Review: The Night Nanny’s Secret by Kathryn Whitfield

Print Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Headline Accent (December 05, 2024)

From Goodreads.com:  New mum Lucy couldn't be more in love with her twin baby boys, but with her husband Andrew's return to long hours at work, she's left to deal with the sleepless nights alone. When her best friend Nina suggests they hire a night nanny, Lucy jumps at the opportunity - much to the distaste of her overbearing mother-in-law.

But Evie is a natural with the boys and the extra sleep means the days are more manageable. Slowly but surely, Lucy is a finding a way back to her old self and soon, she might even be ready to get back to running the gym she owns with Nina.

Then things begin to go missing, the doubts start creeping in and Lucy finds she can't keep track of the truth. Is it baby brain, or could there be a side to Evie she's not letting on? And when the future of Lucy's business is threatened, she starts down a path that might lead her to uncover some long-buried truths about their small town.

These secrets might tear her family apart - from the inside out.

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My Rating: 2 (would have been 2.5) stars out of 5

Trigger Warning and full disclaimer, I knocked an half a star from this review due to the unnecessary death of a pet. I understand the author was trying to emphasize just how cruel this particular character could be, but I will never condone violence against animals for the shock value, especially when there are other ways that the same point could have been driven home to the reader. I would have taken a full star, but decided to be generous since the death itself happened off the page.

Moving on to the rest of this story, this was a hard one to remain invested in as the first half drags on with repeated information that just isn't needed. First it was with the details of Lucy's exhaustion. I get it, she's a new mom to twins nonetheless and her husband (while he tries to occasionally be helpful) is still the only one working leaving the majority of the late-night work to her, so once they hired on their night nanny, I expected these details to become less so that we could move on to the real plot of the story. Sadly, I was mistaken as we were somehow bogged down with even more details. Of how Evie helped Lucy feed the twins, bathe the twins, change their diapers, change them for bed, etc. 

About halfway through, we start getting other details thrown at us. Some money goes missing, Evie seems to overstep in certain areas, and a potential threat to Lucy's business rise up. All at once. And of course peppered throughout is the occasional visit from Lucy's mother-in-law, who seems to ooze disdain at everything Lucy does (or doesn't do as the case may be). But even then, the night-time routines of the twins seem to still take center stage to the point there were several times that I almost gave up on this novel. I desperately wanted MORE. Even the little bits that painted Evie in a not-so-flattering light were so few and far between that I found myself losing interest in this novel as there wasn't enough non-domestic drama happening to entice me to keep reading. 

I feel I should also mention at this point that this novel does have dual timelines with certain events happening in present day, and others happening back when Andrew and his friends were teenagers. And even with that dual telling, I still found myself getting bored. Who cares what a group of bored teenagers were doing with their summer vacation back in 2000? 

And then all of the sudden as we reached the last third of the novel, it was like a switch was flipped and the author suddenly remembered the plot. A lot of things started happening at once, and while the book did become a lot more interesting for me, I also found one particular plot point to be completely inconceivable (mainly the fact that if someone was so obviously in such an altered mental status that they attempted to harm themselves, they would have been placed on an immediate psychiatric hold and not allowed to just sign themselves out and leave). But by this point, it was too little too late as far as I was concerned. I would have much rather had all of this drama be spread out over more of the novel instead of just rushing at a breakneck speed towards the conclusion. 

However, I do think that even with the issues that I had with this one (the trigger warning notwithstanding), this book may still appeal to those who enjoy suspense novels that are slow to get going, but once they do, go out with a bang.

  

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.