The Woman in Our House is a thriller about how the decision of hiring a complete stranger to live in your home and take care of your children could be a life-changing decision that you may regret. Anna Klein and her husband relocated to the South and moved into a beautiful home with their two children Veronica and Grace. Anna is finally ready to get back to work as a literary agent and she and Josh decide to hire a live-in nanny to take care of the children. While they are nervous, Anna does a lot of research to find Oaklynn Durst, a Mormon from Utah with excellent references and soothing demeanor who is absolutely loved by children. Veronica and Grace soon adore Oaklynn but Anna becomes concerned when both children have unexplainable illnesses and injuries. While everyone, including Josh, is enthralled by Oaklynn, Anna is convinced that something suspicious is happening to her children and Oaklynn is somehow responsible. Anna begins to do some digging into Oaklynn's past and soon discovers that she is not who she says she is. However, Oaklynn is not the only who has been keeping secrets and those secrets may just cost someone their life.

I felt that the book started out strong, especially with revealing a twist so early. I liked the different perspectives that gave insight into the characters and their side of the story. However, the story quickly got derailed with too many subplots. The story became less focused, which made me start to lose some interest. And that ending? I'm not sure what the author was thinking but his social commentary along with completely implausible chain of events were just a mess. The story would have been just as thrilling without the extraneous subplots and the completely unnecessary white supremacist/racial angle.

The Woman in Our House could have been a 4-star rating as I liked the concept of the nanny stolen identity. Unfortunately, it dropped down to a 2.5 rating (rounded down to 2 stars). The author tried to fit too many implausible ideas into one story and it just didn't work.

Thank you to Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.