52 Books Challenge: The Perfect Family by Shalini Boland
After choosing The Dilemma as my first book in my 52 book challenge for 2020, I went for something completely different for my second – The Perfect Family by Shalini Boland. I love a good thriller and although I haven’t read any of Shalini Boland’s books previously, I had been recommended them by friends so I was excited to get stuck in.
On the surface Gemma Ballantine lives the perfect life: a gorgeous husband, two beautiful little girls, the big house, a successful career, and my initial reaction was one of slight irritation. Then, right at the beginning, we are hit with every parents worst nightmare, Gemma realises one of her children is missing and almost instantly we see that Gemma’s perfect life is not so perfect after all.
When her daughter is found safe and sound by her Mother-in-law, we watch as Gemma’s life starts to fall apart: struggling to juggle both her career and motherhood, and yet reluctant to admit that she isn’t coping. When her Mother-in-law offers to hire Gemma and Robert a nanny for the girls, it seems like the answer to all of their problems. What they don’t know is that it really is just the start.
And so along comes Sadie, the perfect Nanny by all accounts – great with the kids, helpful around the house, and plain enough to not be of any threat to Gemma and the increasing tensions within her marriage. And then we start to see what’s really going on, the new glamorous make-over for Sadie, worming her way in with the school mums, endearing herself to Robert’s family and isolating Gemma from the children. Or at least we think we know what’s going on, because the truth is, right up until the end, it kept me guessing!
That’s the great thing about Shalini Boland, in that she writes in a way that makes you think it’s just another cliched story of a nanny manipulating her way into the affections of the husband, a story we’ve all read a hundred times before. At times I did roll my eyes a little thinking I knew exactly what was coming next, foreseeing the next step long before we had even got there. And that’s the real talent, writing in a way that lures you into this sense of familiarity and then pulls the rug right from under you with an incredible twist not just once but twice over!
The ending had me completely gobsmacked, left reeling at the extents characters in the book will go to for revenge, and massively impressed at how well Shalini Boland fooled us! If you enjoy a good thriller where nothing is as it seems, The Perfect Family is a great read.
You can find The Perfect Family on Amazon here.
