Nothing To See Here by Kevin Wilson

Nothing To See Here by Kevin Wilson.
Published in paperback 30th January 2020 by Text Publishing.
Read January 2020.

As school-mates, Lillian and Madison formed an unlikely friendship at Iron Mountain Girls' Preparatory School.

Lillian, from a poor background, had fought her way to gain a scholarship at the elite academy, sure that it would allow her to finally escape her less than ideal roots. While, Madison, from a wealthy home, looked forward to the best future money could buy. These girls should have had nothing in common, and yet there was a deep connection that bound them together.

However, after Lillian was forced to leave Iron Mountain unexpectedly, following a scandal, it was years before the two of them met again and under the strangest of circumstances.

Lillian has been living a stale existence in her mother's attic, while Madison has had a golden passage through Vassar and into politics, where she has met and married an ambitious senator, Jasper Roberts. The two friends have stayed in contact over the years, but it is not until Madison sends Lillian a letter pleading for her help that Lillian knows she must go to her and answer her friend's call.

It seems that Madison's twin step-children are moving to their luxurious Tennessee estate after the death of their mother and Lillian is the only person she can trust to be their "governess" for the summer.....only there is a catch - the twins have a habit of spontaneously combusting when they are agitated or upset.

Lillian has nothing to regret leaving behind in her dead-end life, so she readily agrees to move to Tennessee to help out - after all the pay is good and Madison must surely be playing some kind of joke on her?

It is not until Lillian meets the twins, Bessie and Roland, that she realises Madison was telling the truth about the fire part, and wonders how on earth she is going to cope with being their care-taker.

But over the course of the summer, Lillian and the misunderstood twins come to know, trust and love each other. It turns out that Lillian needs the twins as much as they need her, and the strange little family they make together might just give them all the meaning they have been looking for in their lives.

And as Lillian discovers that the situation in Tennessee might actually be one of more than a few secrets and lies, Lillian finds that she will do anything to protect her charges from harm.

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The premise of Nothing To See Here is certainly an unusual one, but that is exactly what intrigued me about it. Yes, Kevin Wilson weaves a strange tale in these pages, but is is oh so brilliantly warm, touching and funny that I absolutely loved it!

There is something about the cynical Lillian's character that draws you to her cause from the very first chapter. You can understand why, based on her sorry childhood, she comes to feel the passionate love and loyalty she does for Madison, and Madison in her ever so strange way does feel the same in return - at least as much as she is capable of feeling. But I must admit that I found Madison hard to sympathise with and her selfishness and sense of entitlement actually made me pretty angry for almost the entire book! Great writing here, as this serves to highlight the genuine trust and love that develops between Lillian and the twins.

How can I even start to describe how lovely that developing relationship is? Bessie and Roland are strange, wild creatures when we first meet them. They have been let down by both their parents and grandparents and have become used to relying on each other in a world that seems determined to treat them as freaks and outsiders. Interestingly, it is the very fact that Lillian also sees herself as a freak and an outsider that leads to her finding common ground with the twins - although she has been chosen by Madison from the selfish point of view of keeping their condition secret from prying eyes in the face of Jasper's political ambitions, it transpires that Lillian is the perfect person for the job. The way they begin to understand and find faith in each other is quite simply beautiful.

I absolutely inhaled this book. It is very emotional, and I cried at many points during the story, but there are so many funny moments that had me laughing out loud too, and the climax of the tale has such a gorgeous sense of irony to it that it actually had me punching the air with delight!

Although it is only early days for 2020, I can see that Nothing To See Here is has wormed its way so completely into my heart that it is sure to be one of my top reads of the year. This is an unusual and original story of love and I think that is one of the reasons why it is so good. It is certainly going to be a hard act to follow. 

Nothing To See Here is available now from your favourite book retailer, in hardback, paperback, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Ben Williams of Turnaround Publisher Services for kindly providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review.