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?

Do not hire an au pair without reading this book Oh My, Au Pair A Complete Guide to Hiring and Hosting an Au Pair is a must-have guide for any family who has ever struggled to find good child care. Now, parents in need of some extra help have an honest, up-to-date resource from which to learn about all aspects of the au pair program-the good and the bad Based on her experience hosting fourteen au pairs, working mom Nancy Felix explains the au pair program, answering all the important questions: - Who are au pairs? - How is an au pair different than a nanny? - How can you avoid a disastrous au pair "cultural exchange"? - How does hiring an au pair compare with a babysitter, daycare or nanny? - What is the best agency for my family? - How do I prepare for and conduct telephone interviews? Whether you are trying to decide if an au pair is right for your family or you have hosted before and want a better experience this time, Oh My, Au Pair is a must-read Nancy Felix lives in the New York City area with her family and her fourteenth au pair. Cover artwork by Claudine Hellmuth

Many families leave their children for years to be looked after by young people about whom they know next to nothing, from places they have barely heard of. Who are these au pairs, why do they come and what is their experience of this arrangement? Do they, for their part, find that they are treated as one of the family, and would they even want to be? After a year of careful research, this book shows how most of our assumptions and expectations about au pairs are wrong. This is the first book devoted to the lives of au pairs, their leisure as well as their work time. We see this world from the eyes of the visitors, and their unique perspective on what lies at the heart of our family life. The book does not flinch from documenting the realities of the situation Ð the racism and the problematic behaviour of the au pairs themselves, as much as the ignorance and exploitation they can be subject to. The book is a case study in how to come to feel modern life empathetically from the viewpoint of one of those many migrant groups we take for granted and rely on but rarely try to understand.

For many women in their 20's and 30's, the greatest professional hurdle they'll need to overcome has little to do with their work life. The most focused, confident, and ambitious women can find themselves derailed by a tiny little thing: a new baby. While more workplaces are espousing family-friendly cultures, women are still subject to a "parenting penalty" and high-profile conflicts between parenting and the workplace are all over the news: from the controversy over companies covering the costs of egg-freezing to the debate over parental leave and childcare inspired by Marissa Mayer's policies at Yahoo. Here's the Plan offers an inventive and inspiring roadmap for working mothers steering their careers through the parenting years. Author Allyson Downey, founder of weeSpring, the "Yelp for baby products,” and mother of two young children advises readers on all practical aspects of ladder-climbing while parenting, such as negotiating leave, flex time, and promotions. In the style of #GIRLBOSS or Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office, Here's the Plan is the definitive guide for ambitious mothers, written by one working mother to another.

“When you think that life cannot get better, Blake Pierce comes up with another masterpiece of thriller and mystery! This book is full of twists and the end brings a surprising revelation. I strongly recommend this book to the permanent library of any reader that enjoys a very well written thriller.” --Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Almost Gone) ALMOST LOST is book #2 in a new psychological thriller series by USA Today bestselling author Blake Pierce, whose #1 bestseller Once Gone (Book #1) (a free download) has received over 1,000 five star reviews. When a divorcee vacationing in the British countryside puts out an ad for an au pair, Cassandra Vale, 23, broke, still reeling from the ruins of her last placement in France, takes the job without hesitation. Wealthy, handsome and generous, with two sweet children, she feels nothing can go wrong. But can it? Treated to the best England has to offer, and with France out of sight, Cassandra dares to believe she finally has a moment to catch her breath—until a startling revelation forces her to question the truths of her tumultuous past, her employer, and her very own sanity. A riveting mystery replete with complex characters, layers of secrets, dramatic twists and turns and heart-pounding suspense, ALMOST LOST is book #2 in a psychological suspense series that will have you turning pages late into the night. Book #3 in the series--ALMOST DEAD—is also available!

“When you think that life cannot get better, Blake Pierce comes up with another masterpiece of thriller and mystery! This book is full of twists and the end brings a surprising revelation. I strongly recommend this book to the permanent library of any reader that enjoys a very well written thriller.” --Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Almost Gone) ALMOST GONE is book #1 in a new psychological thriller series by USA Today bestselling author Blake Pierce, whose #1 bestseller Once Gone (Book #1) (a free download) has received over 1,000 five star reviews. When 23 year old Cassandra Vale accepts her first job as an au pair, she finds herself placed with a wealthy family in a rural estate outside of Paris, and all seems too good to be true. But she soon discovers that behind the gilded gates lies a dysfunctional family, a twisted marriage, troubled children, and secrets too dark to air. Cassandra is convinced she’s finally found a fresh start when she takes a job as an au pair in the idyllic French countryside. Just beyond the Paris city limits, the Dubois manor is a grand relic of the past, the family its picture-perfect occupants. It’s the escape Cassandra needs—until she uncovers dark secrets that prove things aren’t as glamorous as they seem. Beneath the opulence lies a dark web of malice, one Cassandra finds all too familiar, triggering dreams from her own violent and tortured past, one from which she desperately runs. And when a grisly murder tears the house apart, it threatens to take down her own fragile psyche with it. A riveting mystery replete with complex characters, layers of secrets, dramatic twists and turns and heart-pounding suspense, ALMOST GONE is book #1 in a psychological suspense series that will have you turning pages late into the night. Book #2 and #3--ALMOST LOST and ALMOST DEAD—are also available!

What does it mean to be an au pair? How do you prepare? What countries offer an au pair program? How do you find the right host family? What are the possible pitfalls? The practical Au Pair Guide provides you with answers to all of these questions. It contains important information and addresses, numerous tips for your daily au pair duties and instructions for caring for children. It also includes notes on child development, ideas for children’s games, first aid tips, country information, a to-do list for applying as an au pair, advice on solving possible complications and an au pair dictionary. The Au Pair Guide is a trusty companion for your au pair experience – from the pre-application phase to your last day abroad.

A memoir of a young woman's experience in travelling from the dusty roads of Soweto to the shores of the United States of America to work as an au pair so as to realize her dreams of attending college. Her visions of America and the realities that she encounters are poles apart yet prove to be interesting and highly instructive. Compared to other Au Pairs, she gets a gem of a family; however, the warm-hearted couple soon indirectly breaks her spirit given their own personal challenges. She undergoes tribulations that are beyond her expectations, but stronghearted and resilient person that she is, she uses every event in her journey-the good and the bad to learn something new and get closer to her goal.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence Paying privately for childcare is a growing phenomenon worldwide, a trend mirrored in Sweden despite the prevalence there of publicly funded daycare. This book combines theories of family practices, care and childhood studies with the personal perspectives of nannies, au pairs, parents and children to provide new understandings of what constitutes care in nanny families. The authors investigate the ways in which all the participants experience the caring situation, and expose the possibilities and problems of nanny and au pair care. Their study illuminates the ways in which paid domestic care workers 'do' family and care; in doing so, it contributes to wider political and scientific discussions of inequalities at the global and local level, reproduced in and between families, in the context of rapidly changing welfare states.

Au pairs are relied upon by tens of thousands of UK families to do everything from childcare and housework to elder care, pet feeding and waiting at dinner parties. Traditionally thought of as privileged and well-educated young women having fun on a 'gap year' abroad, au pairs have been excluded from many of the recent discussions on migrant domestic labour. However, since 2008 au pairing has been effectively unregulated in the UK and the result is that au pairs now constitute one of the poorest paid and least protected groups of workers. Through an examination of lived experiences, As an Equal? draws on detailed research to examine au pairs and the families who host them in contemporary Britain, revealing au pairing to have become increasingly indistinguishable from other forms of domestic labour. Crucially, hosting an au pair is shown to form part of families' attempts to provide good (enough) childcare in the context of extended working hours and poor public childcare provision. This increased reliance of families on an exploited workforce is shown to form part of the wider political climate of economic austerity, and raises profound questions about the position of women within the neoliberal economy.