The Au Pair

About this book

A NEW YORK TIMES NOVEL EVERYONE WILL BE TALKING ABOUT and NOVEL EVERYONE WILL BE READING THIS SUMMER"Is anything more dangerous than a fragile male ego?" - The New York Times"Nervewrackingly fun."--Vogue, Best Books of the Year So FarA Boston Globe, Seattle Times, Town & Country, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Lit Hub, Men's Journal, and Zibby Books most-anticipated/summer books pickAward-winning author Teddy Wayne follows his breakout sensation The Winner--a New York Times Top Ten Thriller of the Year--with another seductively twisty page-turner about the explosive impact of a beautiful Norwegian au pair on a celebrated novelist and his wife.Steven Hammer was once a literary star. Now, his career is floundering, his marriage to a high-powered woman is crumbling, and the only bright spot in his life is Astrid, the Norwegian au pair who cares for their children--and reveres his neglected novels. But what begins as a secret infatuation soon spirals into a scandal that makes them both infamous.As a headline-grabbing trial captivates the world with a salacious story of sex, power, and betrayal, Steven must confront the wreckage he's created--and the deeper insecurities that fueled it. Is Astrid an innocent young woman caught up in a case beyond her control, or a calculating femme fatale? And how far will he go, driven by desperation and obsession, for her professed love?With inexorable momentum and sly, lucid prose, Teddy Wayne's The Au Pair is a sleek literary thriller about desire, deception, and the unraveling of a man as he grapples with his fading relevance--when the lies others spin pale beside the fictions we tell ourselves.