Frankie and her husband Russ ( a successful Doctor) are expecting their second child. Frankie's extreme nausea leaves her struggling to look after her own needs and those of her little daughter so Russ and his mother, the imposing Petunia, decide to bring in Jasmine, a friend of the family, to be a live in nanny. The arrival of Jasmine however marks the start of a series of unsavoury events which leaves the reader on the edge of their seats right to the very last end.
Fast-paced, twisty, dark, highly engaging and covering some challenging issues.
The narrator does a superb job of presenting the full cast of characters in a clearly defined way.
I am grateful to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced listener copy of this highly recommended audiobook.

Twisty, fun domestic thriller! Just when you assume you’ve read this sort of story before you get pleasantly surprised.

Premise - Frankie is married to a charming and successful man, Russ, and they’re expecting their second child. Her life would be perfect, if it weren’t for her severe hyperemesis garvidarum and her witch of a mother in law. The aforementioned mother in law convinces Russ they need a nanny to help with their existing child, Olivia, and she has the perfect candidate in mind. As soon as Jasmine arrives, things take a turn for the worse for Frankie. Will she survive this pregnancy?

I loved feeling slightly off balance through a lot of this. The pacing was terrible - by which I mean perfect, I couldn’t put this down.😅 So bad for my productivity, so good for my happiness. Definitely a good read!

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Elizabeth Bower. She did an excellent job with all of the different characters. I kept forgetting it wasn’t a full cast read! If you can get your hands on the audiobook, you’re in for a treat.

Thanks, NetGalley and Bookouture Audio, for the audio ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I normally cannot get into foreign narrators. But this one was so good. She had me hooked from the start. And this book had me on the edge of my seat. All the twists and turns.

This book pulled me right in! I had never read this author before and glad that I did and will read more in the future for sure.

As far as the story it was engaging, well balanced and had a lot of depth with touching on real life struggles surrounding pregnancy as well as female relationships; the food and the bad. It made me stay up way too late as I didn’t want to shut it off!

I consumed the audiobook. I am thankful to have gotten a complimentary audio ALC from Bookouture Audio through NetGalley to read which gave me the opportunity to voluntarily leave a review.


There are plenty of reviews picking apart the story so I’m going to focus on the audiobook production instead. In short, it was great!

The narrator Elizabeth Bower did an A+ job with her recitation. What I appreciated is that I could enjoy listening to it on 1x speed as it was at a natural speaking rate. Many times I need to increase the speed which is fine but it does distort the vocals. But I was able to enjoy all Ms. Bower had to offer. Her voice fit the characters perfectly in my opinion. She gave good definition to the different characters so you knew easily who was speaking as well as handling the male voices competently. I liked how she even distinguished the characters ages by using different pitches to express that as it was important to the story. I also loved her British accented voice as an American listener.

The production was also very well done. When you hear a poorly executed audiobook from the production aspect you end up appreciating when it is well done.

This title comes out April 11th 2025. Regardless which version you get you’ll be pleased with this fast paced and intriguing thriller!

My rating system since GoodReads doesn’t have partial stars

⭐️ Hated it
⭐️⭐️ Had a lot of trouble, prose issues, really not my cup of tea (potentially DNF’d or thought about it)
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Meh, it was an ok read but nothing special
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Really enjoyed it! Would recommend to others
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Outstanding! Will circle back and read again

Finished in one day! I couldn’t stop listening to this as I wanted to find out what was really going on with this rather eccentric family. I kept wondering what was going to happen to Frankie next. A lot of gaslighting and a lot of wondering. Great psychological thriller that keeps you wondering right up until the end. Great narrator.