality tale, Neill also delivers a thoughtful dissection of how greed and hubris helped bring the banking industry to its knees in 2008.
