NOTHING TO SEE HERE by Kevin Wilson

Lillian is going to work for her rich friend Madison as a sort of governess to Madison’s two 10-year-old twin stepchildren—a boy and a girl. Their mother has died (her death is a story in and of itself), and their father, Madison’s husband, wants nothing to do with them. They pose a very real liability to his political career in the U.S. Senate. The kids have been living with their grandparents without any sort of discipline, because, if they get agitated, they get hot, and I don’t mean that they develop a fever. They burst into flames and torch everything around them except their own bodies. Lillian, with no child-rearing experience whatsoever, sees these kids as afflicted children who are desperately in need of love and attention. This is the second Kevin Wilson book I’ve read with a female protagonist, and she is once again authentic and funny and relatable. My only beef with Lillian, or perhaps with the storyline, is that she adores Madison, who comes across as a spoiled brat, who carelessly throws Lillian into the line of fire, pun intended, because Madison herself just can’t be bothered with such a task while supporting her husband’s political ambitions and raising a small child of her own. Lillian admits to being in love with Madison, but Madison’s physical beauty seems to be all that she has to offer, and Lillian does not strike me as being that shallow. Then there’s the boarding school incident, which I found completely unforgiveable, in which Madison screwed Lillian over and wrecked her life. Madison is the perfect foil for Lillian’s good intentions but turns out not to be quite as witchy as I thought, following a blockbuster plot twist. It’s a “Whoa! What just happened?” moment that turns Madison’s household on its ear. I particularly love the title, which probably has even more implications than I picked up on. When Lillian decides to take the “fire” children to the library, she soothes their anxiety by calmly telling them that they will be indistinguishable from other kids there; there’s “nothing to see here.” The unfortunate alternate interpretation of that statement is that their father makes every effort to ensure that they are invisible to his constituency and therefore unable to tarnish his squeaky-clean public image. No wonder the kids start heating up whenever they see him.