The following post includes affiliate links. More details here.  As you’re doing your Amazon shopping, we’d be ever so grateful if you’d use our affiliate link to do so as it helps pay the bills around here!

Amidst the hustle of the season that is already upon us, are you looking to escape?  Us too!  And we are looking forward to escaping with you!  To Virtual Book Club on Friday, December 10 at 7:30 p. m. cst when we’ll discuss A Perilous Undertaking (Veronica Speedwell #2) by Deanna Raybourn for those who sign up here.  Festive beverages and comfort attire encouraged!

Oh readers, this week’s book was the exact right book at the right time for me!  Don’t you just love it when that happens?  Ashley and I have been a bit off schedule, so we’d just finished last week’s title and jumped straight into today’s hoping it would be something different, and it was perfect!  

Nothing To See Here by Kevin Wilson is a joy of a book, and shocking no one, came to my TBR from Modern Mrs. Darcy.  In fact, this type of text is my favorite, it’s one you can just consume (or not, but it’s really engaging) for the surface story or you can dig down deep (or just stay shallow) into the layers of it.  This is the story of Lillian, who’s asked by her best friend, Madison, to take care of her two step children who combust.  Specifically Lillian is tasked with keeping them out of sight while their father continues to build his political career.  There is a complex history of Lillian and Madison, the background of the husband / father, the intriguing employee who helped Lillian with the kids, and the general atmosphere when one lives on an estate with staff and a friend / employer who has more money than you can imagine.  Lillian has no filter, and is a dedicated, loyal friend.  Madison can filter but doesn’t like to, and the kids, well they’re kids and they’ve been through a lot in their short lives, plus the whole they-catch-on-fire thing.  

I was suspicious when I remembered that Nothing To See Here  is set in Franklin, TN, just down the road from us, but I didn’t know Wilson lives in Sewanee, so he’s not far and gets it (which is a personal pet peeve of reading about areas I know well).  There isn’t really any piece of the story that is place specific, so it could have been set anywhere, but it feels right for Franklin.  I do want to know where Lillian’s hometown is based on, because I couldn’t quite pin it down, although I have some ideas.  

If you are looking for a fun, over the top read, that is layered and fast-paced, perhaps to make your family feel more “normal” as the holidays approach, I highly recommend Nothing to See Here.  I’m giving it four stars for engaging writing, a creative story, and real characters, even with the whole fire thing.  I do have some unresolved questions, but the ending feels perfect!

What’s a book you picked up at just the right time and loved all the more for it?

~Nikki

As Nikki stated above, Kevin Wilson is a Tennessee author who lives in Sewanee where, besides being an author, is an Associate Professor of English at Sewanee: The University of the South. His published works, besides the numerous pieces in periodicals and anthologies, include two story collections: Tunneling to the Center of the Earth and Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine, and three novels: Nothing to See Here, The Family Fang which was made into a film in 2016 starring Nicole Kidman and Jason Bateman, and Perfect Little World. He has won several fellowships and several awards, including an Alex Award from the American Library Association for Tunneling to the Center of the Earth. He is married to poet Leigh Anne Couch and has two sons.

Nothing to See Here was exactly what I didn’t know I needed to read after the disappointment that last week’s book choice had me feeling. Wilson’s writing is clear, concise, subtly humorous, and heartfelt, which makes for a delicious story and a quick read. Of note, this book is dedicated to writer and bookseller Ann Patchett and agent Julie Barer. Both of whom have championed Wilson’s writing career in differing ways. I always love a good book set in my home state, but Nikki is right that it could have been set anywhere as long as the city names were changed. I also love when a writer gives me a specific vehicle to envision a character driving, too. It doesn’t help that I know someone who owns a Miata of the same age, and so I was texting said Miata owner about this book. It also made me think about another series of books with fast cars, bourbon, and Southern gentlemen. Two totally different types of writing, dear friends, but, oh how I love them both differently.

I really connected with Lillian while reading, because here she is, in a private estate’s guest house, keeping her best friend’s step-children alive and free from spontaneous combustion. She is the first person who is willing to love these twins for who they are, bonfires be damned. Lillian feels roped into doing this for Madison, but from the beginning of their time on the estate does things that are best for the kids and not for their father, step-mother, and half-brother. She starts to love these kids easily, loving their weirdness and quirks, things that the world at large would make fun of them for – it would be worse if the world knew that they caught on fire, too. It’s like she becomes more than this governess/nanny figure in their lives and is the BAE they didn’t know they needed. Best Aunt Ever is not a term I throw around lightly, it’s an honor and a responsibility all in one, but Lillian is exemplary, and I’m here for that. 

Thank goodness that I’m giving Nothing to See Here a 4 star review. The characters and relationships are just the right side of weird. It was a quick and enjoyable read, but I don’t know if I’ll be reading it again in the future. I will, however, be putting Wilson’s backlist on my TBR posthaste!

What book do you love for the external weirdness of the characters and for how ‘normal’ they truly are on the inside?

~Ashley

PLEASE SUPPORT US WHEN YOU SHOP BY FIRST CLICKING ON THE IMAGES BELOW: