The story to me was one that was fairly straightforward instead of full of shocking twists and turns but that in no way meant that I didn’t enjoy reading it.

Thank to Netgalley for the advanced copy...

Wow! What a rollercaster!!!

Jade was giving Mel the drugs into her systems, she was so out of it! Poor Poppy, she had no idea what Jade had done to her family in the house. Jade took Evie to Dylan while she played in her role at the house.

I'm glad that Mark and his family are back together for good..

Can't wait to more of this author soon.

Mark and Melissa take their neighbor Jade in whose house is burnt down in an accidental fire.They have a baby and a seven year old and Jade seems like a perfect person to take care of their kids as nanny till she gets back on her feet. But was Jade really godsend or did she have another agenda in mind ?

The Babysitter is a great psychological thriller without much of twists or turns as we know who the suspect is from start but that does not take away from the story .The author does a great job building up tension and keeping the audience entertained .A solid 3 ½ stars

I would like to thank Bookouture & NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest and fair review.

The story took a huge jump in the beginning without a clear connection to the prologue. Almost as if the prologue was witten after the story to try to clean up the gaps. The story itself was very broken, with the view points of the characters not clean or connected. I do not plan to recommend the book to my reading circle.

Thank you for allowing me this preview. The story just did not grab me and though I tried several times to finish it, I've given up. For some reason I just couldn't connect.

OMG this was a brilliant read! Grabs the reader by the hand and drags them through chapters of what's is going on, why can't you see that! It's right in front of you!
A story told from the viewpoints of the main characters Max, Melanie, Jade and less so Dylan.
The prologue is especially powerful and sets the premise of the book.
When a neighbour's cottage burns down and Max and Mel take her in for what is meant to be a few days to she gets herself on her feet and repairs can start on her own property.
When Jade strikes an immediate rapport with their two children,it seems they have a built in babysitter,
A match made in heaven and nothing could go wrong, or could it!
Be careful what you wish for, it may not turn as you wish.
As i said earlier, told from various viewpoints of the main characters.
The superb quality of the writing lets you inhabit their psyches and explore their strengths and weaknesses. Full of why cant you see that? It is obvious, right in front of your face moments.
A superb read and thanks to Sheryl,Bookoture and Netgalley for the ARC. A worthy 4 stars and I urge you to read it.

Mark is one of the good guys that sees the best in everyone, which isn’t always an easy task when you consider that he is a Police Officer. He is a loving husband, a brilliant dad, in fact an all round family man. When Melissa, his wife is struggling with caring for their young daughter and baby, while he is working long hours, the perfect solution pops up like a gift. Jade who seems to be just what the family need. The perfect baby sitter.
OMG, this was like going to the cinema where you watch bits with just one eye. You know that this girl is going to be trouble but bloody hell I really hadn’t bargained for Jade. The more Jade did the more incompetent Melissa seemed. Mark was just glad to be able to get on with his job of catching the bad guys. But that plan didn’t quite work out. In fact you could say he could have worked from home to do that! Jade had a rather cunning plan and boy had she got all her bases covered!
This is one of those books where you put the kettle on and when you feel you can actually make a drink the darn water has gone cold again. The short alternating chapters between the three main characters in the story made it impossible of me to put this book down. I was on a roll. The wickedness of Jade just escalated, Melissa got worse and Mark was still chasing his tail. Me, well I felt like taking the kids and hiding, the poor little poppets. Talk about things to make you never get over wetting the bed stuff, would they ever recover?
There were story lines coming out of the wood work. Oh this is oozing in pure genius madness for a massive finale that came together in spectacular fashion. It is one of those books that you just don’t want to come to an end, no matter how much more suffering the characters have to endure! A super, super, brilliant read, Wow!

This was my first book by this author and I will definitely check out other books by her

thoroughly enjoyed this book certainly a theme of The Hand That Rocks The Cradle about it! it’s difficult to give a synopsis of the storyline without giving too much away but you do want to scream at Mark and Mel that their difficulties started when Jade, the nanny, moved in!

many thanks to netgalley and the publishers for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Having seen such good reviews I was looking forward to this one but I was left feeling disappointed.

Throughout, Jade was so predictably awful. She had been through a rough time but I found it impossible to have any sympathy for her.

As a police officer you'd think Mark would have checked up on the live-in babysitter- he was in a much better position to do that but leaves it to Mel. He seemed to be unable to see what was under his nose.

Poor Mel- how come she didn't realise that her 'exhaustion' seemed to occur after one of Jade's helpful drinks? Is she really happy about this attractive scantily clad lass romping round her house?

The only two people who seem to have any sense are Poppy & the dog!

It was a bit like watching a nasty accident but I had to read to the end! The cover gets five stars-sorry I can't be more positive about the story!

Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book

This was a dnf for me. I made it to 32% and that was about 30% longer than I wanted to. It was to predictable and I felt like I was watching a bad Lifetime movie. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

This book was provided to me by NetGalley in exchange for a review. Don't want to give a thing away. Read this book. Now!! SO great! You won't be able to put it down!

It’s a shame that this book was a little far fetched as I really enjoyed it.
It was easy reading and kept me entertained and engaged throughout. The predictability didn’t necessarily reduce my enjoyment of it. If you like psychological thrillers, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this one too and I would read further books from this author.

WOW! A fantastic psychological thriller right from the first page. An incredible read, fast paced with loads of twists and turns. Just when you thought The Babysitter couldn't get any worse, she comes up with another level of despicable. A real page-turner and well worth the 5 stars.

A babysitter from hell is all I can say to describe this character. Every time I felt that she couldn't go lower than the previous act, she showed me that there was still another layer of gruesomeness about her.

Melissa and Mark's neighbor Jade's house goes up in flames, and as a kind act they invite the neighbor into their home and make her their babysitter. But acts of kindness never go unpunished, thus starts the wicked ways of the babysitter. She wants Mark to herself for reasons known only to her and which is revealed at the end.

She does everything to poison the married life of Melissa and Mark, careers are destroyed, children are slowly weaned away from the mother. The poison apple is always rotten to the core and soon spreads its vile stuff. We are told, in the second chapter itself that the babysitter wants Mark, the acts start from the beginning, go on till the end where the finale reveals the reasons.

My first book by Sheryl Browne, and the story starts with a bang, with nary a pause. The acts pile up on one another. The husband and wife fight, yet do not take a step back to think about the reasons of this drastic change. Oh yes, I forgot to tell you guys, the husband Mark is a Police Detective. Ahem ahem.... Yet he couldn't see the clues. This couple allowed a stranger to take care of their daughters without a background check or asking for references.

The wife Melissa, is tired all the time, fatigued and in a foggy state; she does go to the doctor. A diagnosis of depression and mental illness is made based on past history, no blood tests are done. Isn't that the first thing the docs order to rule out over-medication? But here Melissa is given more medicines... Wellll!!

The babysitter is a quick read to read, if you like reading about how low and how obsessed people can get. It is fast paced and written to shock the readers, pets are also harmed, till the husband Mark gets it. The blurb does say the husband suspects, he does... only at the end when 3/4th of the book is done.

First up, I can see this book being huge.  It's a well-written psychological thriller with an antagonist you will love to hate.  Mark and Melissa Cain are likeable enough characters if maybe a touch too nice (or maybe clueless) at times.  Everything that follows all comes down to personal taste.  And to prove that point I will link to a number of very positive reviews, written by my blogger peers, at the end of this review.  I wanted to love this book.  Really, I did.  I certainly didn't hate it, but I struggled to find any love for it either.  I feel like I'm heading towards a reading slump at the moment and the only type of fiction that grabs my attention, that gets any kind of real interest from me is on the darker side.  For me, The Babysitter is the total opposite of dark fiction (although there was one scene with a pig, which I can safely say was my favourite part!).

I did thoroughly enjoy the prologue which, if you read the extract I featured on publication day, you will see hints at some fairly dark themes.  I think I wanted more of that and less of the happy little middle-class family.  Aspects of Jade's character I really liked; her malevolence, her deviousness and her anger.  But other characters were just too nice, too naive and too accepting for my tastes.  And I certainly wouldn't want DI Mark Cain involved in any investigation I was part of!  This story is not all sweetness and light, by the way.  I feel that's how I'm making it sound but it really isn't.  One of the characters is fairly evil in their intentions and disgustingly manipulative.  I'm afraid it just wasn't enough for me.  I wanted a lot more.

Would I recommend this book?  I'm not sure.  If, like me, you prefer to read darker tales then no, this book isn't for you.  But if you enjoy psychological thrillers then don't let me put you off - I would hate for that to happen.  I read the book from start to finish despite not being fully invested.  And in all honesty, I would pick up another book written by Sheryl Browne without a moment's doubt.

EXCERPT:'We want her gone, don't we, my precious?' she whispered. 'Out of our lives forever and ever.'

ABOUT THIS BOOK: You trust her with your family. Would you trust her with your life?

Mark and Melissa Cain are thrilled to have found Jade, a babysitter who is brilliant with their young children. Having seen her own house burn to the ground, Jade needs them as much as they need her. Moving Jade into the family home can only be a good thing, can’t it?

As Mark works long hours as a police officer and Melissa struggles with running a business, the family become ever more reliant on their babysitter, who is only too happy to help. And as Melissa begins to slip into depression, it’s Jade who is left picking up the pieces.

But Mark soon notices things aren’t quite as they seem. Things at home feel wrong, and as Mark begins to investigate their seemingly perfect sitter, what he discovers shocks him to his core. He’s met Jade before. And now he suspects he might know what she wants …

Mark is in a race against time to protect his family. But what will he find as he goes back to his family home?

MY THOUGHTS: Well. . . it's good, but not great.

The story rocks along at a good pace, but I kept having to suspend belief. Belief that everyone, especially Mark the DI in residence, failed to notice what was going on. Belief that Mel's GP wouldn't have ordered blood tests to check that she was (a) taking her medication, or (b) not overdosing herself on her medication. The results would have been most interesting.

I would have liked a great deal more suspense. I know that is not easy when you know who the protagonist is, but it has been done successfully by other authors, and it could have been done here.

None of the characters were particularly well fleshed out. Surely Mel must have had some friends of her own, other mothers, neighbours, pre-baby friends. Poppy must have had friends, other children she went on play dates with. . . Other than the couple they went to dinner with, they seemed to exist in social isolation.

And I found the ending to be a little bit too convenient. If you read this book you will see what I mean, or not. As I said at the start, this is a good read, but not a great one. Would I read more from this author? Yes. There were a couple of times the author took me by surprise, but overall this just didn’t gel for me.

I love the cover. Very relevant.

Thank you to Bookouture via Netgalley for providing a digital copy of The Babysitter for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

Please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the 'about' page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com for an explanation of my rating system.

This review and others are also published on my blog sandysbookaday.wordpress.com https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...

This book is really just "meh", in my opinion.

You know right from the start who the antagonist is and what her end game is so there is no suspense or mystery what-so-ever. You are basically just reading through expected actions until the inevitably, predictable outcome. Jade is no doubt a nutter but even then her character wasn't all that interesting, and Melissa and Mark are boring as all get out. There just wasn't much substance to the story for me.

Thanks to Netgalley for my copy.

Obviously going by the large number of high ratings for this one I am in a very small minority.

The book starts with a house fire and the one surviving member of the fire Grace and the introduction of three police officers. One Detective Inspector and two DS.

Fast forward eight years and the three officers are all still at exactly the same rank. Are there no promotions? The three officers and their superior have not advanced their careers in any way shape of form??????

Jade's house is burnt down and she is offered a place to stay by her neighbours. Mark the Police Inspector and Melissa his wife and mother of his two children.

Suddenly bad things begin to happen to the family and not one person makes the connection to the houseguest and now babysitter Jade. A policeman and his wife are so clueless they don't check references or look into this stranger's background. No they just let her move in and hand over their much loved children. Melissa is suddenly sleeping like the dead through the night and not hearing her new baby is wailing for a feed.

The story was just too implausible to me. A happily married settled supposedly intelligent couple do not see their problems immediately start with the timing of Jade's arrival.

This was a great psychological thriller that hooked me in from the first few pages.
The story is told from different points of views from each of the main characters and resolves around Mark a policeman, Melissa his wife and Jade the Babysitter.
A well deserved 5 stars from me.