AudioBook information:
Author: Teddy Wayne
Narrated by: Eric A. Altheide
Release date: June 30, 2026
Audiobook Duration: 6 h 34 min
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Summary:Â A NEW YORK TIMES NOVEL EVERYONE WILL BE TALKING ABOUT and NOVEL EVERYONE WILL BE READING THIS SUMMER
“Is anything more dangerous than a fragile male ego?” – The New York Times
“Nervewrackingly fun.”—Vogue, Best Books of the Year So Far
A Boston Globe, Seattle Times, Town & Country, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Lit Hub, Men’s Journal, and Zibby Books most-anticipated/summer books pick
Award-winning author Teddy Wayne follows his breakout sensation The Winner—a New York Times Top Ten Thriller of the Year—with another seductively twisty page-turner about the explosive impact of a beautiful Norwegian au pair on a celebrated novelist and his wife.
Steven Hammer was once a literary star. Now, his career is floundering, his marriage to a high-powered woman is crumbling, and the only bright spot in his life is Astrid, the Norwegian au pair who cares for their children—and reveres his neglected novels. But what begins as a secret infatuation soon spirals into a scandal that makes them both infamous.
As a headline-grabbing trial captivates the world with a salacious story of sex, power, and betrayal, Steven must confront the wreckage he’s created—and the deeper insecurities that fueled it. Is Astrid an innocent young woman caught up in a case beyond her control, or a calculating femme fatale? And how far will he go, driven by desperation and obsession, for her professed love?
With inexorable momentum and sly, lucid prose, Teddy Wayne’s The Au Pair is a sleek literary thriller about desire, deception, and the unraveling of a man as he grapples with his fading relevance—when the lies others spin pale beside the fictions we tell ourselves.
Reviews:
A NEW YORK TIMES NOVEL EVERYONE WILL BE TALKING ABOUT and BOOK EVERYONE WILL BE READING THIS SUMMER • A LIT HUB, NEW YORK POST, AND ZIBBY BOOKS MOST-ANTICIPATED BOOK • A KIRKUS BEST BOOK TO READ • A SEATTLE TIMES SUMMER DEBUT • A ZOOMER MUST-READ BOOK •A TOWN & COUNTRY AND THE BOSTON GLOBE BEST BOOK OF THE SUMMER • A CHICAGO TRIBUNE “COOLEST BOOK FOR THE HOTTEST MONTHS” • A JORDY’S BOOK CLUB MOST ANTICIPATED SUMMER READ * A MEN’S JOURNAL “GREAT BEACH READS THAT ARE ACTUALLY AWESOME”
“This compulsive thriller gleefully and skillfully skewers both stereotypical tropes and the contemporary publishing landscape.” – Boston Globe
“[A] tightly constructed, endlessly exhilarating thriller.” – Town & Country
“An ingenious dissection of marriage, masculinity, and privilege, propelled by a gimlet-eyed wit….A sly, unsettling hybrid of social satire and domestic thriller.” – Kirkus Reviews (starred review and editor’s pick)
“Wayne delivers a sharp domestic thriller…an intricate look at the perils of seeking admiration. Readers will be hard-pressed to put this down.” – Publishers Weekly
“The reigning king of taut literary novels…Wayne knows how to write about men in a way that few modern writers are capable of pulling off…this is one you won’t be able to put down.” – Men’s Journal
“I could not put it down. I raced through it.” – Jennifer Weiner
“Teddy Wayne has written a book about selling out that doesn’t—a guilty pleasure that earns its guilt. The Au Pair is a canny seduction wrapped in a page-turning thriller wrapped in an elegy for the literary novel: a threefold delight.” – Ayad Akhtar, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Homeland Elegies and The Radiance
“You may think you know where it’s going, this novel about a disappointed writer, his frosty wife, and a comely young nanny. You may be in for a surprise. Propulsive but also insightful—and funny, in its merciless skewering of midlife, marriage, and more—The Au Pair cements Teddy Wayne’s status as a master of the wicked little literary thriller.” – Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind and Entitlement
“The Au Pair is Teddy Wayne at his immensely readable best. The plot ratchets up in the creepiest, most chilling way while deliciously skewering the Brooklyn literary set. It’s a book you’ll tear through, one that leaves you guessing until the last page.” – Maria Semple, New York Times bestselling author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette? and Go Gentle
“I tore through The Au Pair in a single day, and lamented only that it wasn’t twice as long. I hunger for literary thrillers with clean, lovely sentences that are also generous with the goods: narrative and erotic tension, plot twists, and a sly sense of humor about their characters. Teddy Wayne delivered, yet again, on all counts.” – Melissa Febos, bestselling author of Girlhood and The Dry Season
“Wayne is not upending noir so much as paying a sneaky contemporary homage. You’ll toss it across the room in maddening disbelief, then quickly pick it up and keep reading.” – Chicago Tribune
“A suspenseful mystery with both expected and unexpected plot twists. . . With his descriptive skill and insightful humor, Wayne elevates a potentially stereotypical setup into an examination of ego, professional disappointment, and self-delusion.” – Library Journal
“A slow-burn, messy look at modern marriage…One can’t look away.” – Booklist
About the Author:
Teddy Wayne is the author of seven novels and a winner of a Whiting Writers’ Award and an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship as well as a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award, PEN/Bingham Prize, and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker and a former columnist for the New York Times, he has taught at Columbia University and Washington University in St. Louis. He lives in Brooklyn with his family.