If V. C. Andrews and Kate Morton had a literary love child, Emma Rous' USA Today bestseller The Au Pair would be it. One of the most anticipated books of 2019 from Pop Sugar, Bustle, Cosmo , Parade , and Goodreads! Seraphine Mayes and her twin brother, Danny, were born in the middle of summer at their family's estate on the Norfolk coast. Within hours of their birth, their mother threw herself from the cliffs, the au pair fled, and the village thrilled with whispers of dark cloaks, changelings, and the aloof couple who drew a young nanny into their inner circle. Now an adult, Seraphine mourns the recent death of her father. While going through his belongings, she uncovers a family photograph that raises dangerous questions. It was taken on the day the twins were born, and in the photo, their mother, surrounded by her husband and her young son, is smiling serenely and holding just one baby. Who is the child, and what really happened that day? Praise for The Au Pair “This is one hell of a ride.”— New York Post “This will keep you turning those pages. The characters are still playing on my mind.”—Jane Corry, USA Today bestselling author of My Husband's Wife “Entrancing and compelling, The Au Pair seamlessly alternates between two riveting narrators. Atmospheric and reminiscent of Daphne du Maurier's work, it's a beautiful read that delivers a shocking and satisfying ending.”—Liv Constantine, USA Today & Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish "Family secrets come to light in this compelling debut with a gothic touch and a shocking denouement.” —Lisa Ballantyne, internationally bestselling author of The Guilty One “As delicious and spellbinding as a soap opera, complete with the dramatic moments and outrageous twists. A promising first novel from Rous, The Au Pair is an absolutely absorbing and scandalous page-turner.”— Booklist “A splendid read that will be best enjoyed with a book club or a buddy, as you’ll be itching to digest the tale’s twists with someone else, especially when you reach the jaw-dropping climax.”— BookPage “With a transporting sense of place and gripping story line, The Au Pair delves into the darkest of family secrets. A great read.”—Eve Chase "Emma Rous's engrossing debut novel is delightfully lurid and evocative. Full of twists, turns and red herrings, the mystery is satisfyingly complex with a nice touch of romance on the side…a juicy and compelling read, by a promising new author.”—Shelf Awareness (starred review) Emma Rous is the USA Today bestselling author of The Au Pair. She grew up in England, Indonesia, Kuwait, Portugal and Fiji, and from a young age she had two ambitions: to write stories, and to look after animals. She studied veterinary medicine and zoology at the University of Cambridge, and worked as a small animal veterinarian for eighteen years before starting to write fiction. Emma lives near Cambridge in England with her husband and three sons, and she now writes full time. The Au Pair is her first novel. It will be published in eleven countries, in ten languages. She is currently writing her second book. 1 Seraphine August 2017 We have no photographs of our early days, Danny and I. A six-month gap yawns in the Mayes family album after we were born. No first-day-at-school pictures for Edwin, no means of telling which of us two looked more like him at the beginning. An empty double page marks the overwhelming grief that followed our arrival. It's a muggy evening at Summerbourne, and the unopened window in the study muffles the distant rasp of the sea and leaves my skin clammy. I've spent the day creating paperwork towers that cluster around the shredder now, their elongated shadows reminding me of the graveyard. If Edwin has finished his packing, he'll be waiting for me downstairs; he disapproves of me doing this so soon, or perhaps disapproves of me doing it at all. The swivel chair tilts with me as I grab another photo wallet from the bottom desk drawer-more landscape shots of my father's, I expect-and I focus on the wall calendar as I straighten, counting red-rimmed squares. Twenty days since my father's accident. Eight days since his funeral. The packet flaps open and spills glossy black negatives across the carpet, and my jaw tightens. I've lost count of how many days since I last slept. The first photo is of Edwin on the beach as a child, and I check the date on the back: June 1992, just weeks before Danny and I were born. I study this four-year-old version of my big brother for any sign of awareness of the family catastrophe that was looming, but of course there is none: he's laughing, squinting against the bright sunlight, pointing a plastic spade toward a dark-haired young woman at the edge of the image. Photos of seagulls and sunsets follow, and I shuffle through them until I reach the final picture: a domestic scene both recognizable and unfamiliar. The hairs at the