Emma Rous Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Author Emma Rous grew up in Portugal, England, Kuwait, Indonesia, and Fiji. Growing up, she had only two ambitions: look after animals and pen stories. If she was not working as an author, she would be a Great Ape intelligence researcher and a wildlife conservationist.

She attended the University of Cambridge, studying zoology and veterinary medicine. Emma worked as a small animal vet surgeon for close to twenty years before making the switch to writing full time in the year 2016. She lives with her husband and three sons in Cambridgeshire, England.

Emma lived with farmers’ families for weeks at a time starting when she was around fifteen years old. This was to gain her some experience for vet school, to allow her to have an inkling of how feels to get to a big house and attempt to make yourself useful and avoid getting into any kind of trouble.

Emma is unable to remember a time when she didn’t want to be a writer, but also wanted to be a vet and decided to pursue that ambition first. After all her time as a vet, she never lost her desire to write, and in her early forties, decided she should give it a try. Give writing a go, or never know if she would be able to do it.

She quit her job at this time, as she also had three kids and was unable to juggle all three jobs. She found that she loved writing, and is glad she took the leap into the new career.

When she began writing “The Au Pair”, she began trying to write something along the same lines that she would want to read. She had the setting in mind from the start, an old, large, crumbling manor house located on the coast.

She likes to believe that she is a careful plotter, right up until the point that she begins writing. Then she remembers that it is never all that simple and tries to see where her typing fingers wind up taking her.

Her debut novel, “The Au Pair” was released in the year 2018, and was published in nine languages and ten countries. She writes mystery novels.

Her novel was probably inspired by her childhood love of stories that involved identity swaps, like “The Prince and the Pauper”, Patricia Highsmith’s “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, and “Freaky Friday” by Mary Rodgers. When she started writing the novel, she began with the events of the day the twins were born, and the rest of the story spiraled out from that. She also wanted to write something that had a mystery at its core.

The time lines were very different feeling for her. Laura’s parts have a seasonal rhythm to each of them, because they cover her eleven months while she worked at Summerbourne, from one summer to the next one. Seraphine’s story is told over just ten days’ time, except for the epilogue, and it makes her’s feel a lot more adrenaline-fueled.

She likes Danny’s character, especially his laid back attitude. However, her favorite character to write was most likely Ruth. Ruth is only seen through Laura’s perspective, but you can still see both sides of her. Moody, headache-claiming, and mercurial part, but the very strong woman who survives as she tries to do the right thing for her son, despite the heart-breaking loss. In the face of villagers whispering that she never acts like a real mom. After writing the story, she likes Ruth a lot more than she did while writing the book.

She had no struggles while writing any one character, and is fond of each and every one of them. Even if their actions are questionable at times.

She also says that she never knowingly based any of these characters on any actual people. All of them felt like real people as she was writing them. They came to life for her only once other elements in the novel were put in place. This, as everything in the book spiraled out from the planning stages. Rous hopes that nobody thinks they recognize themselves while they read her book.

Summerbourne is not a real place, just a product of Rous’ imagination. Although, Rous feels she most likely pieced it together from all kinds of English country houses that she has visited with her family over time. An idea she wanted to explore in the novel was having strong emotional roots in one place, which is something she never had as a kid. Summerbourne was a house that had to be a place that readers could fall in love with, almost like a character in its own right.

“The Au Pair” is the first stand alone novel, which was released in the year 2018. Seraphine Mayes and Danny (her twin brother) were born during the middle of summer at their family’s estate, located on the Norfolk coast. Just hours after they were born, their mom threw herself off the cliffs, the au pair fled, and the village gossiped about changelings, dark cloaks, and an aloof couple that drew a young nanny inside their inner circle.

Seraphine, who is now an adult, mourns her father’s recent death. Going through his possessions, she finds a family picture that raises some dangerous questions. The picture was taken the day the twins were born, and their mother, who is surrounded by her young son and husband is dressed beautifully and smiling serenely. But she is just holding one baby.

Who is that child and what actually happened that day? A single person knows what happened, if only Seraphine could track her down.

Emma Rous has penned a novel with a ton of things to love: the hair-raising twists, the setting, and the juicy scandals, and readers hope to read even more of her books as the years go by. This is a suspenseful story that is going to keep you riveted from beginning to end, and is a magical story that will awaken your imagination and open up your mind. Emma wove together one enchanting story that is able to make the unbelievable believable. Readers found this to be a gripping, jaw-dropping, and atmospheric book.